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Article
Publication date: 18 June 2024

Josh Ambrosy and Benjamin Zonca

Silences in qualitative social science research present a unique and sometimes ambiguous challenge for researchers. When working with transcription artefacts, considering not only…

Abstract

Purpose

Silences in qualitative social science research present a unique and sometimes ambiguous challenge for researchers. When working with transcription artefacts, considering not only what has been said but also what has been silenced, omitted, overlooked or brushed over allows new ways of examining a phenomenon. This paper explores a new methodological approach to exploring these silences.

Design/methodology/approach

This article explores “embossed” poetry as a methodological process to consider what has not been said. Via an empirical study that examined the experience of six teachers of a year nine programme in Victoria, Australia, we explore how embossed poems within a larger research project allowed the interrogating of silences. Through a polyvocal performance of text and poetry, this paper argues that embossed poetry offers significant methodological possibilities through which previously silenced ideas and analytical processes can become visible within poetic research praxis.

Findings

The findings of this paper are that by using embossed concrete poems, researchers can explore new territories within qualitative work. By putting down the keyboard and picking up a hand-embossing tool, new space for thought emerges and other parts of an assemblage can be explored.

Originality/value

This paper presents a unique methodological contribution to poetic inquiry. Furthermore, it explores the path trodden to develop this new approach through a reflexive-diffractive polyvocal text.

Details

Qualitative Research Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1443-9883

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 4 December 2023

Benjamin Zonca and Josh Ambrosy

Government primary schools in Australia increasingly take up the International Baccalaureate's Primary Years Programme (IB-PYP) to supplement government-mandated curriculum and…

Abstract

Purpose

Government primary schools in Australia increasingly take up the International Baccalaureate's Primary Years Programme (IB-PYP) to supplement government-mandated curriculum and governance expectations. The purpose of this paper is to explore how teachers navigate and contest dual policy-practice expectations in the Victorian Government IB-PYP context.

Design/methodology/approach

This study used a narrative inquiry approach. The narratives of two teachers were generated through a narrative interview and then re-storied with participants through a set of conceptual lenses drawn out of the policy assemblage and affect studies theoretical spaces.

Findings

The stories participants told show that competing mandatory local policy expressions are experienced and contested both to stabilize a technocratic rationality and produce alternative critical-political educational futures.

Originality/value

There a few accounts of teachers' policy experience in government school settings implementing the IB-PYP. In addressing this gap, this paper directly responds to prior claims of the IB's failure to promote an emancipatory pedagogy, showing instead that when teachers who bring a more critical understanding of educational purpose to their work take up the IB-PYP policy to support the enactment of that purpose.

Details

Qualitative Research Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1443-9883

Keywords

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