In this seminar, distinguished scholars in education policy and governance research present and discuss their practice of methods shared and analysed recently in an edited collection by Camilla Addey and Nelli Piattoeva (2021) – Intimate Accounts of Education Policy Research: The Practice of Methods (Routledge). The presenters approach methodology as riddled with tensions, doubts, troubles, and mundane decisions. 「Methodology」 and 「the practice of method」 refer to the entire, distributed process of formulating and answering research questions by plugging in theory, data, methods, context, ethical concerns and actual affordances of the research setting, as well as the researcher’s wider professional, cultural and even personal milieu. Thus, methodology is composed of an intricate set of issues and decisions, including researchers’ embeddedness in particular institutional and disciplinary contexts.
In the seminar, presenters shift from recording the complex methodological hinterland of their studies to putting it to productive use as resources for thinking about the researched world and about research itself. They examine questions such as how research reproduces scholars’ metaphysics, how research is a deeply embodied process encompassing all senses, and how scholars’ concerns interfere in the worlds they study, but also how these equally interfere with researchers. By challenging smooth methodological accounts that conceal the complex and provisional nature of research, this seminar offers new ways of thinking about research methodologies in education policy and governance research.
You can watch the seminar via this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MeYOnDbuOY