Saturday 12 March 2011

shuffling the theory pieces...

Hi there. I've had my head down with work and (weirdly enough) reading books. I know: actual book reading. All of this reading is bringing several theoretical reference points into focus, as they speak to different aspects of my research questions. You can bet money they will shift and change as I move on, but as I think about the way in which they interact I feel more certain about the sorts of questions and approaches I am using. 


I constantly scribble to try to relate ideas. I thought I would try to neaten up a scribble (below) so I can chat with my supervisors and invite difficult questions. If you've visited before, you'll remember I'm looking at individuals' narratives of reshaping their professional identity in complex children's services environments and how they use 'reference points' from their perceived environments to help them do that. The frameworks sketched below is a bit of me trying to gain some insight. Of course, the value is not in 'tagging' topics with theory, but in how eventually the narratives resonate with these ideas and how I use these ideas to critically analyse real life stories. 


Does it make sense to you? What questions do you have? Do leave a comment, I'd love to know.

[you should be able to click on the image to see a bigger version]

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7 comments:

  1. Jeffrey Keefer12 March 2011 at 21:29

    Ian, this is an interesting image, and I find it helpful to understand your theoretical framework, which I think it is supposed to demonstrate, yes? If so, consider giving it a title.

    I am not sure exactly what sort of feedback you are asking for, so let me jump in and mention two things I notice. Firstly, some of the ideas, such as CHAT, are fairly limited to a few theorists, but the others, such as workplace learning theories are a bit broad. How about making the bottom two more specific with which theories you mean (unless you are not sure yet)? Secondly, how about perhaps listing an author + date or so for each, so it becomes clearer whose work(s) you mean?

    Finally, is the center the approach you are considering taking, based on insights from the four?

    I really appreciate your sharing this here, as it speaks to a Tweet I posted 2 days ago - http://twitter.com/#!/JeffreyKeefer/status/46071883866718208

    Ian, glad you are leading the way for the rest of us!!

    Jeffrey

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  2. Angela Rand13 March 2011 at 01:55

    Ian I don't have much to say at the moment about your specific research template but I do want to say that I like the way you suggest going about it. The blogpost, the Venn diagram and the invitation for comments is the kind of dialogue I plan to try and provoke once I begin writing my dissertation. I use mindmapping some to help me lay out and organize large concepts. So I guess I can say that I think your process is right on. I look forward to seeing more.

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  3. Ian Robson13 March 2011 at 19:37

    Jeffrey, your comments are really useful. I think a title might be interesting, if at least to get me to pin my colours to the mast. On adult learning, I'm yet to review them properly - but I'm thinking of Wenger, Illeris etc. More detail when I know.

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  4. Ian Robson13 March 2011 at 19:38

    Angela - welcome! It's great that you've visited and your comments are useful. What will you be looking at?

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  5. ju-north14 March 2011 at 07:55

    I keep looking in the hope that I might understand it all!

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  6. Bill Law14 March 2011 at 10:14

    Ian

    Some years ago I wrote a community-interaction theory of career management - directly based on symbolic interactionism. I've recent updated and reapplied it. It might help you. I hope so.

    Bill

    The pdf is at...
    http://www.hihohiho.com/memory/cafcit.pdf

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  7. Ian Robson14 March 2011 at 20:35

    Thanks, Bill - I'll check that out (and will probably would love to chat with you about it). If you're on twitter, DM me your details!!

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