Je me dégage ...

So, it's been a while since I posted but this had been due to the 'straight-jacket' that I've possibly placed myself in, but aided by university structures and processes!

I now have to get on with it - now or never- in relation to getting this beast called an Ed D tamed! I know that I don't want to take 8 years - in fact, I want to get it completed asap and I've just come to the realisation that having jumped a number of required hoops,  it's now back within my control to do this. 

I've just flicked through a couple of 'how to write your PhD thesis' books, you know, the 'quick fix', 'self help' kind, buoyed on by a comment made by a colleague last week about formal writing styles. I've just realised that I don't need to do it in the way that I have been writing (although nobody has told me that what I've been doing is wrong), and in actual fact, I need to practice what I've been preaching in terms of pragmatism, and find a “productive, naturalistic approach” (Field, 2005 [online resource]) in terms of writing style. Maybe this is where I've been blocking myself all along, trying to write in a formalised style - the type of writing that we expect our students to use. A pragmatic approach would say that experimentation and intervention as a key part of “transformative human impact” (Miettinen, 2006 :12) and I'm going to interpret this with the need to experiment with my writing style in order to transform this experience into something more productive, readable and engaging.

I've chosen my methods (developmental work research - DWR) through a series of decisions influenced by John Dewey's pragmatism,  and I have chosen to answer the questions “What is happening here?” and "How can this knowledge aid future practice?', taking a descriptive approach rather than an ethnographic approach. As a researcher I am using methods based on my knowledge of the context to become an assembler (of the findings) and a commentator on the current and future situation (Newby, 2010: 66). Using DWR techniques that strive to see the issues from a practice perspective, rather than an individual perspective, I now need to find a writing style that is also congruent with my epistemology, ontology and methodology. 

Whilst I do keep a research diary, writing this post has made me realise that I also need to be blogging again on a regular basis, as it is here that I write in , not blocked by the need to reference every statement.  Blogging is interesting in that it goes public, so that in writing it the potential reader is always to the fore in my mind. Perhaps all my first drafts should be written here?

Field, R. (2005). Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: John Dewey [Online]. Missouri, USA: Northwest Missouri State University. Available at: http://www.iep.utm.edu/dewey/ [Accessed 17/09/2011 2011].

 Miettinen, R. (2006) Epistemology of Transformative Material Activity: John Dewey's Pragmatism and Cultural-Historical Activity Theory. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 36 (4), 389-408.

Newby, P. (2010) Understanding the Research Process, Harlow, Pearson Education Ltd.

Ethics approval

" There are parallels at every point between the practice of informal education and the practice of research. The skills of asking questions in research and enquiry build on the skills of listening and engagement that youth workers use. The period of analysis with which any period of youth work engagement begins is mirrored by the question of  'in whose interest' a body of research is being undertaken." (Batsleer, 2010,  in Banks, 2010:179)

 I don't feel that I can continue with my research journey without taking the views of young people into account. This is so much a part of youth work practice, that the idea of constructing any form of research plan that didn't include the views of young people is completely out of the question! However, even though young people are not what I intend to study in the next phase of my research, I need to do a Tier 2 Ethics Approval Plan to ensure that everything is above board and that all angles have been considered.

It feels like I'm having to 'tell my story' over and over again - the same text justifying the same approach - and it feels a little as if I've stalled. This is not to belittle the process of thinking through the ethics of this project in depth, and I will need to keep doing this on an ongoing basis, but as a person who prefers a 'be bold, be done and be gone' approach, I'm going to have to learn not to be frustrated with the time that things might take. Even coming back to this blog is a bit of a distraction from the task that must be finished today!!

I do believe that this project is in the interests of UK youth work practice and therefore of young people, particularly in a context where I still see major contradictions in terms of how youth workers engage with digital media and issues of digital literacy and inclusion.



Banks, S. 2010. Ethical Issues in Youth Work (second edition). Abingdon. Routledge.

Pragmatic technology

" The very techniques and technologies that disburden men and women of the backbreaking and mind-numbing work performed by previous generations - and still performed by men,women and children in developing countries - also present challenges that many perceive as threatening. The same techniques and technologies that bring the exhilaration of rapid change are perceived in some quarters as diminishing the quality of life. One of the most basic paradoxes of our technological milieu is that techniques and technologies ostensibly developed as means of control are now viewed by many individuals as spinning out of control, or at very least as operating beyond their personal control."

Hickman, L. 2001. Philosophical Tools for Technological Culture: Putting Pragmatism to Work (Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Technology) Bloomington and Indianapolis. Indiana University Press.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Philosophical-Tools-Technological-Culture-Pragmatism/dp/0253214440/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1354697719&sr=1-1 

Interesting in the context of a class that I took yesterday where youth workers have been seemingly 'mourning' the passing of the age of face-to-face communication in the light of the digital age, but who then get really excited about using a free platform that transfers a pdf document into a magazine ( http://issuu.com/business?gclid=CKvxqLnzgrQCFerItAodQ3cATA )!

Interesting also are the issues of control and confidence for educators: the feeling that I must be all-knowing in terms of the transfer of knowledge rather than facilitating the acquisition of knowledge. Dewey's concepts of learning as related to  the reconstruction and reorganisation of knowledge and experience are relevant - how do we skill youth workers up to feel confident about asking the right questions of young people and their engagement with digital media? How do we recapture youth work process and principles within this landscape that is seemingly so alien and terrifying to some?