In my last blog ‘Finding the Gap’ I wrote about the need for PhD researchers to find a ‘gap’ in the existing literature, to ensure their work meets the PhD criteria of ‘a unique contribution to knowledge’.   The gap I’ve identified is to approach the issue of ‘ensuring free access to quality education at the lower-secondary level in Tanzania’  through a ‘systems thinking’ perspective.  My apologies for also finding a somewhat less worthy gap of three months to get down to writing this next blog!

The truth is that I’ve been busy trying to identify the epistemological and ontological theoretical understanding on which to base my research. (Unfortunately, this was not an excuse I ever came up with for being late to school!)  A year ago I might have described such terminology as pompous academic nonsense,  but having studied the ‘philosophy of social science research’ I do now see the sense in it.

After all, if you’re going to ‘contribute to knowledge’, you’d better be clear about what you consider ‘knowledge’ to be. Social science research often relies on dialogue and observation for its data, with analysis based on what people say, what they think, what they say they think, or how they act and inter-act. But does this lead to knowledge, or just to hypothesis, probability or phenomena? And how do you know?

And if you’re delving into the murky world of social reality, you’d better define the level of ‘reality’ you’re referring to. The observable and measurable reality of tangible events and ‘facts’?   The unobservable but knowable reality of power, habits, feelings? Or the unobservable, unknowable reality of deep lying structural causal mechanisms? And are we referring to political reality, economic, cultural? And how are we framing reality – an individual, a community, a society, a national system, a geo-political system? Perhaps a combination of them all?

The historical journey of social science research is fascinating – from the age of enlightenment and scientific positivism, through neo-positivism and interpretivism, to the structural ‘holism’ of Marx and Durkheim and the methodological individualism of Weber and other ‘rational choice’ theorists, to postmodernism and the genealogy of Foucault, to social constructionism and discourse theories, to the social transformatory theories of Critical Realism and the applied perspective of Cultural Political Economy, to the contemporary egalitarian theories of postcolonialism, racism and feminism, to the unapologetically emancipatory theories of ‘participatory action research’.

Quite a bit to get your teeth into – just go easy on trying to read some of the earlier original texts, many of which are totally inaccessible to normal human beings!  

However impenetrable they may seem in their original format, it is interesting to learn about how ‘thinking’ has evolved over the past 150 years and how there is still so much relevant debate to be had across the theoretical spectrum today. One constant throughout this journey is that academics seem to love tearing each other apart! The problem I have had, however,  whilst being aware of the contradictions, is  that I can see potential value for my research in so many of these different theories. Like a wide-eyed kid in a sweet shop, I’ve been quite baffled by having so many nice looking ones to choose from! 

The PhD requirement is to have ‘a’ theoretical understanding to base the research on and in addition to trying to narrow mine down, I was also struggling to identify one outstanding theory that provided the comprehensive, multi-dimensional perspectives that I felt my research needed. 

Then  I came across  ‘bricolage’ – a relatively recent approach being adopted by some social scientists, of combining different theories and utilising their particular strengths to provide more complex understandings, thus adding new rigor and depth to qualitative research. Et Voila! I didn’t need much persuading. With this discovery the sweet shop suddenly became a ‘pick‘n’mix’ store and I had a nice big bag to fill!    

Not surprisingly perhaps, the theoretical basis for my research has now become quite complex. I start with the ‘systems thinking’ framework that came from my literature review and am then led by the geo-political positions of Southern Theory and Postcolonial Theory towards the indigenous theories of Julius Nyerere –  teacher, intellectual and Tanzania’s inspirational post-independence leader. Adopting and adapting (with research participants) Nyerere’s theories of education will form the ‘lens’ for my research. I am then led by the moderating stance of Olufemi Taiwo’s  ‘Against de-colonisation’ back to the two ‘western’  methodological theories that seem most appropriate to my research approach –  Critical Realism  and Cultural Political Economy. So there it is,  a logical road-map towards my theoretical understanding. Quite simple really! Vive la bricolage!

And so, with an exotic, colourful array of tasty theories bulging out of my ‘pick‘n’mix’ bag, it’s on to the next stage of this academic adventure, my research design. In other words, planning what I’m actually going to do.    

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