Qualitative Research

Qualitative research in curriculum studies, as the field of qualitative research, is highly contested with diverse traditions, complicated tensions, and irresolvable contradictions. Qualitative research, as Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln state, and curriculum studies, as William Pinar contends, are interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and sometimes counterdisciplinary. Many researchers in curriculum studies challenge traditional ways of engaging in and interpreting curriculum research, and they choose qualitative research as a form of radical democratic practice. This radical democratic orientation of qualitative research vitalizes heated debates and complicated conversations among curriculum inquirers.

William Pinar, William Schubert, and Michael Connelly perceive curriculum studies as a diverse and interdisciplinary field replete with paradigms, perspectives, and possibilities, as Schubert described in 1986, demanding multiple understanding, and with commonplaces (teachers, learners, subject matters, and milieu), as Joseph Schwab described in 1969, acting together in educational situations. In Handbook of Curriculum and Instruction, Michael Connelly, Ming Fang He, JoAnn Phillion, and Candace Schlein contend that the breadth, diversity, and complexity of the field and its practical relevance are central to a wide array of educational thoughts reflected in contested curriculum theories, practices, and contexts.

In addition, another significant aspect of qualitative research in curriculum studies is the broad conception of what counts as inquiry. In 1993 in his presidential address at the American Educational Research Association annual meeting, Elliot Eisner envisioned the future of educational research and emphasized that a recognition of multiple forms of inquiry led to a broadened understanding of how to transform educational research into significant educational practice in schools and societies. Researchers engaged in qualitative inquiry in curriculum studies have not only questioned whose knowledge should be considered valid and how experience should be interpreted, theorized, and represented but also have confronted issues of equity, equality, social justice, and societal change through research and action.