CALL FOR PROPOSALS: 2012 International Congress on Qualitative Inquiry

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Call for Proposals!!!

You are invited to submit a paper abstract for a proposed session at the 2012 International Congress on Qualitative Inquiry. 

The proposed panel is titled:

Gender Practices, Technology, and Teens:  New Perspectives from Qualitative Research

Co-chairs/Organizers are:  Judith Davidson, UMass-Lowell & Lois Scheidt, University of Indiana, Bloomington

Description of the Panel: 

Gender practices, that is, acts of definition, identification, and interaction with others in ways that demonstrate one’s gendered perspective, have been with us as long as we have been human.  Not surprisingly, in today’s digital world, gender is closely intertwined with emerging technologies.  Gendered images and assumptions are built into the presentation and uses of technologies, and technology users make use of digital modes to practice gender.  This is as true, for teens, as it is for other age groups.  Teens, who are in a gendered transition as they are leaving childhood and entering adulthood, can offer particular insights into issues of gender practice.  In this session, we present a collection of papers that employ qualitative research to look at the intersection of the teenage years and emerging technologies, using this focal point as a lens for examining gender practices.  Our goal is to enlarge our understanding of gender practices, technology, and teens through the presentation of research studies that provide intense and detailed insight into the ways teens are both shaped and shaping of individual and cultural gender possibilities through the new technologies in their lives. 

As a sample, here is the abstract for the paper, I plan to give as part of the panel:

What Teens Talk About Sexting Reveals about Gender Practices

In this paper, we will report on a three-state, mixed-method, interdisciplinary, and comparative study of teens and adults views of sexting, which was funded by the US Department of Justice.   Specifically, we will be discussing the findings regarding gendered practices that arose in the qualitative research data collected from 123 youth, who participated in a total of 20 focus groups in Massachusetts, Ohio, and South Carolina.   In talking with teens about their views regarding sexting, we found teens acting out powerful expectations and beliefs about males and females (our data did not include any youth who identified as Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual or Transgendered).  The topic of sexting, which sits at the intersection between acceptable and unacceptable expressions of sexuality, was a powerful means of unearthing territories of ambivalence in teens’ gender practices.  This led us to the development of a model to describe the range of behaviors that fall under the heading of sexting.  Our model builds upon teens descriptions of gendered relationships to describe a continuum from non-aggressive to implied aggression to overt aggression.  In this presentation we will present the model and discuss the qualitative research evidence that undergirds it. 

For questions about the panel, please contact:  Judith_Davidson@uml.edu

Please submit your abstract by no later than November 1, 2011 to Judy Davidson at Judith_Davidson@uml.edu.  Decisions for the panel will be made by November 15, 2011.  The proposal will be submitted to ICQI by December 1, 2011. 

Thank you and look forward to compiling a very interesting group of papers and spurring a challenging discussion. 

Technologies and Art in Qualitative Research: How they are similar

Today I had a productive dog walk.  Yes, there she is--the little minx. 
Where the walk took me, in my head, was about the issue of working in technology and working in art--design problems--and how I solve them in both. 

What got me started on this was thinking about the ongoing argument between NVivo and Atlas-ti (and probably others of these forms of software).  Atlas-ti insists it is not hierarchical, but works in a more phenomenological way.  NVivo says--"I can do that too.  Try my free nodes."  As I watched Suzanne Freise demonstrating Atlas-ti at the Qualitative computing conference in Istanbul, I realized she was using naming strategies to achieve what NVivo does with tree nodes.  It was a work around that I used once upon a time in NVivo 2 to create categories and lists in the forms I wanted.

I'm not bringing this up to argue one direction or the other, but more to muse on the role of work arounds in technology.  What happens when we come up against a barrier or a limit with a tool?  How do we manipulate it, reshape it, do something to get to our desired goal? 

This reminded me of the challenges that had been set for me in art class (Contemporary Practices at the Essex Art Center with Cathy McLaurin).  We were presented with many design challenges.  I remember when we had to bring in a kitchen object.  I brought in a kind of European vegetable grater.  I had to draw it multiple times--the little holes, their shadows, the handle--it was a lot for someone with limited drawing skills.  But then I was required to make the object in a different material--I chose cardboard and aluminum foil, and it never really resembled the original. 

However, this process--of a design challenge--has much in common with what happens when I try to work out a technology work around.  AND, it also closely resembles what happens in coding in qualitative research.  I have to focus in on the features, analyze what is there, look at it from many angles.  I must extract what appears to me to be the significant feature for the task I am trying to accomplish.  This is a choice, that sets other choices aside.  It puts some features in one box and some in another--I don't call this hierarchical, I call this selecting, boxing, containerizing, clustering.  My mind can only deal with so much. 

So that's what happens on a dog walk.