Research Paradigm Analysis by Grant Chun

Brief Introduction

grantdrexel — 2015-01-17 00:45:09 UTC

Lopez (2003) incorporates numerous bodies of work in education, anthropology and education in developing a race-gender theoretical framework to better comprehend the reasons for race and gender differences in urban education. She concentrates on race and gender and she argues against the idea that social mobility is predicted by ethnicity. She examines how the race-gender meanings that are given to the members of the second generation Caribbean youth influence the kind of education that is available to them and also their experiences from when they are youths to when they are young adults. The children of Haitian, Dominican and Anglophone West Indian immigrants were selected in the study of the race-gender educational gap because they share several commonalities. For instance, they enter the US as permanent residents, they have a high rate of women immigrants and they provide an interesting case of post-Civil Rights race relations in today's American society. Comprehending the educational attainment of immigrant children is critical to discovering how they are assimilated into American society.

Research Questions

grantdrexel — 2015-01-17 00:45:16 UTC

1. What causes race and gender disparities in education?

2. How is it possible for men and women from the same ethnic and racial ethnic group,

grow up in the same economic and social conditions, go to the same schools and live in the same neighborhoods have varying educational attainment outcomes?

3. How are the participants from the “second generation” racialized and engendered?

4. How is gender experienced in their daily lives?

5. How are life perspectives shaped by gendered and racialized experiences?

6. How do race-gender experiences for men and women differ in public spaces?

7. How are students racialized and gendered by formal and informal institutional practices within schools?

8. How is the view of the role of education by young men and women influenced by gender roles and family life?

9. What is the impact of the race-gender experiences

men and women face in the workplace on their outlooks?

10. How can oppressive racialization and gendering processes be shown, interrupted, and said differently to create more unbiased and liberating educational opportunities, especially for low-income urban second-generation youth?

Research Goals

grantdrexel — 2015-01-17 00:46:19 UTC

1. To determine how young men and women from the same class and ethnic backgrounds (2nd generation Caribbean youth)

view the role of education in their lives through live perspectives and lived experiences.

2. To investigate how race and gender affect the lives of the second generation Caribbean youth.

3. To analyze the specific race-gender experiences second-generation Caribbeans are faced with throughout their youth and young adulthood.

4. To explore the racialized and gendered definitions assigned to these youth.

Epistemology

grantdrexel — 2015-01-17 00:46:58 UTC

1. Women generally attain higher levels of education than men

2. Educational gender gap is more evident among racially, stigmatized groups like Latinos and Blacks.

3. Central concern is discovering how the cultural characteristics of a specific group and whether their values have assisted or impeded their process of becoming American by assimilation.

Ontology

grantdrexel — 2015-01-17 00:47:08 UTC

Lopez's (2003) study is based on constructivism because there are multiple realities and each individual perceives reality based on his or her experience or position relative to others (Lincoln & Guba, 2000).

According to Lopez, there are three paths to segmented assimilation:

1.White mainstream middle-class society and experience upward mobility

2. Racially stigmatized lower classes and experience downward mobility

3. Alternative way – preserve immigrant identity and experience upward mobility

Methodology

grantdrexel — 2015-01-17 00:47:34 UTC

Lopez (2003) uses qualitative data:

1. To understand the race-gender gap in education that examines race and gender as lived experiences.

2. To consider the intersection of racialization and gendering processes critical to comprehending educational trajectories

Paradigm

grantdrexel — 2015-01-17 04:09:20 UTC

Lopez's (2003) article fits the interpretivism paradigm the best. Specifically, she follows the constructivist theory because she uses interpretive case studies (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000). The significance of her study is in how the second generation Caribbean youth interpret their lives. Also, reasons are agreed upon as legitimate causes of human behavior and reality is a constant where people comprehend reality in various ways. Furthermore, Lopez was not separate, but instead part of the research topic and her work of has an impact on the research participants and the participants had an impact on her. Finally, Lopez explores what events mean from the point of view of the subjects.

Methods

grantdrexel — 2015-01-17 04:18:27 UTC

Lopez (2003) uses a unique research design that includes various sites of qualitative data resources.

1. Lopez organized focus groups with college students over the course of two years between 1996 and 1998.

2. She conducted in-depth Interviews with 40 second-generation Dominican, Haitian and West Indian youth who grew up in New York City during the 1970's and 1990's.

3. She was an observer for six months at Urban High School, a nearby high school in New York City.

References

grantdrexel — 2015-01-18 00:20:43 UTC

Denzin,N. and Lincoln, Y. (Eds.). (2000). Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage Publications.

Lincoln, Y., & Guba, E. (2000). Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging confluences. In N.K. Denizin & Y.S. Lincoln (eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed, pp. 163-188). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Lopez, N. (2003). "Unequal Schooling: Race and Gender Disparity in Urban Education," Chapter 1 in Hopeful Girls, Troubled Boys: Race and Gender Disparity in Urban Education. New York: Routledge.

Morrison, M. (2007). What do we mean by educational research?" In M. Coleman & A. Briggs, Eds. Research Methods in Educational Leadership and Management. London, England: Paul Chapman Publishing.

Research Paradigm Analysis Summary

grantdrexel — 2015-01-18 00:54:47 UTC