On Research |
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| Challenging the Patriarchal Vision of Social Science. This essay addresses the idea that there are "appropriate" methods for examining human interaction and highlights an alternative way to merge a feminist perspective within the domain of social scientific research. My argument has been addressed by other noted feminist scholars such as Harding (1986), Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule (1986), Treichler and Wartella (1986), Mies (1983), Du Bois (1983), and Stanley and Wise (1983) who question the goals of what Haraway (1981; 1985) and others have critiqued as "androcentric science." | Research as Intervention. We are pleased to respond to an invitation from Jay Lebow to present our views on an alternative way to think about family research (and research in general). In his article in the Spring issue of the AFTA Newsletter (1986), Lebow acknowledges a general tendency of clinicians to overlook (or ignore) family therapy research. He articulates eight reasons why "...the clinical practice of family therapy has remained virtually unaffected by research findings" (p. 12). |
| The Social Poetics of Relationally Engaged Research: Research as Conversation. To talk of the poetic is to give wing to the imaginative. It is to "express oneself" in words that are "thoughtful." It is to script a sense of "beauty." Also related to the poetic is freedom from the constraints of traditional forms of practice. One is urged, in employing the poetic, to suspend the discourse of "fact" or "form" and invited, instead, to engage in improvisation (literally, "working without a plan"). |
Research as Relationally Situated Activity: Ethical Implications. This essay addresses the issue of research from a social constructionist perspective. Of central concern is how research helps to bring forth the kind of world that will entertain the multiple and often competing versions of reality that are generated in differing discursive communities. Traditional research is characterized by its standards of objectivity and its quest for the essential features of our investigational topics... |
| Appreciative Evaluation within a Conflicted Educational Context. This chapter describes the use of Appreciative Inquiry in the evaluation of an academic department at a private high school. Specifically, the evaluation process was commissioned by the Dean of Faculty and the Department Chair to assess two related issues: (1) the department's curriculum and (2) the department's abilities to work collaboratively. The evaluation was part of a school-wide curriculum reform process. The goal was to assess the current curriculum within the department in such a manner that its strengths could be noted and built upon while its weaknesses could be eliminated or at least diminished. To that end, those who might benefit from the evaluation were the department faculty, the students, and ultimately the school. |
Accepting Research as Social
Intervention: Implications of a Systemic Epistemology. |
| Research as Social Construction: Transformative Inquiry. This article introduces a view of research that is compatible with a social constructionis philosophical stance. Research is described as a relationsal process where the coordination of multiple (and often competing) discourses are at play. The challenge for the researcher i sto adopt a reflective stance towards any inquiry process so that the local, contingent, and situated practices of those participating in the research, as well as those conducting the inquiry can be in dialogue with one another. | |
Samples of Sheila's Work
Below is a sampling of published chapters and articles available for reading and downloading. Please do not reproduce without permission.
The documents are in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. To download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader, go to: http://www.adobe.com
