Breaking the “Fourth Wall” in Qualitative Research: Participant-Led Digital Data Construction
This article reconstructs the typical researcher-participant focus - where the participants are doing for us - instead we followed the participants’ lead in the construction of research. Using a qualitative literacy event case study as an example, we describe how participants unexpectedly co-constructed knowledge through a participant-led digital data collection. In this theoretical article, we provide an explanation of the original study, which used observations, semi-structured interviews, and home visits as a collective qualitative case study on parental participation in social literacy practices. The original investigation led to the important shift that occurred in participant-research…
Family language policy among Kurdish–Persian speaking families in Kermanshah, Iran
Abstract Minority language studies have received increasing attention over the last decade in Iran. Drawing on Spolsky’s (Spolsky, Bernard. 2004. Language policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) language policy theoretical framework, this inquiry reports on the language ideologies, practices, and management efforts of an under-explored group of Kurdish families residing in the city of Kermanshah. To this end, semi-structured interviews and ethnographic fieldwork guided the collection of data from 40 Kurdish–Persian bilingual parents. The thematic analysis of data revealed glaring inconsistencies among the three elements of family language policy (FLP). That is parents’ strong attachm…
Multisensory discourse resources : decolonizing ethnographic research practices
Researchers have attempted to address the intersection of multisensory and multimodal discourse practices from an interactional perspective. This study argues for the value of experiential, non-interactional multisensory discourse resources and proposes a conceptual framework of multisensory discourse resources to bridge visual and family language ideology ethnography. A year-long ethnographic case study of three Nepalese families (immigrant and transmigrant), consisting of 150 h of observational data triangulated with qualitative interviews, posed two questions: (1) How do transnational families, in the homescape, use multisensory discourse resources to provide cultural, national, religiou…
Transmigrant and immigrant preschool visual response to intergenerational multimodal storytelling
Newly arrived (refugees, migrants, transmigrants, immigrants) children require a shiftin intergenerational storytelling. Intergenerational storytelling enables culturally and linguistically diverse emergent learners exposure to not only language but socio-cultural knowledge, values and practices. This study examines the intergenerational storytelling and art session held at a co-joined pre-school and elderly care home. There were 15 pre-school children aged 4-6, half of whom were newly arrived in Finland, and 4 Finnish elder storytellers. The theme of the project was to utilize everyday socio-cultural practices. The study used Pink’s visual semiotic and Kress’ multimodality for analysis. Th…
Co-participatory multimodal intergenerational storytelling : preschool children’s relationship with modality creating elder inclusion
The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted elderly people as a vulnerable and excluded community, and connecting to the younger social media generation requires a shift in intergenerational storytelling performance. Recent research on multimodality has emphasized its benefits for the interactional process in storytelling. This study examines three aspects of storytelling – participation, multimodality, and emotional interaction – and uses co-creation and multimodal discourse analysis to investigate two questions: (1) To what extent can intergenerational storytelling benefit older people’s community engagement? (2) In a globalized world, how do children’s relationships with modalities create new l…
Changes in Language Assessment Through the Lens of New Materialism
AbstractIn this chapter, we analyze English tests that are part of two computerised assessment systems, the Finnish Matriculation Examination and the Danish National Tests. Language assessment is a fruitful field to explore from the perspective of materiality, to better understand what materialities exist in modern language tests and how students interact with such systems. Within the assessment and test-taking space, material objects exist that are imbued with political values and force test-takers to perform in specific ways. We explore what new materialism has to offer for interpreting current trends in language assessment and to what extent these perspectives allow for new insights to e…
Homescape
Abstract This article presents the redefined concept of the homescape as space where transnational, newly arrived, and settled families can provide agency for their identity framing through multisensory discourse resources. The study investigated the experiential, non-interactional multisensory discourse resources in the homescape. The homescape extends from the Linguistic Landscape and houses temporal and spatial components, which occur over time. The yearlong ethnographic case study of three Nepalese families (two transmigrant Ghurkha families and one immigrant family) included 150 hours of observational data triangulated with qualitative interviews. The study posed two questions: How do …
Outsiders Reflecting on Invisible Institutional Gender Norms
In higher education (HE), especially in countries viewed as socially equal, often there are embedded normative institutional practices. This raises two intersecting issues: (1) how the perception of a Nordic social justice national ideology and policies may not translate into a reality for all and (2) how homogeneous non-colonial countries could contain invisible threads of gendered institutional coloniality which affect women and non-local/transnational women to a greater degree. Our study is unique as the research context is Finland, a Nordic socially equal country. The reality is that there is embedded inequity in institutionalized normative practices. The study employed a multi-perspect…