In this article, I explore my fantasy qualitative classroom, one that promotes “paradigm driving,” rather than paradigm-driven research. I discuss how paradigm essentialism, ontologization, and idolization, although important to learning qualitative research, get in the way of creative, flexible, and ambiguous approaches to research design. I share strategies for disrupting these forces in the classroom. My exploration highlights the challenges of teaching with multiple epistemologies in mind. I conclude by welcoming failure as necessary to revise my ideals and to stave off the fascism involved in imposing a utopian fantasy and looking forward to how I will work with failure the next time.
BarkoT.WolgemuthJ. R.Koro-LjungbergM. (2014, May). “Dangerous” resonances: A plateau of disgust and obscenity in the university classroom.Paper presented at the 2014 annual meeting of the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, Champaign-Urbana, IL.
2.
BiestaG. J. J.BurbulesN. C. (2003). Pragmatism and educational research. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
3.
BreuerF.SchreierM. (2007). Issues in learning about and teaching qualitative research methods and methodology in the social sciences. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 8(1), Article 30. Retrieved from http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0701307
4.
Bridges-RhoadsS.Van CleaveJ. (2013). Writing the torment: Aporetic data and the possibility of justice. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 13, 267-273.
5.
BrownT. (2008). Desire and drive in researcher subjectivity: The broken mirror of Lacan. Qualitative Inquiry, 14, 402-423.
6.
ButlerJ. (1997). Psychic life of power. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
7.
ButlerJ. (2004). Undoing gender. New York, NY: Routledge.
8.
ButlerJ. (2005). Giving an account of oneself. New York, NY: Fordham University Press.
9.
ChoJ.TrentA. (2006). Validity in qualitative research revisited. Qualitative Research, 6, 319-340.
10.
The Collective. (in press). How I became an incoherent scholar in neoliberal times. Manuscript in preparation.
11.
CrottyM. (1998). The foundations of social research: Meaning and perspective in the research process. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
12.
DenzinN. K. (2009). The elephant in the living room: Or extending the conversation about the politics of evidence. Qualitative Research, 9, 139-160.
13.
DenzinN. K. (2010). The qualitative manifesto: A call to arms. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
14.
DeweyJ. (1997). Experience and education. New York, NY: Touchstone. (Original work published 1938)
15.
EisenhartM.JurowA. S. (2011). Teaching qualitative research. In DenzinN. K.LincolnY. S. (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (4th ed., pp. 699-714). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
16.
EyersT. (2012). Lacan and the concept of the “Real.”New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
17.
FoucaultM. (1972). The archeology of knowledge. New York, NY: Tavistock.
18.
FoucaultM. (1989). An aesthetics of existence. In LotringerS. (Ed.), Foucault live: Interviews, 1961-1984 (pp. 303-311). New York, NY: Semiotext(e).
19.
FoucaultM. (2000). Power (FaubionJ., Ed.). New York, NY: New Press.
20.
GildersleeveR. E.KuntzA. (2013). Dialogue as a requiem for analysis. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 13, 263-266.
21.
HammersleyM. (2011). Methodology: Who needs it?Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
22.
HoyD. C. (2005). Critical resistance: From poststructuralism to post-critique. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
23.
JacksonA. Y.MazzeiL. A. (2012). Thinking with theory in qualitative research: Viewing data across multiple perspectives. New York, NY: Routledge.
24.
Koro-LjungbergM. (2010). Validity, responsibility, and aporia. Qualitative Inquiry, 16, 603-610.
25.
Koro-LjungbergM. (2013). “Data” as vital illusion. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 13, 274-278.
Koro-LjungbergM.Yendol-HoppeyD.SmithJ.HayesS. (2009). (E)pistemological awareness, instantiation of methods, and uninformed methodological ambiguity in qualitative research projects. Educational Researcher, 38, 687-699.
28.
LatherP. (2006). Paradigm proliferation as a good thing to think with: Teaching research in education as a wild profusion. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 19, 35-57.
29.
LevitasR.SargissonL. (2003). Utopia in dark times: Optimism/pessimism and utopia/dystopia. In BaccoliniR.MoylanT. (Eds.), Dark Horizons: Science fiction and the dystopian imagination (pp. 13-27). New York, NY: Routledge.
30.
LichtmanM. (2013). Qualitative research in education: A user’s guide (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
31.
LincolnY. S.LynhamS. A.GubaE. G. (2011). Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging confluences, revisited. In DenzinN. K.LincolnY. S. (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (4th ed., pp. 97-128). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
32.
LyonsN. (Ed.). (2010). Handbook of reflection and reflective inquiry: Mapping a way of knowing for professional reflective inquiry. New York, NY: Springer.
33.
NikanderP. (2008). Constructionism and discourse analysis. In HolsteinJ. A.GubriumJ. F. (Eds.). Handbook of constructionist research (pp. 413-428). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
34.
PaulJ. L. (2004). Introduction to the philosophies of research and criticism in education and the social sciences. London, England: Pearson.
35.
PaulJ. L.MarfoK. (2001). Preparation in the philosophical foundations of inquiry. Review of Educational Research, 71, 525-547.
RoulstonK. (2010b). Reflective interviewing: A guide to theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
38.
SargentL. T. (2005). The necessity of utopian thinking: A cross-national perspective. In RüsenJ.FehrM.RiegerT. W. (Eds.), Thinking utopia: Steps into other worlds (pp. 1-14). New York, NY: Berghahn Books.
39.
St. PierreE. A. (2004). Care of the self: The subject and freedom. In BakerB. M.HeyningK. E. (Eds.), Dangerous coagulations? The uses of Foucault in the study of Education (pp. 325-358). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
40.
St. PierreE. A. (2013). The appearance of data. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 13, 223-227.
41.
St. PierreE. A. (2014). A brief and personal history of post qualitative research: Toward “post inquiry.”Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 30(2), 2-19.
42.
SternbergR. J. (2013, April29). Self-sabotage in the academic career: 15 ways in which faculty members harm their own futures, often without knowing it. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
43.
TracyS. J. (2010). Qualitative quality: Eight “big-tent” criteria for excellent qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 16, 837-851.
44.
WaiteD. (2014). Teaching the unteachable: Some issues of qualitative research pedagogy. Qualitative Inquiry, 20, 267-281.
45.
WolgemuthJ. R. (2007). Intellect, inter(dis)course, and identity: The production and performance of masculinity in higher education (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Colorado State University, Fort Collins.
46.
WolgemuthJ. R. (2009). “I’m not a man, I’m a graduate student”: Academic discourses and the construction of gender in higher education. In WozniakH.BartoluzziS. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 32nd HERDSA Annual Conference: The Student Experience (pp. 519-528). Darwin, Australia: Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia.
47.
WolgemuthJ. R. (2014). Analyzing for critical resistance in narrative research. Qualitative Research, 14, 586-602.
48.
WolgemuthJ. R.Erdil-MoodyZ.OpsalT.CrossJ.KaantaT.DickmannE.ColomerS. (2015). Participants’ experiences of the qualitative interview: Considering the importance of research paradigms. Qualitative Research, 15, 351-372.
