Ed 714 Qualitative Research Methods in Education

Summer 2002

Background
 

(The Art and Science of Portraiture is a book length account of how vignettes can be use to portray the totality of a research project using strategies of qualitative research in the manner of a portrait artist.  The sections that follow are from a longer account of life on the hard side of Hartford Connecticut.  Each portrays two characters with two different lives.  Our goal is to discover how Lightfoot and Lawrence tell an entire story about each individual through portraiture, without talking about the subject or at us in a preachy way.  The vignettes are the reality.  What is done to make this so?)

These two vignettes from LIghtfoot and Lawrence include many of the representational strategies that contribute to authenticity and realism in a qualitative report.  Remembering that vignettes can be the sole way that findings are reported (or they can be interspersed in a more discursive presentation of information), one needs to think about the concerns of portraiture and how they are incorporated in these vignettes. Whe reading these vignettes, above consider what has been done to capture the intimacy and sense of reality, a tangibile person in a tangible space.
Later I will raise questions specifically about the methods of portraiture as they are outlined on my web pages.

Vignette 1

Today when I arrive at Cheryle's house she is ready and eager to resume.  She greets me at the door and immediately tells me that she will be turning the telephone off so that we will not be interrupted.  I find it impossible not to notice Cheryle's wonderful costumes, they are such bold declarations.  This morning she is wearing an emerald green and black striped silk skirt and blouse, trimmed-- around the bodice and in a wide band at her waist - in black leather, Seer black stockings and black patent leather shoes, again with three inch heels, complete the picture.

Cheryle has been away for several days in Chicago fulfilling her duties as a board member of the National United Way.  The Search Committee on which she sits is reviewing applications for An Executive Director.  ("We've gotten four thousand applications;  three thousand nine hundred ninety of them you could toss out immediately.").  After the controversial departure of the Executive Director, this search process has been highly politicized and Cheryle is in "the thick of it."  After returning from her Chicago meeting in the late afternoon, she raced out to a fundraiser for a political candidate whom she is backing.  Before I arrived she has gone out "to do her domestic thing" and when I arrive she is in the midst of  unpacking groceries.  "you'd e proud of me," Cheryle chirps, "I've gone shopping!"

Vignette 2
 

She speaks with pride about her son, but is is guarded.  As one who is outspoken in my proud accounts of my three sons.  I "Ooo" and "Wow" supportively at every word of praise she shares.  But every one of my "Wows" is met with cautious optimism.  Her tone is level and sure.  This mother does not accept her son's current success as a given.  She tells me that for now he is "off the street" and she hopes it will stay that way;  but she is grateful to the Artist's Collective for helping him be the best he can be in any situation.  If he returns to the street and deals drugs-- which she hopes he won't-- she knows that because of the training at the Collective, he will be the best he can be-- the man in the car not the man on the corner.  She tells him "Don't be the one on the corner.  He's the one who gets killed."

...

"Of course you know he's my knee child."

"Your knee child?"

"Well, I have three sons."

"So do I."

"Then you know that oldest one is always walking around on his own exploring the world, and the baby is crawling on the floor.  But that middle one stays close, he's the one on you knee."

I know she is speaking of my middle child and I slide my chair closer.

"You have to tell the brothers..."You have to tell the brothers that when you die, they have to take care of that knee child.  Because it's going to be the hardest for him."

The elements of portraiture

How does each vignette accomplish in its own way the following strategies?  Refer back to the web pages on portraiture for more detailed information on this approach to help you frame your answers.
 

• The authors work with context, create a framework, set a sense of physical background and psychological place, lay in broad brush strokes so that a core problem begins to surface?
• The authors work with the voice of an individual and help you to hear that voice.
• The authors define a perspective, and look from a particular vantage point, into the character of a person.
• The authors speak of relationships, create a sense of intimacy, and yet describe the boundaries that protect the individuality of the person in the vignette.
• The authors begin to work in pattern and theme so that the vignette is starting to frame an issue that is important to know about if the reader is to understand the role of the participant in the study.

•  A story begins to surface.  You find that you want to know more about the past and what will happen next in the life a the individual who is being portrayed.


Once you have given some preliminary thought to these questions, refer back to the web pages on portrature once again.  How many objectives and outcomes of portraiture are apparent in these vignettes?
 

Reflective activity

What would be the key aspects of a vignette that would work with your current fieldwork?