Research Paradigms and Theories

Paradigm
● A general organizing framework for theory and research that includes basic
assumptions, key issues, models of quality research and methods for seeking answers
● Paradigms are frameworks, perspectives or models from which we see, interpret and
understand the world

6 Key SW Research Paradigms

● Positivst
● Interpretive
● Critical
● Feminist
● Postmodern
● Indigenous

Positivist Paradigm
● Positivism sees social science as an organized method for combining deductive logic
with precise empirical observations of individual behavior in order to discover and
confirm a set of probabilistic causal laws that can be used to predict general patterns
of human activity

Components of the Positivist Paradigm

● Purpose
○ It seeks to discover natural laws, provide explanations for social phenomena
● Epistemology
○ It uses a deductive system of definitions and laws. Knowledge is something
that can be observed, measured, tested and generalized
● Ontology
○ It sees individuals as shaped by external forces; reality is stable
● Axiology
○ Research is value-free and uses objective inquiry
● Methodolgy
○ It is based on precise observations and facts
● Method
○ Surveys, scales, indexes, experimental designs, randomization in sampling.
Research steps - linear

Different Response to Positivism: Evidence Based Research (EBR) & Practice

● Characteristics of EBR:
 ○ Privileges quantitative research - hierarchy of evidence
○ Evidence - results of quantitative research
○ Qualitative methods are executed uses the current best evidence regarding
care of individuals
● Rationale for EBR:
○ Standardize and maximize good practice, reduce cost and improve quality

Different responses to positivism: intersectionality-informed quantitative research:

rouhani
● Goes beyond examining associations between variables to consider contextual
questions by suitable framing of the question
● Researcher can develop a detailed classification of identity-based categories
● Researchers do not have to develop dichotomous questions for demographic
questions
● Allows for statistical analysis that incorporates both societal and individual factors

Reframing quantitative methodology for social justice puposes: Pyne, Bauer, Hammond &
Travers
● Just as the way quantitative methodology can be used for marginalizing it can also
be used for resisting marginalization
● How did Pyne and Team address the limitations of positivist paradigm in their
research?
○ Ensured community accountability
○ Contextualized findings to ensure proper representation
○ Ensured community capacity building
○ Developed community ownership by engaging diverse community members
○ Constructed an accessible survey
○ Developed dissemination strategy to target their issues

Interpretive Paradigm
● Interpretivism is a research paradigm that focuses on gaining an empathic
understanding of how people feel inside, experiences, their deeper meanings and
feelings, and the idiosyncratic, reasons for their behaviours

Components of the interpretive paradigm

● Purpose
○ To understand social behaviour
● Epistemology
○ Knowledge is grounded in the meanings that people give to their
interactions. Good evidence of knowledge is in the context
 ● Ontology
○ People create their own meaning based on their own realities/interactions
and there can be multiple meanings of a reality
● Axiology
○ Values are integral to any research
● Methodology
○ Seeks to gather deeper meanings of reality with varied emphasis from those
affected by it. It is embedded in the local context of human interactions
● Method
○ Interviews, focus groups, participant observation

Critique of Intepretivism
● The focus of the inquiry is on individuals and not necessarily on how structures
impact the individual
● Limitations of the scope of interpretivism - Bringing forward voices of social
injustice and human rights violations seen as the objective is problematic (Cheek
2011)
○ The ventriolquist stance as a transmitter of information
○ The positionality of voices of subjects where the researcher is vageuly present

Critical Social Science Paradigm

● CSS paradigm disntiguyished by its focus on oppression and its commitment to using
research procedures to empower oppressed groups

Compoents of CSS Paradigm

● Purpose
○ Discover myths and empower people. Informed by theory/ies that go beyond
the surface level
● Epistemology
○ Knowledge about social phenomena exists in multiple layers and is hidden
● Ontology
○ Reality is complicated and governed by multiple and hidden factors including
structural factors
● Axiology
○ It states that all science ivnovles values, some right, some not
● Methodology
○ It provides tools to change reality; it unveils illusions. It is shaped by the
issue that is being addressed
● Method
 ○ Contextual - based on what is needed, researcher is a critical expert,
organizer, mobilizer and engages participants in taking actions on research
findings

Limitations
● Assumes the researcher is the critical expert
○ People are lacking critical awareness

Feminist Paradigm
● Feminist research: v very to similar to CSS but with a commitment to use research to
address issues of concern to women and to empower women

Components of the feminist paradigm

● Purpose
○ Advocates for the feminist value position
● Epistemology
○ Knowledge is grounded in personal experience
● Ontology
○ Gender based power relations lead to oppression
● Axiology
○ The researcher’s personal feelings and experiences are important in feminist
studies
● Methodology
○ Follows action-orienteed research that facilitates personal and community
change
● Method
○ Flexible when choosing data-gathering strategies across many different
academic fields. Researcher takes tance with participants. Voice and form -
first person; representation - vaires depending on methodology

Critique
● Ignored issues of racve and its impact on gender
○ Mainstream feminism has largely failed to address both the historic feminism
and ongoing aspects of settler colonialism. Whitestream has eben put forth
by indigenascholar Sandy Grande (quechua) to characterize the predominant
mainstream feminist discouse that is both dominated by white women and
structrured around the white, middle class experience, but also as a
discourse ***

Postmodern Paradigm
 ● Postmodern research: deconstruct and reveal hidden structures. This research
believes that no one explanation is more true than the other; all are true for those
who accept them

Components of the postmodern paradigm

● Purpose
○ To express oneself. Intuition, imagination, emotion and experience are
critical forms of expression
● Epistemology
○ Knowledge is expressed through performance, art that can shock, amuse or
stimulate others
● Ontology
○ Reality is fluid. Here and now is the only reality that can be studied. No
preferred iutnerpretations of behavior in this approach
● Axiology
○ Values are integral to research but all value positions are equal
● Methodology
○ That resonates with people’s inner feelings
● Method
○ Art forms and various types of performances as data
Critique
● Originates from Europe
● Accepts relativism as a critical aspect of axiology

Indigenous Paradigm
● Wilson - Indigenous paradigm comes from thew foundational belief that knowledge
is relational - nbot just interpersonal relationships, but it is a relationship with all of
creation

Epistemology
● Purpose of knowledge - liberation, emancipation, critical - knowledge is seen as
power and hence search for knowledge on any subject is about search for power
● Knowledge is grounded in traditions, culture, dreams, visions, prophecies, messages
from ancestors, spiritually derived knowledges
● Wholistic theory

Ontology
● Belief in multiple realities
● Reality is in the relationship that one has with the truth
 ● Relationships dont just shape reality, they are reality - the social, historical, and
political context of the lives of indigenous people

Axiology
● Relational aaccountability - fulfilling a role and obligation in a research relationship
○ We are all related and all have a responsibility to each others healing and
growth
● Political integrity

Research methodology
● Emphasizes the social, historical anmd political context
● Reframes the discourse from indivuidual pathology to reflect Indigenous
perspective, purpose and reality
● Indigenous peoples directing research; not as objects of research, researching back
● Relational accountability, respect, reciprocity, and responsibility are key features of
methodology
● Research is ceremony - sacredness of research methods
● Social and political acceptance of statistical analysis

Walter and Andersen Argument

● Our argument is that methodology, rather than the method fo analysis, contains the
cultural, social, and consequently, political meanings of research process and
practice. And it is within western settler quantitative methodological frames that
the continuing authorization ***

● Quantitative research’s fit with Indigenous methodologies

○ Absence of quantitative methodology within Indigenous methodlolgiers
○ Indigenous complexity has been reduced through aapparanetly objective,
logical markers through which officials look at Indigenous communities

● Modernity and indigenous quantitative methodologies

○ False binary between modernity and tradition
○ An emphasis on tradition oversimplifies the complexity of relationships and
subjectivities of Indigenous peoples
○ Deficit model-based policy understanding of Indigeneity - they are neither
exhuastive nor contextual, nor do they produce legitimate statistics

● Position within the field of quantitative methodologies

○ Current understandings - to be authentically Indigenous is to be situated in
tension with colonizer settler paradigms
 ○ Their position is about differing and not opposing western quantitative
methodology
○ They would ask questions that others have not asked and develop categories
thatr have not been developed
● Claiming statistical space:
○ Moving the Indigene from research object to Director - from known to
knower
○ Indigenous researchers taking the lead role in transforming the possibilities
○ Need to explore, identify and establish parameters to conceptualize and
operationalize Indigenous quantitative methodologies

Suspending Damage Centred Research Tuck

● In damaged-centred research, one of the major activities is to document pain or loss in
an individual, community or trive…though connected to deficit models damage-
centred research is distinct in being more socially aand historically situated…research
that operates, even beneveolently, from a theory of change that established harm or
injury in order to achieve reparation
● Recognize complex personhood
○ Making room for contradicitons
○ Seeing the person beyond the deficit and focus on the whole person
● Recognizing the power of the community to shift the discourse from damage to
desire and complexity…towards survivance
● Survivance is moving beyond our basic survival in the face of overwhelming
cultural genocide to create spaces of synthesis and renewal
● Revision theories of change and determine the role of research
● Establish tribal and human research ethics guidelines
● Create mutually beneficial roles for academic researchers in community research