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Roger
Boshier
University of B.C., Vancouver
Humanists are subjectivists in that "reality" is what it is construed
to be. Great effort is devoted to adopting the frame of reference
of the participant. Social "reality" is a network of assumptions
and "shared meanings." The subjectivist ontological assumptions
shared by humanists stem from the notion human affairs are ordered,
cohesive and integrated. Humanists use interpretivist methodologies
and are more concerned with understanding subjectively construed
meanings of the world "as it is" than with any view of how it might
be.
Related Theory
Movements, perspectives and authors located in this corner include
Mezirow (1989, 1990), with his concern for perspective transformation
which involves the modification of meanings ascribed to everyday
situations. Others in this world view include Swedish phenomenographers
(Marton, 1986) and the notion of andragogy (Knowles, 1980) which
has considerable regard for the way adults construe their experience
within an independent self concept. There is a flourishing brand
of psychology concerned with discourse anchored in humanist world
view (e.g. Harre and Gillett, 1994; Potter and Wetherell, 1987)
that pertains to research where investigators try to see discursive
formations that limit or enhance the learner's capacity for education.
Technology and Education
A humanist use of technology in education would manifest respect
for ways in which people differentially construct meanings. Hence,
instead of assuming everyone (irrespective of race, class, colour,
gender) would have the same response to say, an online courses about
animal husbandry, art or family studies, there would be respect
for the perspectives of people who fall outside the dominant white,
usually Eurocentric, male constructions of western notion of progress
and development. In this discourse there is concern for subjectivity
but no significant challenge to extant power relations.
Boshier (1990) analyzed psycho-cultural factors and the intimacy
of e-mail in its early days (the 1980’s) when there was a gee whizz
quality about getting a message from Aunt Gladys in Perth. More
recent work, clearly humanist and thus located in this quadrant,
is by Denzin (1999) who analysed meanings nested in the "cybertalk"
of participants in listserves for the Adult Children of Alcoholics
(ACOA) in recovery. He noted that "cybernarratives are
grounded in the everyday lives and biographies of the women and
men who write them, yet they circulate in the anonymous, privatized
territories of cyberspace. For ACOA, and to a significant extent,
participants in other e-mail groups, life on the screen involves
various hazardous struggles over identity, meaning and self.
Denzin studied "instances" of cybertalk on an ACOA listserve.
His focus was on "occurrences" that provide evidence of
how cultural understandings operate. Each utterance intersects with
others and gives rise to a "system in action." (1999,
p. 110). Hence, when studying e-mail, when reading "utterances"
from a humanist (or interpretivist) perspective, the researcher's
task is to understand how they and their "intersections"
work. The analysts task is to illuminate the structure of the interpretive
event. In cybertalk, meaning is found in responses that speaker-writers
make to each other. This is important because written text is not
intentional - although often read as if it were. For Barthes (1995)
speech is always "fresh, innocent and theatrical." But,
once sent, the theatricality of the e-mail is dead. Hence, for Denzin,
it is a serious mistake to "read cyberwriting as if it reflects
a direct connection to the conscious meanings and intentions of
the writer" (1999, p. 112)
In this research Denzin was an observer lurking in a discussion
involving an ACOA group. His results consisted of his "readings"
concerning interactions between Jacki and Liz (deemed to be warm
and supportive) in contrast to an aggressive and acrimonious exchange
between Lucia and Richard. He presents a transcript of the dialogue
followed by an analysis of various readings concerning meaning.
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