George W. Noblit, Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will be presenting this seminar on 'How qualitative (or interpretive or critical) is qualitative synthesis..'

WHEN:

Tea & coffee will be served from 2.30pm.

The seminar starts at 3.00pm and finishes at 5.00pm.

WHAT:

Qualitative research synthesis approaches such as meta-ethnography inevitably involve reductions. These reductions can have the effect of stripping context from that which is being focused upon and flattening the fuller account into a set of themes that are comparable to other studies. Both decontextualization and flattening are threats to the synthesis being more fully qualitative-interpretive and critical. Similarly, the goal of the synthesis to produce useable knowledge is also a threat to remaining interpretive and critical. We shift our focus from meaning to its use. Such moves are necessary in health research, and any research focused on working with the needs of people and nature, but much can be lost. In this talk, I will examine these and other threats and discuss the conundrums they present. Most attempts to address them have the form of ‘working against’ rather than resolving the conundrums as we do meta-ethnography.

WHO:

George W. Noblit is the Joseph R. Neikirk Distinguished Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He, with Dwight Hare, developed meta-ethnography. He had occasionally written more about it and has consulted on several large qualitative synthesis projects. He has a forthcoming article on the meta-ethnography of autoethnographies as well as a book in process, The cultural construction of identity: Metaethnographies and theorizing. In truth, however, he more a practicing qualitative researcher whose work has won several awards. He specializes in the study of racialization and class formation from a decidedly critical lens. He is the editor/author of 18 books.

His most recent book, Is Education, equity and economy: Crafting a new intersection for Springer. He edits The Urban Review and two book series. Most recently he is the founding editor of the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education which he hopes will not deter Scottish separatists from attending his presentation.