Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Linguistic analysis tool: AntConc

In some of my work, I found AntConc linguistic analysis software really useful - and it happens to be free and easy to use as well. By creating a single file of the corpus of data and feeding it into AntConc, the software helps with collocation analysis (strings or groups of words that reoccur) and also with frequencies of terms. Some of these things could go un-noticed by the research; but it's also a good tool to triangulate interpretive analysis.

For an example of AntConc's use within a broader qualitative analysis, see:

Pinto, L.E. (2013). When politics trump evidence: Financial literacy education narratives following the global financial crisis. Journal of Education Policy, 28(1), 95-120.

Friday, March 7, 2014

Historical, Archival and Policy Research




In addition to the videos below that describe Laura Pinto's experience in obtaining and working with archival policy artefacts. Other (related) readings include:

Dillabough, J-A. (2008) Exploring Historicity and Temporality in Social Science Methodology: A Case for Analytical and Methodological Justice. In K. Gallagher (Ed.) The Methodological Dilemma: Creative, Critical, and Collaborative Approaches to Qualitative Research. London and New York: Routledge.

Hodder, I. (2000). Chapter 26: The Interpretation of Documents and Material Culture. In Y.S. N.K. Denzin & Y.S. Lincoln (Eds). Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd Edition. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications Inc., pp. 703-715.

Bacchi, C. (2000). Policy as Discourse: what does it mean? where does it get us? Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, 21(1), 45-58. 

To see how these kinds of artefacts can be used, see:
Pinto, L.E. (2013). When politics trump evidence: Financial literacy education narratives following the global financial crisis. Journal of Education Policy, 28(1), 95-120.