Tuesday, March 3, 2009

The Fifth International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (QI2009): Advancing Human Rights Through Qualitative Research

The Fifth International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry will take place at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign from May 20-23, 2009. The theme of the 2009 Congress is “Advancing Human Rights Through Qualitative Inquiry.” This theme builds on recent human rights initiatives taken by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Education Research Association, previous Congresses, as well as the American Anthropological Association, the American Psychological Association, The American Nurses Association, the Center for Indigenous World Studies, Scholars at Risk, and the Society for Applied Anthropology (see webmaster@aaas.org; shr.aaas.org/scisocs/; un.org/Overview/rights; Educational Researcher, 37, 1 January/February, 2008: 56). It is clear that in these troubling political times qualitative researchers are called upon to become human rights advocates, to honor the sanctity of life, and the core values of privacy, justice, freedom, peace, human dignity, and freedom from fear.

The 2009 Congress will offer scholars the opportunity to form coalitions and engage in debate and dialogue on on how qualitative research can be used to bridge gaps in cultural and linguistic understandings. Delegates will address such topics as academic freedom, researcher safety, indigenous human rights, human rights violations, ethical codes, torture, political violence, social justice, racial, ethnic and gender and environmental disparities in education, welfare and healthcare, truth and reconciliation commissions, justice as healing. Delegates will consider the meaning of ethics, evidence, advocacy and social justice under a humane human rights agenda.
Sessions will take up such topics as: the politics of evidence; alternatives to evidence-based models; mixed-methods; public policy discourse; social justice; human subject research; indigenous research ethics; decolonizing inquiry; standpoint epistemologies. Contributors are invited to experiment with new methodologies, and new presentational formats (drama, performance, poetry, autoethnography, fiction). Such work will offer guidelines and exemplars showing how qualitative research can be used in the human rights and policy-making arenas.
May 20 will feature several special interest Congress sessions, including A Day in Spanish and Portugese, followed by professional workshops on May 21. The Congress will consist of keynote, plenary, featured, regular, and poster sessions. There will be an opening reception and barbeque as well as a closing old fashioned Midwest cook-out.

We invite your submission of paper, poster and session proposals. Submissions will be accepted online only from October 1 until January 15, 2009. Congress and workshop registration will begin December 1, 2008. To learn more about the Fifth International Congress and how to participate, please visit our website: www.icqi.org .

2009 Conference & Humanities Advocacy Day

The National Humanities Alliance 2009 Conference & Humanities Advocacy Day will take place March 10-11 in Washington DC.

The event is a unique meeting ground for members of the Alliance and others interested in humanities policy and advocacy, including higher education leaders, college and university faculty, teachers, students, museum professionals, librarians, archivists, curators and independent scholars. In 2009 NHA will once again jointly convene its Annual Membership Meeting and 10th Annual Humanities Advocacy Day. This enhanced conference program will provide added value for traditional participants of both meetings. Our conference activities will primarily take place March 10 at The George Washington University’s Marvin Center. That Tuesday evening we will move to Capitol Hill from GWU for a reception to celebrate the humanities with Members of Congress and their staff. We will return to the Hill on Wednesday morning to communicate the value of the humanities at our signature event, Humanities Advocacy Day. NHA is also delighted to announce a new pre-conference event on Monday evening, March 9. The American Academy of Arts & Sciences will host a meeting on “The State of the Humanities.” A distinguished panel of national figures will share their views on the role of the humanities in a civil society. We hope you will join us this March in Washington, DC. Meet national leaders and others engaged in shaping and advocating national humanities policy, learn about the current state of federal funding and latest policy issues in the humanities, and make sure your voice is heard in support of the humanities.

Center for Urban Ethnography

Look at the forum schedules for the past 10 years! http://www.gse.upenn.edu/cue/

The main theme of this year : "Ethnography for Social Justice in Education" (Feb 27 - 28, 2009)

Reinventing Anthropology "is for people for whom 'the way things are' is not reason enough for the way things are ... who ask of anthropology what they ask of themselves ... responsiveness, critical awareness, ethical concern, human relevance, a clear connection between what is to be done and the interests of mankind" (Hymes 1969: 7).

On this 30th anniversary of the Ethnography in Education Research Forum, we reflect on Dell Hymes' vision of anthropology in the service of social justice. In his prolific and powerful writings, and in his leadership of Penn's Graduate School of Education, Hymes proposed not only a vision but a set of ways of doing ethnography in education --from ethnographic monitoring and the ethnography of communication to the ethnopoetics of oral narratives and the ethnography of language policy-- that have inspired and informed researchers for a generation and more. In this year's Forum, we hope to explore the myriad uses educational ethnographers are making of these and other ways of working to change schooling and education for the better, in the ongoing project of reinventing anthropology.

Convenor: Dr. Nancy H. Hornberger
Coordinators: Julia Deák and Karl Swinehart
Plenary speakers
Shirley Brice Heath, Brown University
Kris Gutiérrez, University of California, Los Angeles
Brian Street, King’s College
Margaret Himley, Syracuse University
Patricia Carini, Prospect School, Vermont

Center for Urban Ethnography
Graduate School of Education
University of Pennsylvania
3700 Walnut StreetPhiladelphia, PA 19104-6216
Email: cue@gse.upenn.edu
Phone: 215-898-3273
http://www.gse.upenn.edu/cue/

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Some Notes on CAQDAS

I am writing some notes for myself after reading through Lewins and Silver's article on CAQDAS package. These are by and large what I will be focusing on in the class.

1. The graphic visualisation of connections and processes using mapping tools (p.2): I am looking forward to discovering how it is similar to/differenet from the drawing tool in MS-Word (which I am most familiar with);
2. Variables structure of coding (on the left down of the window print-screen [on p.34 down]): this makes a lengthy textual input so much clearer;

Also, I have some questions:
1. Can I save the document into .txt so that I can continue the work in the library (where it may not have the CAQDAS built-in)? or I really need to have a copy of CAQDAS in order to process my qualitative data...
2. Searching and interrogating the database in QDA Miner 1.3. (p.36-38) is not that clear to me, and I want to know how the database will work for me, and why it can be user-friendly in the data processing.

Monday, January 26, 2009

RefWorks: not as hard as I used to think

I gave myself a new task for this week: trying out a new research tool-- RefWorks! It comes as a handy tool since I've visited libraries so often that I know I will probably hate myself not knowing how to use it.

RefWorks has an online tutorial that clearly lays out different steps on how to have a good handle on the technique. On top of that, I think I was greatly encouraged to find RefWorks is not as hard as I thought in the first place. It is, in fact, very user-friendly. I know it will surly save me a great deal of time and energy.

Right now I am heading to use other tools in the hope of finding out more helpful techniques...