Forging Frontiers—Reframing, Methodological Innovation, and Possibilities for Research with, and of, Young Families

Abstract

Django Paris (‘A friend who understand fully’: Notes on humanizing research in a multiethnic youth community. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 24(2), 137–149, 2011) helps to set the scene for this chapter by commenting that “We can be friends with our participants. We can, in small ways, come to understand. We can inspire them as they inspire us. We can humanize through the act of research” (p. 147). This text aims to elucidate foundational considerations, perspectives, approaches, and methodologies in an attempt to challenge researchers to rethink, reflect upon, and consider their approaches when planning to engage in researching about, and with, young families. The final chapter captures the direction that a new line of critical inquiry might look like. This journey requires researchers to be open to the process of deconstructing and critically reflecting on existing approaches and methods, but also willing to take risks in venturing beyond the dominant qualitative discourse: of being prepared to explore new ways of thinking that are still very much at the fringe of qualitative research, such as that of humanising, decolonising, critical feminist, and post-structuralist research.

“And so she forges towards the new frontier, although confident, she steps tentatively, for little does she know what is to become of her.”(Brown, 2008, p. 152)