Accompanying volunteer research
We see from the data that participants are challenged by perceptions of what it means to be culturally-sensitive and open to different values or routines. Body and space are also key in moments of irritation, such as when it comes to topics like race, class, gender, value concepts, inherent identities and experiencing uncomfortable situations.Dr Anja Wilken, postdoc and TTT project coordinator, University of Hamburg
Extensive accompanying research was conducted as part of the Tricontinental Teacher Training (TTT) exchange project relating to student teachers. This included universities in Ghana, Germany and North Carolina, USA. Participation was optional and the research project was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Education at the University of Hamburg (UHH) and the Institutional Review Board of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, (abbreviated to UNC-CH). Various types of data (interviews, reflective journals, group discussions) were collated at different stages of the project (see diagram).
At the same time and in the interest of a sustainable use of data, these surveys were designed in such a way that varying interests in knowledge can be pursued to enable and consolidate collaborations involving international researchers from UHH, UNC-CH and the University of Education Winneba (UEW). Mention should be made here in particular of Professors Telse Iwers and Andreas Bonnet (UHH), Professor Jocelyn Glazier and Taylor Schmidt (UNC-CH) and Professors Samuel Hayford and Dandy Dampson (UEW).
We tend to activate familiar cognitive structures and processes in situations of uncertainty and insecurity. This among other things involves the recollection of stereotypes learned from socialisation and upbringing, which makes the perceptual field ascertainable and confined. Cognitive settlements, so-called subjective imperatives, also have a structuring function in this process. Confronting aspects that are disconcerting in ‘strange’ situations gives students the opportunity to use personal reflections to recognise and understand these processes when they arise and also subsequently.Professor Telse Iwers, Professor of Educational Science with a special emphasis on Educational Psychology, Faculty of Education, University of Hamburg
The key initial question
The Centre for Accompanying Research is the repository for a multi-stage interview study by Dr Anja Wilken (UHH). This study focuses on the topic of uncertainty, which remains underrepresented within research into cultural exchanges.
The underlying research issue is as follows: how does potential experience of uncertainty or alienation occur, how is it processed and/or considered in an international context?
Analysis and result
The Qualitative Content Analysis process (Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse – QIA) (Kuckartz, 2018) is first used to evaluate the analysis in a structured manner. Selected episodes are then analysed using the Documentary Method (Bohnsack et al., 2010), which conveniently enables determination of implicit or guiding knowledge and its positioning to ‘other‘ norms. Dealing with uncertainty therefore involves focusing on text elements as well as hesitations, trailing sentences, metaphors and similar to be able to reconstruct how the phrases were spoken.
Across three cohorts, a total of 135 partially structured episodic interviews (Flick, 2014) were conducted with students from the three participating partner universities: before, during and 6-12 months after their stay abroad. The interview guide contains narrative prompts, such as ‘tell me the story of your exchange visit from the beginning until now’, questions about specific situations in the context of uncertainty, such as those in which the students felt irritated or uncomfortable, and questions eliciting (explicit) reflection.
The first step involved using QIA to thematically index 43 so-called ‘while’ interviews from two cohorts each lasting 50–90 minutes.
Cultural uncertainty usually occurs when you least expect it. Even in situations where you thought from experience that at least now everyone was in the same boat. And wallop, the other person’s perspective is suddenly diametrically opposed, strange, uncomfortable. Albeit not every irritation results right away in an extensive education process. Habit is like a giant container ship against which the irritation initially rebounds without it changing course. But there is nevertheless a scratch in the paint, maybe even a dent. This is exactly what we’re searching for in the interview data. For narratives regarding collisions with the unfamiliar. And for narratives of how the giant subsequently kept on course. And sometimes we even come across more change, more course correction, than the interviewees themselves are aware of.Professor Andreas Bonnet, Professor of Teaching Methodology in English Language and Literature, University of Hamburg