Introduction: Complexity, Wicked Problems and Citizenship Education

Abstract

This chapter begins with a brief description of the challenges facing liberal democracies around the world. It then places these challenges within the discussion about how democracy itself is changing, and posits that one of the influences of this change is the increasingly complex or ‘wicked’ nature of the challenges faced by citizens and nation states. Next, there is a discussion about the failure of current models of civics and citizenship education to prepare young people for these challenges, before an alternative, complex model is proposed. The chapter concludes with an explanation of the rest of the structure of this book.

Research Portraits: An Introduction

It is worth noting that the data in this book is not presented in a traditional way; rather than a number of chapters wherein I discuss my data and findings, I have crafted a number of narrative vignettes or research portraits, as first described by Lawrence-Lightfoot (1983). These are a series of chronologically ordered narrative accounts about my experiences as a teacher-observer before and during the teaching of Justice Citizens. I have chosen this approach because I it allows me to share the ‘rich description’ that is so integral to developing an understanding of the Justice Citizens project.

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot (1983) (see also Lawrence-Lightfoot and Hoffman Davis 1997) developed research portraiture as an inductive research method, ‘to explore participant’s experiences and the complexities of how meanings are produced within a particular context’ (Gaztambide-Fernandez et al. 2011, p. 4). Research portraiture is an approach to research that embraces complexity and contradiction; it seeks understanding, rather than to prove or disprove any particular theory. This makes it particularly valuable for educational research, especially in fields like citizenship education, where there has been a lot of contestation and argument about different theories. Also important is the fact that research portraiture does not begin from a deficit model; that is, it does not begin with the question, ‘What is wrong in schools’? Instead, it focuses on ‘local meanings’ and ‘seeks goodness’ (p. 5).

Research portraiture is effective because it narrows the gap between narrative and analysis. In some ways, it is more honest in its approach than other qualitative methodologies because

Recognizing that descriptions are always interpretive, the portraitist uses creative writing to carefully craft a narrative that integrates her analysis of the data while also leaving the text open for interpretation. (Gaztambide-Fernandez et al., p. 5)

Using research portraiture the researcher combines interpretation and analysis with narrative aspects. Naturally, this includes weaving together the researcher’s own personal context with the experiences of the research participants to such an extent that the line between researcher and research participants becomes increasingly blurred; thus research portraiture becomes truly interpretive.

Through these portraits, it is possible to make real those parts of the educational world that are often excluded from research. This attention to detail and description means that there is a more holistic approach to the data, which evokes a feeling of authenticity—something that qualitative research is often criticised for lacking. According to Hackmann, research portraiture ‘makes the researcher’s biases and experiences explicit, in essence becoming a lens through which the researcher processes and analyses data’ (2002, p. 52).

The research portraits presented throughout this book have been crafted after reviewing the interviews that I conducted with each student and stakeholder, as well as the notes I took as the teacher-observer during the Justice Citizens project. By crafting these research portraits, I believe I have met two goals: first, I have come to better understand young peoples’ conceptions of citizenship and the ways they see themselves as active participants in the space of their local communities; and second, the portraits provide a meaningful way to share my findings with other interested parties.