Emily Patterson

Throughout the entirety of the semester in Elite Schooling in Global Context, I have learned a great deal about research methods and gathering information and theories from a variety of different sources. From reading articles on the history of elite schooling in a global lens to reading ‘The State of Nobility’ by Pierre Bourdieu, we have learned about different theories that have been able to be applied to our research of Everdeen. As of now, my research group is finalizing the theories to be used in the literature review aspect of our research project.

Although that seems easy, there are essentially too many theories and sources to choose from. When doing this, we had to consider how each of the differing theories from different sociologists would be able to tie in with each other. We took theories that involved aspects of pressures, athletics, physical and global capital, and other themes of that sort.

Honestly, this was a difficult aspect of the project to manage. Initially, we were unclear as to what a literature reviews even consisted off. We have looked through many examples, however it has been hard to construct. Another aspect of this portion of our research project that has proven to be difficult is pulling out quotes that are relevant to our theories.

There are almost too many important notes throughout all of the interviews, making it somewhat difficult to choose the “most” important ones. We also want a range of quotes from each participating interviewee. However, many of the transcripts don’t have much information that has proven to be relevant to our themes on the surface–so it has been somewhat difficult to gather a larger demographic of quotes.

Another struggle we are soon to face is the editing aspect of our paper. How can we make a research paper flow in a well-read manner with four different authors? Of course, after reading many different articles, it is clear that they make the multi-author practicework. However, we have read a handful of articles as well that don’t seem to flow as well as other pieces. This has honestly proven to be helpful for me, and I am sure the rest of the class. It is nice being able to differentiate between what and what not to do with a research paper.

Despite all of these hurdles, I am sure it will all fall into place. With only a few days remaining before our final presentation, we have little time to do too much more work. Right now, we are working on putting together all of the sections and beginning to edit. Overall, this has not necessarily been an easy research project, however it has taught me a great deal about all the work necessary to be successful within research.

Identify two major themes for your research–sounds like an easy task at first glance. That being said, it takes a lot more effort than expected. In order for my group to choose our two major themes for our project, it took a great deal of searching through our coding, and debatesabout what would best fit our research question, which focused on sports and the connection it has with Everdeen. With four members of our group coding the interviews, we were bound to all have different key-words that proved to be most prevalent.

We began with the idea that gender was going to be a major theme within our research–therefore, going into coding, I was hyper-aware of anything that had to do with gender within the interviews. Much to my dismay, I came out of the coding process with very little findings of the role gender playedin athletics at Everdeen. I was under the impression that maybe I just did not read into the dialogue as deeply as I should have. After meeting with our group, it was soon realized that all of us were not as successful when trying to find ways in which gender injects itself within athletics at the school as we originally had hoped.

We were all slightly at a loss, how do we move forward with our research when there is not much information that can answer our research question? We quickly realized that we were going to have to find a different focus for the project. After discussing all of our codes, we realized that each interview incorporated the topic of global citizenship.

Our next task was to tie global citizenship and athletics together due to the fact that both popped up frequently in our coding. We reached the conclusion that one of our themes would focus on the promotion of global citizenship through sports, along with the other being the pressures that come hand and hand with it. Ultimately, these were the best fit themes for our groups research.

When creating the outline for our final paper, it was easy for us to identify outside sources from readings we had previously studied in class, such as Adam’s essay on sports in elite schools, along with some of Bourdieu’s theories in The State of Nobility.We are now faced with the task of picking apart the literature, and deciding what theories prove to be relevant to our research.

Following this step, we are soon going to start writing a draft of our paper. Quite honestly, this seems extremely daunting to me. I have never been a part of such a large research project before, and am a little bit nervous about what information to add into the paper–Is it relevant? Is it redundant? The latter question being my biggest concern. Within all of our research and coding, we all had very similar statements from the interviews, as expected. I am interested to see how all of the quotes will be incorporated due to the fact that majority of them are quite similar. Overall, I am sure once we get further into the writing process it will become easier, but for now it is proving to be a puzzle as to what and what not to include in the final paper.

The thought of a semester full of research can certainly be seen as daunting, just as this blog post. After reading through all the transcripts from interviews done at Everdeen, I was filled to the brim with knowledge and information from all of the students and teachers. At this point, I was overwhelmed to say the least. Where do you even start from here? Well, the first step was to hone in on a topic to center our research around. https://giphy.com/gifs/26gJA9SSe4m54MYec/html5

Last year, after looking at class options, I chose a class in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. This class was extremely interesting, and made me more aware of feminist theories and gender roles in our world today. However, the topic of feminist theories and gender roles did not end in this class, it has been brought up countless times, especially in my sociology course. Due to the fact that the research for this class is group based, It was important for all members to consider the topics each other may be interested in focusing on throughout the research process. In my case, I essentially lucked out–we decided to hone in on the gender division in athletics at Everdeen.

In such a liberal institution such as Colby, gender is (for the most part), a talked about subject. It seems as though people are open to talk about such a topic. However, it is hard to know how to navigate a possibly sensitive topic with those who may not be comfortable with such. I, for one, know nothing about Australias, nor Everdeen’s for that matter, stance on gender and feminist theories. The issue I face with this is how does one go about researching a some-what controversial topic in a respectful and considerate manner when we are unaware of the stance the community of Everdeen takes on gender division.

From past experience and stories my peers have spoken of, it seems as though more times than not gender is a taboo topic. In an elite school, like Everdeen, I could see such a topic being swept under the rug. Just as all of us are on edge to not say the “wrong” thing, I would assume a school as a whole would be even more concerned. 

With all that being said, controversy is something that makes for interesting and intriguing research. It is cliche to say, but sometimes within discomfort there is learning to be done. By focusing on gender division within an Elite School,  it allows us to pick apart the flaws within the system. My group could have chosen to focus on the curricula, sports, or anything of that sort. By choosing  to research gender division within athletics (an extracurricular that generally is associated with men), we have the potential to promote progressivity from our research. Although this is solely research on Everdeen, our findings from gender division can be projected on our future endeavors when we face similar issues in our lives. 

Although this is just the beginning of our research, I can already tell this will be a learning process. I am still somewhat uncomfortable with directly bringing up touchy subjects in scenarios where I do not know the others stance. As I said above, being afraid to say the “wrong” thing is something we all face, however, uncomfortable topics are something that must be discussed, and I think by exploring a topic like gender division within in a prestigious school is something that needs to be  more publicized and discussed more than it is in todays day and age.