Lídia Puigvert

Critical Communicative Methodology: Informing Real Social Transformation Through Research

The critical communicative methodology (CCM) is a methodological response to the dialogic turn of societies and sciences that has already had an important impact in transforming situations of inequality and exclusion. Research conducted with the CCM implies continuous and egalitarian dialogue among researchers and the people involved in the communities and realities being studied. To this dialogue, researchers bring existing scientific knowledge, and the researched subjects contribute knowledge from their lifeworlds. In this process, new understandings emerge informing solutions to many social problems. Later, social actors lobby for the development of effective social policy based on those solutions. This article presents the CCM, its main principles, techniques, and achievements relating them to the life and person of Jesús Gómez (“Pato”), who deeply engaged in the development of this methodology, always with passion and intellectual rigor and a profound commitment to social justice.

Critical Communicative Methodology: including vulnerable voices in research through dialogue

This article describes how Critical Communicative Methodology (CCM) has been used successfully to analyse educational inequalities in ways that generate real transformation towards social justice. We begin by arguing that educational research today should employ new methodological approaches that can ensure the inclusion of different voices in social science research and the production of knowledge that transforms social exclusion. We then analyse the main epistemological positions of CCM, based on Habermas’ communicative action theory, and explain how it was implemented in the European Union-funded INCLUD-ED project. Finally, we illustrate how INCLUD-ED has had a social and political impact and we argue that research with vulnerable groups, based on the principles of CCM, can generate social and educational transformation.

The role of ‘Other Women’ in current educational transformations

The INCLUD‐ED project’s case studies of successful schools in Europe reveal that there are advantages involved in opening schools to all kinds of women as far as educational and social inclusion is concerned. ‘Other Women’ – those whose voices have traditionally been silenced in academic settings – help in crucial ways to improve education when they have the chance to participate in multiple spaces and activities in the school. By participating in decision‐making bodies, in classrooms and in family education, amongst other activities, the ‘Other Women’ enhance students’ learning, improve living together and break down cultural and gender stereotypes. All these findings point to the need to open schools to all women to advance processes of educational transformation.

Breaking the Silence at Spanish Universities Findings From the First Study of Violence Against Women on Campuses in Spain

The first research conducted on violence against women in the university context in Spain reveals that 62% of the students know of or have experienced situations of this kind within the university institutions, but only 13% identify these situations in the first place. Two main interrelated aspects arise from the data analysis: not identifying and acknowledging violent situations, and the lack of reporting them. Policies and actions developed by Spanish universities need to be grounded in two goals: intransigence toward any kind of violence against women, and bystander intervention, support, and solidarity with the victims and with the people supporting the victims.

Preventive Socialization of Gender Violence: Moving Forward Using the Communicative Methodology of Research

The frequency of gender violence in 2013 was extremely high; 35% of women worldwide experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence (World Health Organization, 2013). Considerable research is being conducted to understand and ameliorate this situation. Yet, further research is needed to better identify the causes and consequences of gender violence and to analyze in-depth methods that can advance research. This special issue attempts to show how communicative methodology (CM) is contributing to this goal. In the 21st century, violence against women continues to occur, and new realities have emerged that affect younger girls. In the United States, the case of Amanda Todd, a 15-year-old girl, moved the entire world in 2012. Her online testimony 1 month before her suicide stated, “I have nobody. I need someone . . . ” (Todd, 2012). A decision that she made at the age of 12 launched her into a vicious cycle that she could not escape. Her family attempted to help her by changing her school twice, but these efforts were in vain. Sexual harassment continued through social networks. Before her suicide, her peers called her “a bitch” and after, someone even posted photos of her, making fun of her death. Contrary to many other cases, her peers were aware of this harassment; however, nobody wanted or knew how to help Amanda. In Spain in 2005, Maria, a 12-year-old girl, asked her parents whether she could stop attending school. She was a good student with no apparent conflicts, which made her request confusing. However, long conversations between Maria and a relative revealed that 2 years earlier, in her last year of primary school, she agreed to sexual practices that were proposed by a boy whom she liked. After, three of his friends started to harass her for the same attention, and other boys soon followed suit. Her friends, who had originally encouraged her behavior, initially defended her from sexual harassment; however, her teachers and the families were unaware of the situation. Two years later, Maria’s friend began dating one of the perpetrators, and they subsequently excluded Maria from their group of friends and referred to her as a “bitch.” When her mother discovered what was happening, she recalled many situations related to these boys. For instance, she recalled seeing these boys looking at her and saying, “Look, it’s her mom.” She remembered smiling at them then, but was later horrified that she had been so wrong in her perception of reality, realizing that their smiles actually reflected their harassment of her daughter. This special issue of Qualitative Inquiry addresses these situations and many others that have not been widely acknowledged, using a CM to provide perspective about these cases. This special issue is the first of its kind; I have limited the contributions to research results that have been finalized and that focus on heterosexual relationships, primarily among youth and teenagers. With this compendium of articles, we contribute to the international scientific debate on how this research method can be instrumental in transforming the mechanisms of violence against women who are being perpetuated from one generation to the next. The research results can shed light on the measures that identify, prevent, and overcome violence against women. Furthermore, this special issue will also engage a broader scientific debate where more methods and more realities must be analyzed. With this intention, I have included an ethnography, which also addresses violence against women from a different approach. This article complements the other works presented here. Within these pages, the reader approaches reality in a more veracious way and can deepen his or her understanding of the historic and social motives that perpetuate violence against women in our current society. In addition, this special issue invites researchers to continue developing methods that expand the possibilities for successful and desirable non-violent human relationships. Qualitative Inquiry offers an appropriate interdisciplinary forum in which to debate methods and to consider revolutionary approaches for overcoming violence against women. This debate, as Denzin suggests when writing about the reflexive interview, should always serve to further social transformation and improvement of human kind: 537221QIXXXX10.1177/1077800414537221Qualitative InquiryPuigvert research-article2014

INTERACTIONS AMONG ‘OTHER WOMEN’: CREATING PERSONAL AND SOCIAL MEANING

This article examines the experiences of the ‘other women’, non‐academic women, who have created spaces of dialogue in which they are building networks and transforming their lives. It offers an analysis of the psychological and educational barriers they overcome in order to create personal and social change. It shows how dialogic and egalitarian learning and associative settings allow the other women to express their voices and build new proposals for the present and future. This has the potential to present new avenues for social workers and educators in their work with women in general and marginalised women in particular, pointing to more dialogic and egalitarian relationships and dynamics.

Overcoming the odds: constricted ethnicity in middle-class Romà

How are different ethnic groups dealing with upward social mobility and assimilation? This is a large question that social research has tried to address in recent decades. In the United States, this issue has been framed by the theory of segmented assimilation. In Europe, regarding the Romà, the assumption still exists that upward mobility paths are intrinsically associated with a loss of ethnic identity, due to a process of full acculturation to the mainstream. In this article, through an analysis of 48 in-depth interviews with middle-class Romà in Spain, we identify other mobility paths, such as selective acculturation, that exist in addition to full acculturation. In this sense, we observe how symbolic differences exist between those middle-class Romà who live in an ethnic enclave and have a strong network of support and those who do not. In most cases, middle-class Romà tend to live outside the enclave and experience what we have called constricted ethnicity.

Formación del profesorado en las comunidades de aprendizaje

En las comunidades de aprendizaje, la formacion del profesorado es parte de aquella en la que se involucra el conjunto de agentes educativos (profesorado, familiares, personal no docente, voluntariado). Mientras las escuelas heredadas de la sociedad industrial se van transformando en comunidades de aprendizaje de la sociedad de la informacion, la formacion del profesorado –centrada en los conocimientos previos y las adaptaciones curriculares– va siendo transformada en formacion de todos los agentes educativos, para coordinar y optimizar sus interacciones con los alumnos. La primera parte del articulo explica el proceso de formacion del profesorado en las comunidades de aprendizaje, que tambien es llevado a cabo parcialmente en otros centros. La segunda parte, desarrolla los contenidos de la formacion centrada en el aprendizaje dialogico, es decir, una formacion dialogante, competente, transformadora, instrumental, creadora de sentido, solidaria e igualitaria en las diferencias.

Preventing violent radicalization of youth through dialogic evidence-based policies

Radicalization of youth leading to violent extremism in the form of terrorism is an urgent problem considering the rise of young people joining extremist groups of different ideologies. Previous research on the impact of counter-terrorism polices has highlighted negative outcomes such as stigmatizing minority groups. Drawing on qualitative research conducted under the PROTON project (2016–2019) by CREA-UB on the social and ethical impact of counter-terrorism policies in six EU countries, the present article presents and discusses the ways in which actions characterized by creating spaces for dialogue at the grassroots level are contributing to prevent youth violent radicalization. The results highlight four core elements underlying these spaces for dialogue: providing guidance to be safe in the exploration of extremist messages and violent radicalization; the rejection of violence; that dialogue is egalitarian; and that relationships are built on trust so that adolescents and young adults feel confident to raise their doubts. If taken into account, these elements can serve to elaborate dialogic evidence-based policies. The policies which include a dialogue between the scientific evidence and the people affected by them once implemented, achieve positive social impact.

Lifelong Learning and Developing Society

In a rapid and advancing process, a new kind of society is emerging and generating a new kind of inequality. The breakthrough from an industrial to an information society has consequences that have transformed, in a radical and permanent manner, the context of economic activities and the way our societies function. All these new conditions — the global context of the information society and its technological dimension — generate new needs regarding access to information and knowledge.