Autobiographical Research Another Brick in the Wall: Analyzing a Perfectionist through Bricolage

Abstract

I was introduced to the bricolage in educational research when Shirley Steinberg asked me to conduct autobiographical primary research--a more interesting, enlightening, and rigorous experience than I could have ever expected. Writing an autobiography elicited a multitude of thoughts and feelings, not the least of which were apprehension, excitement, intrigue, fear, and doubt. The process has proven natural yet intense because the research is genuine and intimate. In production and analysis of the text, I have used multiple research methods including thematic analysis, textual analysis, ethnography, critical hermeneutics, and psychoanalysis. Steinberg attributes the term bricolage to Claude Levi-Strauss (1966) and describes it as a sort of toolbox that involves taking research strategies from a variety of scholarly disciplines and traditions as they are needed in the unfolding context of the research situation (Steinberg, 2006, p. 119). Drawing from Denzin and Lincoln's (2000) work, Joe Kincheloe (2001) depicts the bricolage as a concept moving qualitative research into the future. Kincheloe argues that knowledge and research are more subjective than we are willing or perhaps able to admit. He therefore reasons convincingly for Nietzsche's notion of perspectivism: the more perspectives a researcher is able to engage, the more understanding can be gained. This contradicts a common critique that interdisciplinarity and thus bricolage are superficial by nature. Instead, Kincheloe attests, a vigilant bricoleur recognizes the limitations of a single methodology and the inherent interconnectedness of social, cultural, psychological, and pedagogical inquiry. The bricoleur becomes an expert on the relationships connecting cultural context, meaning making, power, and oppression within disciplinary boundaries. Their rigorous understanding of these dynamics possibly makes them more aware of the influence of such factors on the everyday practices of the discipline than those who have traditionally operated as scholars within the discipline. (Kincheloe, 2001, p. 684) A researcher is therefore able to construct the most useful bricolage from a variety of strategies and based on an exploration and understanding of the object of inquiry within its existing contexts. In exploring the various stories of my life and attempting to find meaning in autobiographical images, insights, and interpretations, the process of bricolage offers a rich, complex analysis from which I am able to gain deeper and wider understanding of the influences that shaped me as an educator (Steinberg, 2006). Phenomenological Reading Structure Almost immediately, it was apparent that my biggest struggle with writing an autobiography was conceptualizing the final product. I like to begin with a goal in mind so that I can continually evaluate progress along the path. To sit down and simply write was difficult. What was even more difficult was dealing with the randomness of childhood memories that flooded once the gates were opened. Where would each story appear in the text, and in what order? What was important and what was irrelevant? Structure emerged as a concrete theme in many instances but also as an emotional, overlying theme upon further analysis of my experience in creating the autobiographical document. The value placed on a logical, ordered way of doing things was established early in the manner my parents and maternal grandmother ran our household. Although the children--three brothers, a sister, and myself--were intensely involved in multiple and varied activities, our home was scheduled and clean. Disorganization was not tolerated. Without order, nothing would be accomplished. Evidence of this can be found in the daily lunchtime routine during elementary school: dismissal bell, board the appropriately numbered school bus, follow the path home, eat a meal and watch cartoons, return to the bus stop with three minutes to spare. …