DRAFT SYLLABUS PLEASE NOTE THAT COURSE SCHEDULE MAY CHANGE 1 GEOG 437 QUALITATIVE METHODS IN GEOGRAPHY Fall 2017 Mondays and Wednesday 9:30-10:45am Bolton Hall B87 Instructor: Professor Anna Mansson McGinty (Geography and Women’s and Gender Studies) Office: Bolton Hall 478 Email: [email protected]Office Hours: Mondays 1:00-3:00pm or by appointment Course Description: This course explores the purpose, inquiries, and theories of qualitative research. While qualitative research is a multidisciplinary approach, in this class we will especially focus on how different kinds of qualitative methods are applied to human geography. This course covers a range of qualitative research methods that have been instrumental to geographers, including interviews, participant observations, ethnography, action and community research, and discourse analysis. We will focus on the research process, from formulating research questions, selecting an appropriate method to approach the posed questions, to analyzing data and presenting the findings. An important “hands-on” component of the class is to offer the students the opportunity to try out some of the methods themselves. Smaller data collection assignments and a mini research project will help students to grasp complex concepts and apply them to their own work. We will also examine the different epistemological approaches to research and knowledge, exploring the nature of social knowledge and the issues of positionality and self-reflexivity. These kinds of inquiries will allow the students to contemplate the politics of representation and the intricate relationship between observer and observed, researcher and researched, and the ethical issues that are raised while studying other worlds. What kinds of knowledge are produced? What is the positionality of the researcher? Who do we write for? How do we interpret and present qualitative data to scholarly audiences? Learning Objectives: 1. To familiarize students with a variety of qualitative methods. 2. To acquaint students with current discussions on qualitative research, including the critique of traditional empiricist approaches to scientific objectivity and “universal truths.” 3. Critically engage questions such as, how and by whom is knowledge produced and validated? What is the relationship of the researcher to the researched? How does the social location (race, class, sexual identity, etc.) of the researcher impact the research process? What are the issues (ethical, political, epistemological, methodological) that arise in studying "others"? 4. To provide students with hands-on experience with some of the joys and dilemmas of doing research, including: designing and conducting an interview and participant observation and writing a research proposal.
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DRAFT SYLLABUS PLEASE NOTE THAT COURSE SCHEDULE MAY CHANGE
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GEOG 437
QUALITATIVE METHODS IN GEOGRAPHY
Fall 2017
Mondays and Wednesday 9:30-10:45am
Bolton Hall B87
Instructor: Professor Anna Mansson McGinty (Geography and Women’s and Gender Studies)
DRAFT SYLLABUS PLEASE NOTE THAT COURSE SCHEDULE MAY CHANGE
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Required Readings (2 books):
Hay, Ian. 2016. Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography, 4th
Edition. Oxford:
Oxford University Press. ISBN: 9780195430158. Price approx.: $40.00-60.00 (please make
sure to get the right edition!) Limb, Melanie & Dwyer, Claire (eds.). 2001. Qualitative Methodologies for Geographers. New
York: Oxford University Press. (Listed below in class schedule as QMG). ISBN: 0340742267.
Price approx. Used: $23.00
Articles (marked with an asterisk (*) are available on D2L):
Besides the two text books, we will be reading several journal articles and book chapters.
Cope, M. 2002. “Feminist epistemology in geography.” In: Feminist Geography in Practice:
Research and Methods, ed. Pamela Moss. Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 43-56.
Day, Kristin. 2001. “Constructing Masculinity and Women’s Fear in Public Space in Irvine,
California,” Gender, Place, and Culture, 8:109-127.
Dwyer, Clair. 1999. “Veiled Meanings: British Muslim Women and the Negotiation of
Difference,” Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography. 6(1):5-26.
Dwyer, Clair. 2003 ‘Where are you from?’: Young British Muslim women and the making of
‘home’ In Postcolonial Geographies, eds. Alison Blunt & Cheryl McEwan. pp. 184-199.
Hopkins, Peter. 2007. “Young Muslim men’s experiences of local landscapes after 11 September
2001” In Geographies of Muslim Identities. Diaspora, Gender, and Belonging. Ashgate.
Mansson McGinty, Anna. 2014. “Emotional Geographies of Veiling: The Meanings of the Hijab
for Five Palestinian American Muslim Women.” Gender Place and Culture.
Mansson McGinty, Anna, Sziarto, Kristin, and Seymour-Jorn, Caroline. 2013. “Researching
Within and Against Islamophobia: A Collaboration Project with Muslim Communities.” Social
and Cultural Geography. 14 (1): 1-22.
Martin, Emily. 1991. “The Egg and the Sperm. How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based
on Stereotypical Male-Female Role” Signs, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 485-501. Signs, Vol. 15, No. 1,
pp. 7-33
Muños, Susana María and Marta María Maldonado. 2012. “Counterstories of college persistence
by undocumented Mexicana students: navigating race, class, gender, and legal status.
International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. 25(3): 293-315.
Schwandt, T. 2000. “Three epistemological stances for qualitative inquiry: interpretivism,
hermeneutics, and constructionism,” in N. Denzin and Y. Lincoln (eds.). Handbook of
Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, pp. 189-213.
DRAFT SYLLABUS PLEASE NOTE THAT COURSE SCHEDULE MAY CHANGE
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Silverman, D. 2005.Using Theories, Chapter 7. In: Doing Qualitative Research (2nd
edition).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, pp. 95-108. y and 'race' ‘, in Qualitative Methodologies for Geographers, Limb M. and Dwyer C, London, pp 87-100. Sziarto, K., Mansson McGinty, A. and C. Seymour-Jorn. 2014. Diverse Muslims in a Racialized
Landscape: Race, Ethnicity, Islamophobia, and Urban Space in Milwaukee, WI. Journal of
Muslim Minority Affairs. 34(1): 1-21.
Course Requirements:
Attendance and Participation 15%:
Your attendance and participation are salient. More than three absences will result in a lowered
grade. If you miss more than three classes, your attendance grade will be downgraded by one
point/missed class (for example from A to A-, from A- to B+, from B+ to B etc.). In case of
sickness and other emergencies, please provide me with a doctor’s note.
In-class Reading Response Essays 20%:
Data collection assignments 15%:
Details of the three assignments will be handed out in class. These assignments will give you
“hands-on” experience of a couple of research methods.
Research Proposal (20%):
You will have the opportunity to write a research proposal about 6-8 pages long, excluding the
bibliography, for a research project. The proposal should demonstrate comprehension and
sensitivity to the material covered in the course, and draw on at least 3 course readings. The
proposal is due in class week 13.
The research proposal should include the following:
1. A clear and concise statement of the research problem. It may be formulated as a
problem to be examined or a question to be explored.
2. The background, purpose, and relevance of your research topic, including a review of
the relevant literature
3. A description of the methodology and research design, including the methodological
perspective and your methods for gathering data (such as interviews, observations,
discourse analysis, media analysis) and a time table for the research project.
4. Include anticipated concerns and problems related to your project related to ethics,
limitations, insider/outsider status, consent, and confidentiality.
This research proposal should be the beginning of and provide the foundation to your mini
research project due in the end of the semester. Your paper assignments must be submitted on
time. Late papers (research proposal and research project) will be downgraded by one full letter
grade per day.
Mini Research Project (25%):
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Rather than a final exam, you will conduct your own mini research project. This assignment
provides the opportunity for you to engage in the issues and ideas we have talked about during
the semester, and examine them in practice. The topic and focus of your research study has to be
approved by me in advance, and I strongly recommend that your project is based on the research
design you finished earlier. The assignment includes data gathering, shorter analysis of the data,
and a sensitive reflection on the research method and the research process. The report should be
at least 8 pages long excluding the bibliography. It should be a well-written and reflective report
in which you analyze the method, the questions that arose during your fieldwork, what you
learned from doing it, as well as a shorter analysis of your findings. The research paper is due on
Monday, May 11.
1. Clearly state the research purpose and the questions guiding this sample research in a
few sentences.
2. Describe the selection and the recruitment of research participant or the “field” if
drawing on observations.
3. What are your findings? For example, what are the major themes that emerge in the
interview or observation? How do you interpret them? Let your research surprise you:
is there anything new and unexpected that emerged during your research? What have
you learned? Has this been explored and discussed in existing literature? Selectively
use and discuss quotes or field notes to illustrate.
4. What have you learned about the particular research method you chose? Reflect
critically on your own experience of doing research, relating your experiences to
course readings.
5. Attach an appendix to your paper that include interview questions, transcribed parts
of your interview, or field notes.
Paper format for both assignments:
- Include a title page that includes your name, the title of your assignment, course name
and name of instructor.
- Written assignments should be double-spaces, with 12-point font (Times New Roman)
and standard margins.
- Number all pages.
- Use proper citation. All your sources need to be cited and listed in the bibliography,
including web sites and newspaper articles.
- You may use any citation style of your choice.
Your paper assignments must be submitted on time. Late papers (research proposal and research
project) will be downgraded by one full letter grade per day.
Oral presentation: 5%
During the last week of classes, students will make a shorter individual presentation to the class
on what they learned from their “mini fieldwork” drawing on class readings and discussions.
Credit Hours:
The university has asked departments to break down for students how much time they will spend
working on various aspects of their classes.
DRAFT SYLLABUS PLEASE NOTE THAT COURSE SCHEDULE MAY CHANGE
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As the UW System assumes “that study leading to one semester credit represents an investment
of time by the average student of not fewer than 48 hours” (UWS ACPS 4), a 3-credit course
such as this one will require a minimum of 144 (3 x 48) hours of your time. You may find it
necessary to spend additional time on a course; the numbers below only indicate that the course
will not require any less of your time.
In a traditional, or face-to-face, course like this one, you will spend a minimum of
• 40 hours in the classroom
• 80 hours preparing for class, which may include reading, note taking, completing minor
exercises and assignments, and discussing course topics with classmates and the instructor in
structured settings
• 24 hours preparing for and writing major papers and/or exams.
Again, please note that these are minimums.
Grades and Assessment:
All assignments, including Discussion Posts, Research Proposal and Mini Research Project, in
this course will be graded on:
the analytical strength, the complexity and originality of your ideas
comprehension of assigned readings
how well you substantiate your claims with carefully selected evidence
the clarity and general competence of your writing
A/A- Your work demonstrates good understanding and critical, thoughtful engagement with the
ideas articulated in the articles, previous readings, and the issues under discussion. Your
response is insightful, strong, convincing, well-argued, and your writing is free of technical
errors (i.e., free of syntax, punctuation, and grammatical errors).
B/B- Your work demonstrates that you are relatively engaged with the readings and that you are
attempting to think about and respond critically (i.e. thoughtfully and analytically) to what you
have read. Your work is relatively coherent and your writing is relatively free of technical errors
(i.e., relatively free of syntax, punctuation, and grammatical errors).
C/C- Your work is adequate, but not exceptional in any way. Your work may be relatively
coherent but lacks a critical (i.e., thoughtful and analytical) component. Your writing contains
several technical errors.
D/D- You submitted work, but it’s too short to develop ideas, or way off the point, or technically
so sloppy as to interfere with my ability to understand what you have to say.
F You failed to submit the required work.
Grade distribution
A (100-94%) B- (80-83%) D+ (67-69%)
A- (90-93%) C+ (77-79%) D (64-66%)
B+ (87-89%) C (74-76%) D- (60-63%)
B (84-86%) C- (70-73%) F (<60%)
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Course policies:
Academic misconduct:
Plagiarism is when you copy someone else’s work and words and pass it off as your own. For
example, you cannot “cut and paste” text from any sources (e.g. book, article, report, instructor’s
lecture notes, newspaper, websites etc.) without proper attribution.
Plagiarism is a serious violation of academic integrity and will be prosecuted in accordance with
university policies and procedures as set out in UWS 14. The standard penalty for plagiarism in
this course will be a failing grade (F) in the course. The instructor will also report academic
misconduct to the University. For information on UWM’s policies on plagiarism: