Elegant Communications: Sharing Qualitative Research with Communities, Colleagues, and Critics

Abstract

This article examines possibilities for qualitative evaluations within the federal government’s narrow context of research as articulated in the No Child Left Behind Act and the National Research Council’s Report on Scientific Principles for Education Research. Through vignettes from qualitative evaluation studies, the following questions are addressed: (a) What is quality in qualitative evaluation? (b) How do we communicate with multiple audiences in ways that are engaging and convincing? (c) What role do emotions play in the work of qualitative evaluation? Despite calls for “scientific objectivity,” emotions are at the core of quality educational research. Emotions as responses to power and status dynamics within social relations puts emotions work at the center of evaluation research in schools. Qualitative researchers are challenged to broaden narrow views of educational research through continuing to demonstrate how well, through attention to emotions and through elegant explanations, qualitative methodologies respond to the complexities of school life.