Page 24 - TWO OF A KIND • Erik Renkema

CHAPTER 1
5. Method
5.1 Qualitative study
In order to answer our research question we designed qualitative research methods. In qualitative research, the researcher uses a “naturalistic approach that seeks to understand phenomena within their own context-specific settings” (Gray 2014, 160). For our context of cooperation schools and their teachers and principals, we have opted for a qualitative study rather than a quantitative approach; “through intense contact” (Gray 2014, 162) with the subject, we can discover and explore views, beliefs and motivations of the respondents. Hardly any research has been done so far on this specific subject. Therefore, it is important to study the group closely and concentrate on their perspectives on educating children and on their practices of religious education. As Gray (2014) points out, it is an important objective of qualitive research to gain information about the perceptions of the participants. A qualitative study, based on a variety of empirical instruments, is most suitable to explore these perceptions and values in depth. In order to achieve our aim of generating new knowledge about coherence between school values and the practice of religious education, or the lack thereof, we need to find out how teachers “act and account for their actions” (Gray 2014, 162). We want to “make routine features of everyday life problematic” (Silverman 2013, 15). This insight provides us with information that can foster their practice. The phenomena we try to understand are the practices of religious education and the values that motivate the practice of cooperation schools.
Our curiosity about the values of the schools and the coherence between those values and religious education within the plural setting directed our “typical case sampling” (Gray 2014, 217/218) of the selected schools. This kind of sampling process meant that we selected schools with distinctive characteristics: throughout our research, all the primary schools in the target group needed to be the result of a merger between a public school and a nongovernment school. In selecting teachers, we used purposive sampling (Gray 2014). The study of their values and their practices made it possible to reach our objectives. In this choice, we used intensity sampling as well as homogenous sampling. Intensity sampling delivers “information-rich cases that can provide detailed information” (Gray 2014, 218) in our research on the values of teachers and coherence between those values and religious education. We describe the
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