What is it about?
A transformativist mixed-methods approach provides stronger research outcomes due to the integration of both qualitative and quantitative measures of research design, data collection, mixing paradigms to confront and resolve contradictory assumptions and philosophical stances, and constant movement between qualitative inductive and quantitative deductive logical reasoning to make meaning of complex social processes and adaptive challenges.
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Why is it important?
Events of 2020 as a result of the death of George Floyd and COVID-19 pandemic have brought to the forefront several of the issues that the United States in particular and the entire world have struggled with, including racial inequities and inequalities in healthcare delivery, the so-called systemic racism, and police brutality, among several other social injustice issues. As a result, several organizations, including corporations, educational institutions, and professional and academic societies, have released statements supporting the Black Lives Matter Movement, creating antiracism slogans and statements, and calling for a clear and transparent approach to institutionalizing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs. There has been an increasing level of scholarly discourse around these issues mentioned above. Still, it is fair to say that there is also a dearth of empirical studies of these issues.
Perspectives
A transformativist approach requires research designs that are conscious of power, privilege, and oppression while enabling and elevating the voice of research participants. Enablement requires a change in how power is distributed and enacted on interpersonal, institutional, and communal levels. There are also ethical necessities that must be taken into consideration with respect to the recognition of cultural norms, human rights, and other social justice issues. Deciding on what to investigate and the research questions, hypotheses, and the overall research design are acts of leveraging power. Thus, power imbalances and the ways power is appropriated must be challenged in the conduct of HRD research. Privileging researcher-enabled decision-making may introduce researcher bias, which is likely to counter the social justice goals the researcher may deeply care about.
Prof. Robert M Yawson, PhD
Quinnipiac University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Transformativism: A paradigm whose time has come, Human Resource Development Quarterly, January 2021, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/hrdq.21422.
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