International Summer School 2019

Dr. Liying Cheng is Professor and Director of the Assessment and Evaluation Group (AEG) at the Faculty of Education, Queen’s University. Her primary research interests are the impact of large-scale testing on instruction and the relationships between assessment and instruction. Her seminal research on washback focuses on the global impact of large-scale testing. Liying conducts the majority of her research within the context of teaching and learning English as a second and foreign language (including immersion and bilingual contexts). Since 2000, she has obtained research funding totalling 1.7 million Canadian dollars. In addition, she has conducted more than 220 conference presentations and has more than 140 publications in top-tier journals including Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Assessment in Education, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, and Teaching and Teacher Education. Her recent books are Assessment in the Language Classroom: Teachers Supporting Student Learning (co-authored with J. Fox, Palgrave McMillan, 2017); Language Classroom Assessment (single-authored, TESOL English Language Teacher Development Series, 2013); English Language Assessment and the Chinese Learner (co-edited with A. Curtis, Taylor & Francis, 2010); Changing Language Teaching through Language Testing (single-authored, Cambridge University Press, 2005); and Washback in Language Testing: Research Contexts and Methods (co-edited with Y. Watanabe with A, Curtis, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004).

From 2007 to 2011, Dr. Andy Curtis was the Director of the English Language Teaching Unit at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a professor in the Faculty of Education there. Prior to 2007, he was the Executive Director of the School of English at Queen’s University in Canada, and a professor at the School for International Training in the USA. He is currently teaching online within the Graduate School of Education at Anaheim University, California, USA. From 2015 to 2016, he served as the 50th President of TESOL International Association. In 2016, he received one of the Association’s 50-at-50 Awards, when he was voted one of the Fifty Most Influential Figures in the Field, over the last 50 years. He has published more than 100 articles, book chapters and books, including Learning About Language Assessment: Dilemmas, Decisions, and Directions(2015, National Geographic/Cengage Learning), co-authored with Kathi Bailey. He is the editor of a nine-book TESOL Press series ELT In Context(2015-2017), and the editor of a five-book series, Applied Linguistics for the Language Classroom (2017, Palgrave Macmillan). The ALLC series includes his book on Language Teaching Methods and Methodologies. Recently, he has been identified as a pioneer in the new field of Peace Linguistics.

Dr. Thaddeus Müller is a senior lecturer at the Law School of Lancaster University (criminology) and has had positions at the University of Amsterdam, the Erasmus University Rotterdam and the Rotterdam Academy of Architecture and Urban Design. Thaddeus Müller is an active member of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction (vice-president) and its European counterpart. He has researched a range of topics, such as, the criminalisation and regulation of cannabis, the public realm (the warm city), the Ajax Amsterdam-hooligans, the marginalization of ‘ethnic’ youth, the social construction of safety in public spaces, transgression in the rock/pop-world, academic fraud and defaulting homeowners  ‘fighting Wall Street’. Within these themes, he is especially interested in the effects of stigma/labelling, and resisting stigma/labelling (and its effects) through the construction of empowering (counter-)narratives. He has published in a wide range of international journals, such as Symbolic Interaction, Critical Criminology and The British Journal of Criminology.  He has also published articles on ethnographic research and has been teaching qualitative methods for over 25 years.

Four examples of  his most recent research are 1) cannabis, 2) transgression and resistance in the rock/pop-world, 3) defaulting homeowners  ‘fighting Wall Street’ and 4) academic fraud.

His comparative international cannabis research involves the implementation of cannabis policies of countries such as the Netherlands, the UK, the United States and Canada. In 2016 and 2017 he has have done explorative ethnographic research on cannabis shops in the US (legal) and Canada (then illegal).

Rock/pop stars form rich cases to study and understand transgression. Because of their celebrity status there is ample (biographical) data on the transgressions of rock/pop musicians, such as Lou Reed, Kurt Cobain, Whitney Houston, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison. It is his aim to explain their transgressions by relating it their life histories and by using themes such as stigma, self-medication and commodification.

He is involved in a study on how defaulters, person who stopped paying their mortgages, try to prevent the foreclosure by bank(s) who are using fraudulent means to seize their houses. He has done research since spring 2017, which resulted in 40 interviews in Florida.

He has been researching on academic fraud, which specifically concerns Diederik Stapel, a social psychologist who published at least 55 articles in top tier journals which were completely made up. This ongoing research resulted in interview data with Stapel of over ten hours.

Suggested Bibliography

If you want to know something more about our teachers:

1. Cheng, L. & Fox, J. (2017). Assessment in the Language Classroom: Teachers Supporting Student Learning. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
2. Cheng, L. (2015). Framing and defining your research project. In J. D. Brown & C. Coombe (Eds.), The Cambridge Guide to Research in Language Teaching and Learning (pp. 39-45). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
3. Bailey, K.B. & Curtis, A. (2015). Learning About Language Assessment: Dilemma, Decisions, and Directions. Boston, MA: National Geographic Learning.
4. Curtis, A. (2015). Presenting your research project. In J. D. Brown & C. Coombe (Eds.), The Cambridge Guide to Research in Language Teaching and Learning (pp. 265-271). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press
5. Müller, T. (accepted, 2019). Foreclosure, Fraud, Injustice, Stigma and Empowerment. The fight of Gabor Nagy. In: Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Volume 51. Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
6. Müller, T. (accepted, 2019) ‘Cultural criminology and its incitement for symbolic interactionism: Transgression, marginalisation, resistance and media in the wider context of power and culture in late modernity’. In: (ed.) Michael Hviid ‘Critical and Cultural Interactionism London: Routledge.
7. Müller, T. (accepted, 2019) ‘Jack Douglas and the reinvention of society and sociology. Creative deviance, the construction of meaning and social order’.
8. In: (eds.) Chris Conner Forgotten, Neglected, and Misrepresented Social Theorists Lanham, Maryland: Lexington.
9. Müller, T. (2018). “You Are Not Allowed to Be Here…”: Ethnography of Rejection, Shame, and Hurt., pp. 127-132. In: (eds.) Steven W. Kleinknecht, Lisa-Jo K. van den Scott and Carrie B. Sanders Hans Nelen and Dina Siegel. The Craft of Qualitative Research: A Handbook. Toronto: Canadian Scholars
10. Müller, T. (2017) “Governmental Cannabis Naiveté.”, pp.445-457. In: (eds.) R. Staring, R. van Swaaningen and K. van Wingerden.Over de muren van stilzwijgen. Liber Amicorum Henk van de Bunt, Amsterdam: Boomcriminologie.
11. Van de Bunt, Henk & Thaddeus Müller. (2017). “The Bankruptcy of the Dutch Cannabis Policy: Time for a Restart,” pp. 11-23. In: (eds.) Hans Nelen and Dina Siegel. Contemporary Organized Crime. Development, Challenges and Responses, Cham (Switzerland): Springer.
12. Müller, T. (2016), Saved by Rock ‘n’ Roll: Lou Reed, His Fans, and the Becoming of the (Marginal) Self, in Christopher J. Schneider , Joseph A. Kotarba (ed.) Symbolic Interactionist Takes on Music (Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Volume 47) Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.1 – 20
13. Müller, T. and Fischer, T. (2015) ‘Feeling unsafe in a Multicultural neighbourhood: Indigenous Inhabitants’ perspectives’, British Journal of Criminology, 55(4), pp. 790–810. doi: 10.1093/bjc/azu113.
14. Müller, T. (2015) ‘Moral entrepreneurship revisited: Police officers monitoring Cannabis retailers in Rotterdam, the Netherlands’, Contributions from European Symbolic Interactionists: Reflections on Methods, , pp. 139–157. doi: 10.1108/s0163-239620150000044007
15. Müller, T. (2014), Chicago, Jazz and Marijuana: Howard Becker on Outsiders. Symbolic Interaction, 37: 576–594. doi:10.1002/symb.119
16. Müller, T. (2013). In praise of ethnography: Towards a rich understanding of crime and deviance. Kriminologisches Journal, 45(2), 144-159.
17. Müller, T. (2012) The Empire of Scrounge Meets the Warm City: Danger, Civility, Cooperation and Community among Strangers in the Urban Public World. Critical Criminology, 20 (4) 447-461.
18. Whiteman, G., Müller, T. & Johnson, J. (2009) Strong emotions at work. Qualitative Research in Organization and Management: A International Journal, 4 (1) 46-61.

I International Summer School on Grounded Theory and Qualitative Methods

6 – 10 June 2016, Pisa

The Department of Political Sciences, University of Pisa, invited to attend the International Summer School on Grounded Theory and Qualitative Methods, under the sponsorship of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction (SSSI).

They were pleased to introduce to the most renowned scholars in the Grounded Theory – Qualitative Research traditions, coming from U.S. and European Universities, learn and live for some days in a historically rich, stimulating and welcoming town.

It was a five-day, intensive course mainly devoted to introducing participants to Grounded Theory and Qualitative Methods with a practical approach and with the aim to giving answer to questions such as “how to do research”, “how to collect, analyse and interpret qualitative data”, “how to write a research report” basing the results on the findings.

CONTENTS OF THE SUMMER SCHOOL

Qualitative researchers often experience common problems such as getting lost after collecting and coding data, overlooking possibilities for developing their ideas, and producing disjointed and mundane reports. Grounded Theory methods help you expedite analyzing your data and writing your report. This Summer School focuses on improving your skills in using Grounded Theory strategies to help you increase the incisiveness, clarity, and creativity of your work. These school will help you retain the flexibility of Grounded Theory while furthering the conceptual depth and scope of your analysis. We will emphasize how to (1) develop and recognize powerful codes, (2) engage in comparative analysis, (3) strengthen your emergent conceptual categories, and (4) integrate these categories into a coherent and compelling report, (5) satisfy quality in qualitative analysis, (6) communicate your findings and (7) deal with CAQDAS to improve your analyses. We will also address the fit between Grounded Theory and Symbolic Interactionism and how the method and perspective complement each other.

The Summer School best served participants who were in the midst of a qualitative research project or had engaged in qualitative coding for an earlier study, whether or not it was a Grounded Theory study.

It was a free, multi-platform, simple software to learn how to support analysis with computers; furthermore, each day was reserved a special room to freely speak and discuss about our own experiences in qualitative research, in special sessions called Group work and “participants’ corner”.

Teachers:

Kathy Charmaz is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Faculty Writing Program at Sonoma State University. In the latter position, she leads seminars for faculty to help them complete their research and scholarly writing. She has written, co-authored, or co-edited fourteen books including Good Days, Bad Days: The Self in Chronic Illness and Time, which won awards from the Pacific Sociological Association and the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction. Professor Charmaz has served as President of the Pacific Sociological Association, President and Vice-President of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction, Vice-President of Alpha Kappa Delta, the international honorary for sociology, Editor of “Symbolic Interaction”, and Chair of the Medical Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association. She has received the 2001 Feminist Mentors Award and the 2006 George Herbert Mead award for lifetime achievement from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction. She lectures and leads workshops on Grounded Theory, qualitative methods, medical sociology, and Symbolic Interactionism around the globe.

David Altheide, PhD, is Regents’ Professor Emeritus on the faculty of Justice and Social Inquiry in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University, where he taught for 37 years. His work has focused on the role of mass media and information technology in social control. His most recent books are Media Edge: Media Logic and Social Reality (Lang, 2014), Qualitative Media Analysis (2nd edition, Sage, 2012) and Terror Post 9/11 and the Media (Lang, 2009). Dr. Altheide received the Cooley Award three times, given to the outstanding book in Symbolic Interaction, from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction; the 2005 George Herbert Mead Award for lifetime contributions from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction, and the society’s Mentor Achievement Award in 2007. In fall 2012 he was a Fulbright Specialist in Germany (Zeppelin University) and a Distinguished Research Professor in Australia (Law Faculty, University of New South Wales).

Andrea Salvini, PhD, is Associate Professor of Methodology of Social Research at the Department of Political Sciences, University of Pisa. His main research interests deal with processes of data analysis, especially in qualitative methods and Grounded Theory. On these topics he has published his last book, Percorsi di analisi dei dati qualitativi (Utet, 2015). He devoted more than ten years to theoretical and empirical research on voluntary organizations and social network analysis (SNA) on which he wrote several articles and essays, such as Symbolic Interactionism and Social Network Analysis. An Uncertain Encounter (2010), Volontariato come interazione (2012). In 2010 he organized the first european conference of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction and he is now the President of the EUSSSI Board.

II International Summer School on Grounded Theory and Qualitative Methods

The Institute of Education, Vytautas Magnus University and The School of Social Researcher in collaboration with the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction (SSSI)

We are pleased to introduce you to the most renowned Scholars in the Grounded Theory – Qualitative Research traditions, coming from European Universities, learn and live for some days in a historically rich, stimulating and welcoming town of Kaunas (Lithuania). It will be a five-day, intensive course mainly devoted to introducing participants to Grounded Theory with a practical approach and with the aim to giving answer to questions such as “how to do research”, “how to collect, analyse and interpret qualitative data”, “how to write a research report” basing the results on your findings. Join us at the Summer School and be an active learner in our classes and in our collaborative groups. Meet interesting people and discuss topics of your own interest concerning qualitative methods and how to give answer to your daily research problems.

Why Grounded theory?

A Grounded theory is a research method that will enable you to: develop a theory and explanation about the main concern of the population of your substantive area and how that concern is resolved or processed. Being new to Grounded theory the onus to understand the methodology and the various versions can be daunting.  Learning and understanding the differences between Grounded theories methodologies can be as much a learning of one’s own research philosophy and this philosophy is often the deciding factor in methodology selection (Gary L. Evans, 2013). Learning the Grounded theory methodology is challenging, but very interesting journey. Grounded theory is a research tool which enables you to seek out and conceptualise the latent social patterns and structures of your area of interest through the process of constant comparison. Initially you will use an inductive approach to generate substantive codes from your data, later your developing theory will suggest to you where to go next to collect data and which, more-focussed, questions to ask (Walsh et al., 2015). For a lot of students, researchers, scholars and scientists Grounded Theory is used to describe a qualitative analytical method, where they create a coding framework on the fly, from interesting topics that emerge from the data. However, that’s not really accurate. There is a lot more to it, and a myriad of different approaches. Basically, grounded theory aims to create a new theory of interpreting the world, either when it’s an area where there isn’t any existing theory, or you want to challenge what is already out there. An approach that is often overused, it is a valuable way of approaching qualitative research when you aren’t sure what questions to ask. However, it is also a methodological box of worms, with a number of different approaches and confusing literature.

Why it is worth attending the ISSGT 2018?

Qualitative researchers often experience issues such as getting lost after collecting and coding data, overlooking possibilities for developing their ideas, and producing disjointed and mundane reports. Grounded theory methods help you expedite analyzing your data and writing your report. This ISSGT 2018 focuses on improving your skills in using Grounded theory strategies to help you to develop creativity skills and to increase the clarity in your research design and its implementation. Studies in the ISSGT 2018 will help you retain the flexibility of Grounded theory while furthering the conceptual depth and scope of your analysis.

We will emphasize how to: develop and recognize powerful codes, engage in comparative analysis, strengthen your emergent conceptual categories, integrate these categories into a coherent and compelling report, satisfy quality in qualitative analysis, communicate your findings.

It will be an intensive course devoted to working with Grounded theory with a practical approach and with the aim to giving answer to questions such as “How to do the Grounded theory research?”; “How to collect, analyse and interpret qualitative data n Grounded theory research?”; “How to make the visualisation-based Grounded theory?“; “How to incorporate social medias into Grounded theory research?”; “What is the contemplative Grounded theory?”; “How to write a research report based on a Grounded theory?” and etc.

Who are invited to be applicants of learning community in the ISSGT 2018?

The ISSGT 2018 invites to apply the researchers, PhD students, scholars and scientists who already have acquired their PhD’s and are working with qualitative methodologies or still have not chosen the “right” methodology in their research-based scientific path. All the study process will rely on learning, discussing, practicing, creating. Representatives from the social, humanitarian, health and technology sciences are particularly encouraged to participate in ISSGT 2018.

What you will learn attending the Summer School?

Research Design. Build an incisive research design in Grounded theory, basing on the “constructivist” version. Use “sensitising concept” to guide your research and run theoretical sampling.

Collect and Analyse. Using interviews to collect data; collecting and analysing data; initial coding, memoing, categorizing. Develop and recognize powerful codes; engage in comparative analysis.

Visualize and Interpret. Strengthen your emergent conceptual categories; visualize data to support interpretation and comparation; understand theoretical saturation. Use visual grounded theory.

Theory Building. Integrate categories into a coherent and compelling theory; write a research report; satisfy quality in qualitative analysis; communicate your findings.

Who are teachers in ISSGT 2018?

Key teachers: the most renowned scholars in the Grounded theory in Europe – Qualitative Research traditions, professors, coming from European Universities: Tony Bryant (Leeds Beckett University, UK), Krzysztof Konecki (University of Lodz, Poland), Andrea Salvini and Irene Psaroudakis (University of Pisa, Italy), Michael Dellwing (University of Kassel, Germany), Thaddeus Muller (Lancaster University, UK).