Re: the biographies of quals and quants

Eva Ekeblad (eva.ekeblad who-is-at ped.gu.se)
Wed, 19 Nov 1997 21:29:51 +0100

At 12.04 -0500 97-11-19, Jay Lemke wrote:
>Are mathematics and quantitative
>reasoning so detested in our schools, our society at large, and even in our
>intellectual and academic culture, because the only forms of them that are
>safe enough to permit into wide social distribution are those that are
>rote, dehumanized, and anti-intellectual?

Jay, could you please re-phrase this as if it were the systemic effect of
the ordinary and mostly well-intentioned but very possibly blundering
actions of actual human beings... there may well be the sort of conspiracy
you sketch, but in that case I've never been let in on it...

=2E..sigh... I find the sort of mathematics you guys are talking about
absolutely fascinating -- and I don't mean as entertainment but as a
hopefully generative tool.

BUT I cannot help getting frustrated by this discussion, where it is only
people who are currently known as skilful quant craftsmen OR previously
trained as physicists or mathematicians who contribute... and there's a
scattering of these little dewdrops about inadequate students, sorry,
students with inadequate maths training (cos they probably had inadequate
teachers).

Can a dropout from secondary school who took refuge instead in the textile
arts... without ever making a career there either... who MUCH later, after
mothering two kids, got trained as an elementary teacher and then ended up
as a qualitative researcher... -- this is where I get a coughing fit --
nah, sorry, I just felt the need to do this career striptease and yet say
something. After all, I spent my first years as a researcher programming
computers :-/

Anyway, the original issue was something entirely different, if I remember
correctly. Mike asked for xmca-ers who were currently in some way
integrating individual and collective levels in their research, a few
people (Phil and Martin and??) responded with some really interesting
ongoing stuff -- which, as Mike has already noted points to practice as
much more than a field for data collection: a basis for methodology he
suggests.

To my understanding a researcher who works like Martin can be immensely
useful to the community he's working with/in: the basket coach armed with
theory and a perspective slightly from the side but very close to the
action, and definitely on the side of his team. And... I don't doubt,
either, that this kind of work can be written up for Academia and
contribute to the theoretical, methodological and substantial development
of the field. Am I wrong in supposing that this means you have to be
working on "parallel texts", Martin?

Eva