Collaborative practice research: Inequality in school as an example

This chapter discusses contradictions and opportunities for innovation in qualitative research, using research on inequality in schools as an example. Based on a conceptual discussion of the historical aspects of everyday life, this study explores schools as a social practice in which many participants live their everyday lives in situated interaction with each other and constitute conditions for one another’s conduct of everyday life. An exploration of the social situations of school life is presented as a means for analysing the connections between political conflicts in and about school, personal conflicts in everyday life and unequal conditions for participating in school life. Qualitative methods can expand understanding of these connections. The chapter discusses some of the methodological challenges qualitative psychology faces, especially in the relationship between researchers and those involved in the research questions in practice, but also in relation to conceptual development, situated generalisation and more practical guidelines for research collaboration and fieldwork. The aim is to contribute to the development of language, concepts and methodology regarding qualitative psychology. The aim is to contribute to the conceptual framework of qualitative research in psychology with a focus on how to analyse conditions experienced by those involved in the research issues as well as how to organize research processes as a collaboration between the persons involved transcending traditional divisions between engaging in everyday social practice and engaging in research.