Silence as a Source of Information in Qualitative Research

Exploring Silence in Qualitative Research

Voice, and the art of active listening, have long been fundamental to feminist practices of consciousness-raising and theory building (DeVault & Gross, 2007; Jackson & Mazzei, 2009; Luke, 1994). The privileging of voice in traditional qualitative research assumes that voice reflects meaning that can be recorded and categorised as data. Presenting overlooked voices was, and remains, a feminist response to the rigid categories of humanisms voiceless, statistical and assumed ‘neutral’ stance. This has led to efforts in feminist and other critical research frameworks to ‘give’ voice to others, particularly those who have been marginalised, and to valorise the authenticity of voice in qualitative research. Representing others has not been straightforward, however, with some noting that in the hope of ‘giving voice’ to those who have been voiceless, researchers are ‘implicated in the process of speaking for others’ even ‘potentially silencing them’ (Kirsch, 1999, p. 46). Disrupting traditional ways of knowing and the way in which power operates highlights the significant link between knowledge, power and methodology. Inspired by critical feminist researchers who call for an ontological shift from what silence is to what silence is doing (see, for example, Jackson & Mazzei, 2009; Lather, 1991; Luke, 1994; MacLure, 2009; St. Pierre, 2009), this paper considers methodological practices that capture meaning beyond words and advances the potential of silence in research.

The epistemological, ontological and methodological concerns of feminist research are rooted in struggle. Within research, this struggle manifests in challenging knowledge that appears to include through exclusion. An example of this is in assuming that when we speak of the generic term men, we also mean women for what must be true for dominant groups must also be true for all others (Hesse-Biber & Piatelli, 2007). In assuming that when we speak of language, we include all that is not said, for what must be true in all that is ‘said’ must also be true for all that is unsaid. To apply this thinking to methodology requires being attentive to presence within an absence. Asking new questions of theory and praxis is also significant for research fields beyond feminism and narrative research. For instance, in visual research, the message of a picture is determined by its frame, and consequently also by what it is not showing or keeping silent (Schweiger & Tomiak, 2022). As many scholars agree and as Hesse-Biber and Piatelli (2007) point out, ‘…there is not one way, but many ways of knowing’ (p. 503). This is further supported by Code (2008) who states that ways of knowing within qualitative research ‘do not hold uniformly across the epistemic terrain’ (p. 295). Many feminist scholars have focused on silence as an integral part of meaning making. Whilst one of the most ambiguous of linguistic forms, silence is where power enters a narrative. As part of a broader discussion on listening, voice and representation, silence has been considered to be at the boundary of speech; a speech act that does not easily reflect meaning nor can easily be recorded or categorised as data. Against this backdrop, there has been no attempt to interrogate silences within the context of relationships and sexuality education (RSE) in Ireland. Silence within RSE has yet to be considered as an entry point for multiple forms of power to play out. As noted by Mason and Sayner (2018), considering multiple silences in motion is particularly useful for delineating different elements of silence: silence at an individual level and at an institutional level; silence as a form of prosocial behaviour, as resignation, and as fear. This paper seeks to explore silence as socially constructed and as offering rich new insights in knowledge building that may explain lingering silences in sexuality education in Ireland.

The Complexity of Silence

Understanding silence is nuanced. Silences can be understood as beneficial and a welcome relief from a busy day. In poetry, silences can be eloquent and impactful. Similar in style, silences can have theatrical power, as evidenced in silent vigils and minutes of silence (Schweiger & Tomiak, 2022) and in John Cage’s famous 4 minutes and 33 seconds piano composition (1952) (see, for instance, Cooke & Dingli, 2019). Scholars in the academic discipline of communication have long understood silence to be on a continuum of speech. Jaworski (1992) explains how one can decide to remain meaningfully silent, which allows those listening to come up with an interpretation of this silence. Others consider silence to be the opposite of speaking out and has traditionally been understood as a sign of avoidance, powerlessness, weakness or shame. Speaking out, by contrast, is commonly accepted as a powerful political move. Equally, silence, too, has a power that is clearly evidenced when someone who is expected to speak remains silent. The power of silence can further be utilised as a form of resistance that enables exclusionary and inexcusable practices. Houston and Kramarae (1991) note that silencing is used ‘to isolate people disempowered by their gender, race, and class…’ (p. 388). For instance, the real and symbolic silencing of women is evident across philosophical, literary, legal, popular cultural, and social science discourses (Luke, 1994). Adrienne Rich (1978, p. 18) has named some of the tragic and destructive forms of silencing that women experience such as denial and omissions. These forms of silence have occurred through institutionalised and legislated processes. Marriage Bars, a legal requirement for women working in certain occupations to leave that job upon marriage, were not unusual internationally. As noted by English legal theorist Sir William Blackstone, and cited in Gottfried (2013, p. 49), ‘…the very being and legal existence’ of women was ‘suspended during marriage’. Women were not considered speaking subjects; were silenced in the public sphere and exiled to the private sphere. In a research context, silence is not obvious and regularly runs the risk of not being heard. For this reason, feminist researchers are keenly aware that listening to silence is a skill that requires a shift in thinking. This is particularly true of the features of speech that reside ‘at the boundary’ of language such as silence, as MacLure (2009) notes. A pivot is required as researchers tend to be bound up by the language of humanism (Butler, 1995) and deeply entrenched in the metaphysical of presence (St. Pierre, 2009). Simply put, seeing is believing and we come to know the world and ourselves under a description. This leads to understandings of silence as a void. From this perspective, silence is everything that voice is not and is often erased from the meaning-making process. This paper understands silence as a speech act that speaks, as Ehrenhaus (1988) phrases it, that should be understood as ‘a complex and rich social space’ (Vinitzky-Seroussi & Teeger, 2010, p. 1104). This paper continues with an exploration of how the researcher’s positionality and silences inform the research process from design through to representation.

Researcher Positionality and Silence

Researcher positionality, the worldview and position that a researcher adopts about research and its context, is a core aspect of inquiry (Reich, 2021). The researcher’s beliefs, values, frames of reference and interests involve ‘a complex relationship between us as individuals, our communities and the cultures of which we are a part.’ (Weiner, 1994, p. 10). Lather (1991: xvii) draws attention to this when stating that researcher positionality ‘shapes our rhetoric and practice’. Haraway (1988) famously stated that there is no view from nowhere, which further underscores the researcher as a variable in the research and meaning-making process. Researcher positioning includes characteristics such as age, bias, beliefs, gender, race, personal experiences (Berger, 2013) and are informed by culture, history, patriarchy and society, among others. It manifests as an entanglement that facilitates the researcher in silencing themselves and their participants in subtle and unique ways. As a white Irish female researcher, I was silenced by a stigma, whether real or perceived, that accompanies researching sex and sexuality (Ryan-Flood & Gill, 2010). A strong sense of moral etiquette governs issues of sex and sexuality in general (Moore, 2010), and particularly in Ireland where education is heavily influenced by denominational ethics and ideals (Fahie, 2017). Collectively, this informed how I designed the research studies from the choice of questions asked to data analyses and to representation decisions I made. There is an additional complex interplay of expectations, and of sexual and gender ideologies in education (Clancy & O’Sullivan, 2020) that lay out a limited range of appropriate and legitimate feminine and masculine sexual behaviours, contexts and goals (Grose et al., 2013). I felt this strongly when asking male teachers questions related to sex and sexuality. I omitted questions I would have liked to have asked teachers in both studies but declined. This may be due to the broader social context of patriarchy that unfolds, through traditional sexual scripts and gender ideology, as masculine superiority and agency and feminine passivity (Grose et al., 2013). Building on this point, my positionality was as an ‘insider’ and an ‘outsider’ in both research studies. This is relevant, as noted by many feminist methodologists including Ribbens and Edwards (1998), Harding (1991), Hesse-Biber (2014), Lather and Smithies (1997) and Jackson and Mazzei (2012), as it plays a pivotal role in informing the research design. I was ‘within’ as I am part of the same academic world as the teachers in the study. Yet we inhabit distinct roles in that world: Administrative Principals, Assistant Principal, substitute teacher, a retired teacher, and a third-level education researcher. We differ from one another in terms of age, gender, and sexualities that collectively place me as an outsider of that world. The interplay of gender, moral etiquette, and dominant sexual ideologies in education impact who is heard and who is silenced through research design, questions posed, analysis and representation.

The researchers’ positionality, the researcher-researched relationship, the complexity of voice and the politics of representation have long been central issues in feminist inquiry and theorised by feminist researchers such as DeVault and Gross (2007); Haraway (1988); Hesse-Biber (2014); and Lather (1991). On the one hand, we are never just researchers just doing research (Wilkinson & Wilkinson, 2023). On the other hand, all researchers, not only those who research sex and sexualities, enter the field as sexual as well as gendered beings. Sanchez Taylor and O’Connell Davidson (2010) note that dwelling on the ultimately unknowable effects of a researcher’s social identity seems to somewhat downplay the skills involved in conducting research. Butler (1995) observes that we do not know all the reasons that operate on us. Similarly, Harding (2007) believes that we are never able to understand what we are doing since we lack the historical long view and the source of our collective fears, interests, preferences and desires. Butler (1995, p. 116) speaks of ‘a subject with a history’. Truth is not something the researcher has but is something that is based upon the researcher’s history and relationship with the world. These entanglements and conundrums are worthy of continued interrogation as they inform researcher positionality, prompting researchers to be more reflective, self-critical, and sensitive in interactions with participants and in considering what gets heard and what remains silenced.

Research Design Overview

This paper draws on the silences that emerged from two separate research studies carried out in different years with different research questions and objectives. The first study explored the professional lives of a cohort of male primary school teachers in Ireland (O’Keeffe, 2022; 2018). The second study spoke with teachers and sought to support teachers’ professional learning in the curricular subject called Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) in order to enhance overall pedagogy in that subject area (O'Keeffe & Kennon, 2024). Both research designs employed a feminist episteme-ontological approach and a Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodological approach. Both studies were analysed separately. Themes surfaced separately in each study. The overlap of silence then emerged. A voice-centred relational method of data analysis (Mauthner & Doucet, 1998) was used when analysing both studies. This method of data analysis is based on The Listening Guide, or Listening Method, developed by Carol Gilligan (1982). This approach to analysis places an emphasis on listening, reading the data four times, each time with a different focus. This disallows a focus on macro coding. It recognises the centrality of relationships, and that natural and cultural experiences are bound up in larger relational dynamics. Overall, this method of data analysis is concerned with the processes of reflection and decision making. A feminist episteme-ontological orientation was takento disrupt traditional ways of knowing through its commitment to studying the ‘lived experiences’ of gender (Pillow & Mayo, 2007, p. 161). Feminism places the personal being at the centre of one’s enquiry, creating rich new meanings and highlighting concerns of boundaries, identities, tensions and omissions in stories that are recalled and retold. Taking a feminist approach means that research studies do not seek to uncover generalizable characteristics to draw conclusions about the larger population. Instead, the most information-rich cases are selected to enable further investigation. Ethical approval was obtained from two separate university ethic committees as the research took place separately and in different years. Informed consent was requested and obtained from all participants. No overtly identifying information was requested of participants, strict confidentiality was observed throughout each discussion and the limits of confidentiality were also explained. Each study will be briefly explained in more detail below. They are presented in the chronological order that they took place.

Research with Male Primary Teachers

This study sought to explore the lived experience of male primary teachers (O’Keeffe, 2022). It was implemented through a contextual and interactive approach to knowledge-building. The research design was qualitative in nature and incorporated many sources of data collection such as interviews, field notes and post interview researcher reflections. This study consisted of three interconnected yet distinct rounds of interviews. The categorizing of data collection into three phases enabled methodological self-reflection and interactive relationships to develop between researcher and researched (Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2011; Rapley, 2011). As research approaches inherently reflect ‘our beliefs about the world we live in and want to live in’ (Lather, 1991, p. 51), an important feature of the research design was the participants’ response to preliminary descriptions of the data.

Research with Teachers

This study was a collaborative project between academics and primary teachers in an urban Irish primary school (O'Keeffe & Kennon, 2024). It involved the co-construction of a new school framework in Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) and aimed to support, through dialogue and the co-construction of knowledge, teachers’ confidence and competence in the provision of Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE). A survey was given to all staff members. A number of staff members self-selected to take part in two rounds of focus group discussions. Those who partook in the focus group discussions were diverse in age, gender, and years of teaching experience. They also varied in terms of the class or grade that they taught. The focus groups were asked questions such as, are there any particular areas in RSE that you have decided not to address with your class? Do you think that the school has any weakness and/or gaps in teaching RSE? Do you have any suggestions for how to enhance the school’s teaching of RSE? Findings were presented to all staff and later informed policy updates in relation to RSE provision in that school.

Conceptual Framework

Van Dyne et al.’s (2003) conceptual framework emanates from an exploration into the dynamics of voice and silence in organisations that acknowledges and supports the multidimensional nature of both. Van Dyne et al.’s (2003) framework explores silence using three distinct sub-categories that distinguish the different dimensions of silence. They are acquiescent, defensive, and prosocial silence. The uniqueness of this conceptual framework lies in its focus on the motives behind each silence. The framework illustrates that intentionally withholding information, opinions and ideas are not necessarily the absence of voice but may indicate resignation, fear, or cooperation. The framework describes three forms of silence: acquiescent, defensive and prosocial. Acquiescent silence is understood as purposeful inactive behaviour as an employee believes that speaking up is pointless or they may consider themselves incapable of speaking up due to low self-efficacy assessments. Silence here is the result of resignation. Defensive silence is underscored by personal fear that, in this case, acts as a form of self-protection. Prosocial silence is motivated by concern for others and is understood to be the withholding of ideas, thoughts, information and/or opinions with the primary intention of benefiting someone or something, be that a co-worker or an organisation. Acquiescent and Defensive silence are discussed in further detail in the Findings section.

Encountering Silence

Primary teaching has traditionally been framed by commonly held assumptions about gender. These assumptions have ‘sometimes been articulated but more often left silent’ (Bryson, 2014, p. 123; Weiler & Middleton, 1999, p. 2), rendering them even more difficult to address. Exploring the lives of a cohort of Irish male primary school teachers illustrated how silent assumptions have had a strong impact on male primary teachers’ daily lives and those considering teaching as a career. Silent assumptions include, among others, the correlations between men and bodies; men and care; men and children, and men and work. An association between the feminine environment and the male body indicates something unusual or strange in our mind’s eye. This is largely due to a taken-for-granted relationship between male bodies and masculinities. If we consider men’s bodies and destructive work to be ‘proof of the toughness of the work and the worker’ (Connell, 1995, p. 36) then feminine conduct combined with a male body ‘is felt to be anomalous or transgressive’ (Connell, 2000, p. 12). Nevertheless, discussions about men, sexuality and children remain ‘cloaked in silence’ (King, 1998, p. 119). Silencing certain perspectives or unwanted elements of sex and sexuality facilitates shame in operating as a regulating emotion that serves to conceal and expel (Gray, 2006). Shame is a public emotion, an affective reaction, that follows public disapproval of a perceived shortcoming.

Silence also emerged when exploring the area of relationships and sexuality education (RSE) in Irish primary schools. Along with the lingering historical silence that surrounds sexualities in the Irish curriculum, silence hung in the air when I spoke with teachers. Teachers noted feeling silenced when teaching RSE and in answering pupils’ related questions. Teachers noted the absence or ‘silence’ in the curriculum in relation to inclusivity. Silence was disrupting and irrupting the process of knowledge production as I knew it. Coming up against a metaphorical brick wall was frustrating and tiring, for them as practitioners and for me as a researcher. At first, I understood silence as a failure on my part, an oversight in the research design and a burden that I had no solution to. Language has been accepted as ‘the stuff of reality’ and the ‘mediating function between knower and known’ (Barad, 2007, p. 133) and so I was tempted to abandon the ‘thin’ data this research area was yielding. Yet, I knew that this absence, as I understood it then, conveyed a powerful message. Lather (2010, p. 94) considers the merger of knower and known to be the ‘grok’, an informal verb meaning intuitive understanding, that makes ‘an entangled understanding’ that goes ‘beyond language’. I was intrigued as to how best to capture the complexities of the unspoken within the limits of qualitative research. Because of the significance of listening to and hearing the perspectives of those who have traditionally been ignored, marginalised and silenced in research, feminist researchers are attentive to gaps, to focusing on moments when speech seems to faulter and on catching unspoken meanings in exchanges (For more, see DeVault & Gross, 2007). Conceptualising silence as having functional value is consistent with Van Dyne et al.’s (2003) framework that suggests that silence and voice should not be viewed as polar opposites.

Findings

The findings presented here explore what silence is saying and doing from two vantage points: acquiescent and defensive silences. It draws on the conversations that took place during individual interviews with Irish male primary teachers in one study, and with teacher focus group discussions in the second separate research study with teachers about Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) provision. The findings are merged thematically and presented using Van Dyne et al.’s (2003) framework. This paper explores silence using two types of silence from this framework: acquiescent and defensive. Foucault’s theories (1977; 2006) coupled with Deleuze and Guattri (1992) are used as aids to think about what was not being said, and to uncover power at play. Foucault’s description of power (1977) and ‘microprocess’, which are understood here as the everyday details of normal working life that appear neutral and taken for-granted (Martin & Meyerson, 1998), are referred to throughout the findings section. In doing so, this troubles the enduring presence of silence and reveals how it infiltrates ways of being and doing, in human and non-human entities. A Deleuzian lens assists in understanding how silence operates, who it operates for, and how it is maintained. A pivotal message throughout the findings discussion is that silence is not located within any one place. It emerges in many forms from many places and is socially constructed and maintained through social interactions.

Theme 1

Theme 2

Discussion

Conclusion

Socially, politically, economically, and technologically turbulent environments insist on methodologies that reflect the cultural and social world as mobile (Büscher, Urry & Witchger, 2010), changing and open-ended (Lury & Wakeford, 2012, as cited in Coleman & Ringrose, 2013, p. 1) and messy (Law, 2004, as cited in Coleman & Ringrose, 2013, p. 1). Lather (1991, p. xvi) states that we live in ‘worlds full of paradox and uncertainty’ where ‘close inspection turns unities into multiplicities … univocal simplicities into polyvocal complexities’. Just as there are ‘many passions in a passion’ and ‘all manner of voices in a voice’ (Deleuze & Guattri, 1992, p. 77), the responsibility is on qualitative researchers to reconsider their vantage point as researchers, to question allegiances to tried and tested ways of presenting data, to challenge previous ways of knowing, and to consider processes rather than products. Exploring silence is rich in opportunities for future qualitative research to shine a light on the motives, decision-making processes and power underlying silence as a choice and as a productive force. Doing so through a philosophical lens extends future possibilities even further.