1. Ollman’s Dialectical Method in a Critical-Pedagogy Study
Elizabeth Visedo, Ph.D. Independent Scholar
ICQI 2015 – Sat078

2. Bertell Ollman
Professor of Politics at New York University
Teaches dialectical methodology and socialist theory. Expert in Marxism.
University of Wisconsin BA in Political Science (1956) MA in Political Science (1957)
Oxford University BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (1959) MA in Political Theory (1963) PhD in Political Theory (1967)
Authored
Dance of the Dialectic: Steps in Marx's Method
Dialectical Investigations
Alienation: Marx's Concept of Man in Capitalist Society
Social and Sexual Revolution: Essays on Marx and Reich
and other books.
Ollman, B. (2008). Why dialectics? Why now? In B. Ollman & T. Smith (Eds.), Dialectics for the new century (pp. 8-25). Basingstoke, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan. Retrieved from doifinder/ /

3. The Study Theoretical Framework: Critical Pedagogy
Design: Multicase study
Three cases
Snowball selection
Spanish-English bilinguals
Classified Limited English Proficient
high achievers: GPA > 3.01
Data sources (all online)
Blogs
Interviews
Artifacts
Purpose
describe and explain the participants’ perspectives on their biliteracy journeys to become educators in the US
Questions
What elements constitute their perceptions
Key factors
Relevance of their experience to become educators
Impact of technologies, if any

4. Ollman’s (2008) Dialectical Method
Ontological Moment
to perceive reality, “an infinite number of mutually dependent processes that coalesce to form a structured whole or totality,” (p.10)
Epistemological Moment
to organize thinking for understanding, “opting for a philosophy of internal relations and abstracting out the main patterns in which change and interaction occur” (p. 10)
Moment of Inquiry
to find the relations among parts, “where, based on an assumption of internal relations among all parts, one uses the categories that convey these patterns as aids to investigation” (p. 10)
Intellectual Reconstruction
to bring those parts back into a whole, “where one puts together the results of such research for oneself” (pp )
Exposition
to explain the facts taking into account how others think and what they know and “one tries to explain this dialectical grasp of the ‘facts’ to a particular audience” (p.11)
Praxis
“based on whatever clarification has been reached, one consciously acts in the world, changing it and testing it and deepening one’s understanding of it all at the same time” (p. 11)

5. Application of Ollman’s (2008) Dialectical Method
Ontological Moment
Epistemological Moment
Moment of Inquiry
Intellectual Reconstruction
Exposition
Praxis
Total immersion in the data
Organization of the data
Categorization of the patterns as representations
Synthesis according to interpretation
Member check and negative case analysis
New data collection

6. Ontological Moment = Total Immersion in the Data
Meticulous reading of blogs and interview transcriptions, and consideration of artifacts
doing the transcriptions
Familiarity with what was said, when, and how
Attention to paralinguistic features
back to the audio while reading the transcriptions
paying attention to:
Language choice
Word choice
artifacts
Context and background
Choice among others

7. Epistemological Moment = Organization of the Data
Identification of emerging patterns
Data coding
Highlighting
Color coding
Comments
Data-coding trustworthiness
Triangulation of investigators
Critical friends
Auditors

8. Moment of Inquiry = Categorization of Patterns
Emerging patterns categorized as representations of the participants’ perspectives
Meaningful  expressive & potent
Relevant  appropriate & applicable
Useful  convenient & practical
Triangulation of data, through
Time
Space
Participants

9. Intellectual Reconstruction = Synthesis
Researcher’s interpretation based on
Triangulation of methods
Multiple methods of data collection

10. Exposition = Member Check & Negative Case Analysis
Interview transcripts and audio
On-going interpretations
Case drafts
Negative case analysis
Triangulation of theories
Final exposition phase after saturation
Exposition = Discussion

11. Praxis in the Study Methods
Additional data from member checks
Contradictions
Ambiguities found in negative case analysis
Exceptions
Implications for future research and educational practice
Praxis in Educational Practice and Research