Writing the Research Proposal

(This is the real reason I am here to blog. The previous post was a surprise. Somehow there was a post inside me bursting to come out. Writing is so special and mysterious in that sense.)

I have been struggling to put together two almost disparate ideas - patriotism and rituals. Yes, they look very related. But every time I write the proposal, they come up that way, as two separate topics requiring two separate research methods. M mentioned that I need to connect them. But I didn't know how. I was uncomfortable with that, but I thought, that's the best I have for now.

Then, two days ago, I attended a Research Proposal Workshop by Dr Anneliese. I am so indebted to her. She helped me with the article I submitted to the practitioner journal. I went up to her after the workshop to thank her for her help and let her know the article would be out soon. And I told her I have changed my PhD topic and told her about patriotism and ritual. And again she said I have to be careful that I'm not doing two separate studies. She gave me an example that it could be that I have to look at both what teachers think and what they actually do. And this can unite the two separate topics.

So I went to bed with this puzzle. How I am going to resolve this puzzle...

There was a construct that I really liked called "nationalistic education". I have always wondered why so few others studied this. Not surprising if you understand the current academic climate. I actually don't fit into the mainstream academic tradition that I "grew up" with. That for another day. Just to give a clue, I am fascinated by emotions, rituals, all things spiritual... And when I woke up and got out of bed, nationalistic education was in my mind.

I did a mindmap to capture some ideas I had. Nationalistic education will be the umbrella under which I would place patriotism and commemorative events. I will think twice about making ritual a key concept of my study also... So I wrote... That it is important to study nationalistic education, because so much of our education involves stuff like flag-raising etc, yet the topic is so controversial... Why so controversial? There is no consensus on what patriotism is... and how to cultivate it... So we need to explore how teachers think of patriotism and also look at how they use commemorative events to instill it.

YES! So for now, there is some coherence.

Can you see the changing face of my research proposal?

I'm going to sound crazy but the PhD is fun because of how things change like this... It's changing to become more coherent. :)

Still using two methods but at least now there is some coherence above the methods level...