Learning Journal #20

I first want to start off with a plug to GO SEE ASHLEY!! Seriously fellow "prep course" students, she was EXTREMELY helpful! (and plus, she's a delight to talk to)

Anyways, it is because of Ashley that I was able to think more clearly of what I imagine my days to be like, and what I will be looking for on a day-to-day basis. In order for your metholodigies to work, you must know WHAT you are looking for. And I think I finally figured out what I'm looking for:

I want to know how dance provides an environment for promoting nationalism. In other words, what about a dance party makes people identify more with being a Ghanaian? What about the atomsphere in which dances are learned disconnects students from their ethnic identity? It is these questions that I should be asking, and those connections that I should be looking for.

This train of thought led me to think about my interviews... what questions I want to be asking, who I will be interviewing, and where they will take place. I decided that FOCUS GROUPS would be really beneficial for gathering data about the environment that dance creates. Thanks to Kim (who went to Ghana three Falls ago), I now know I can/should go to the high schools to find my focus groups. It is in these focus groups that I'll be able to do my free listings as well!

For my general interviews, I realized that I need to be thinking more about what data I want and then forming my questions around that, as opposed to the other way around.


Needless to say, my metholodigies continue to take shape the more concrete my theories become.