ABSTRACT
Research in the eld of educational studies can be artistic, creative, and spontaneous, but, for the sake of ongoing usefulness, it also requires a purpose and a degree of rigour. The metaphor of the microscope that I use here recognizes that educational research has grown out of and challenges scienti c traditions. Part of the rigour in research lies in developing and clarifying the concepts that anchor an inquiry and are used in making sense of phenomena under investigation. Borrowing from the physics of the optical microscope, I discuss the central concepts of my inquiry in this chapter. In many dissertations, this chapter would refer to “theoretical framework”; however, I avoid that phrase because I think that, as I discuss in the following chapter, the theories that are brought together to “frame” an inquiry are evident in the inquiry’s ontology, epistemology, and methodology, as well as in its anchoring concepts and the analysis, which comes later. Over the course of my doctoral program, understanding and attending to the interrelated processes of conceptualization, methodology, and theorization in this way has helped me organize my thoughts and develop my inquiry.
