Using a multiple perspectives framework: a methodological approach to analyse complex and contradictory interview data

In this article I describe how a multiple perspectives framework drawn from the field of social work informed my analysis of interview data obtained from Australian preservice teachers who had gone on an international study trip. One incident recounted differently by three separate interviewees meant that the sometimes-similar and sometimescontradictory ‘tellings’ provided multiple perspectives of a particular incident in relation to one case study participant. These perspectives made possible a variety of readings of the incident and also facilitated greater insight into the nature of the relationships between the participants. I suggest that multiple perspectives research, with its emphasis
on relationships, could be useful to education research that aims to present detailed finegrained study of the complexities of lived experience. It offers researchers systematic ways to compare and contrast different perspectives, to identify silences and to build rich and thick descriptions of people in and of social contexts.