On the Subject of Interpretive Reviews

When Beth Graue asked me to consider kind of tool an interpretive review might be, I thought I was doomed. I appreciated that Graue, as the associate editor of Review of Educational Research (RER), wanted to rethink the purposes of review articles in light of non-experimental, non-survey approaches to educational research. I thought it was admirable that she hoped to expand the importance, credibility, and usefulness of reviews by referencing the defining ideas of different research traditions, including interpretivism. Her intentions seemed worthwhile and laudable. After all, how would educational research get better if people didn't produce or read reviews of previous work? How could readers make good sense of studies under review if those readers weren't familiar with the scholarly tradition in which the studies were done? But beyond thinking of summaries or meta-analyses of interpretive studies, I wasn't at all sure I knew what it meant to produce an interpretivist-oriented review, nor what I might write about such a thing that wouldn't put readers to sleep. As if review articles themselves weren't dull enough, what could I do with a 'review of reviews'? Cautiously, I began with the idea that an interpretive review should be consistent with the spirit of interpretive scholarship. Of course, this meant clearly defining that spirit and thinking through its implications for a research review. About this time, I remembered that Graue also told me to keep my discussion short. I had my challenge. At the same time, I happened to be reading practice interviews done by student ethnographers in my Ethnographic Research Methods class. One of the interviews was conducted with a young graffiti writer, whom I'll call O. His statements startled and intrigued me; in my reaction to them, I saw a way to represent the spirit of interpretivism. Let me quote briefly from the interview.