Methodology

There are methodological and ethical issues in researching such a topic. People do not always like being treated as an object, many black people have been especially disadvantaged by so called scientific approaches to race, many single parents are stigmatized for “their behaviour” I am no different, so this may explain the reticence of some friends when I turned the spot light on our lives. I found developing the links with organizations and individuals in order to undertake extensive personal research on this topic was not possible within the time available. I wrote to an extensive number of relevant organizations, but only a couple responded and none of this correspondence developed into co-operation, despite having links with some of the organizations. I meet with some People in Harmony members at their Annual Meeting, some one from Intermix at the launch of Cabarello’s research at the South Bank University and Helen Barrett of the Family and Parenting Institute, with whom I used to work; all of whom were interesting but none of which led to integrated work.

I researched how to develop a questionnaire (http://www.surveysystem.com/sdesign.htmn) and developed a prototype questionnaire for use with parents and their offspring. (Appendix B) I also took from Katz (1996) and Gauntlett’s (2005) work some of the questions included. Katz for instance asked about three key events in a person’s life as this gave a clue as to that person’s concept of their life story and Gauntlett noted that identifying with someone may be indicative of a healthy sense of self. I liked the colour that these questions brought to my study for instance one of the parents choose Martin Luther King, and her earliest media memory had been Daktari, while my son choose Jimi Hendrix for his personality and his “racial” mix.

As I could not get many participants I used this original questionnaire to develop a more general questionnaire that was put out of Monkey Survey. With a free survey one is limited to ten questions. Although the participants were confidential some where done by friends and from their feedback I knew that not all the questions were as clear as they could have been, and I had a similar problem with my more specific questionnaire for instance some correspondents were not confident of what was meant by media. With regard to the Monkey Survey also most of them were not from single parent families so their evidence complemented my research, rather than informing it, but it was interesting to see how the internet can be used to generate research questionnaires. (For further details see Appendix C) I also used some of these questions with some South American students who now live with their families in the UK.

As I was unable to organize a workshop specifically with my original target group, I organized a workshop on a related topic, “Has Obama’s Election Changed African Caribbean Media Representation” during Black History Month in Haringey. This was a hugely emotional challenge, but the generous contributions of the participants enabled me to understand how powerfully let down by media representations many of them felt and how the few positive media images available in no way compensated for the mainly huge negative images that they felt the media purveys.(Appendix D)

I also undertook two extensive interviews with my son, again using the basic questionnaire established at the outset and built up a diary of our media use. (A copy of one is available on Appendix E along with an interview with a single parent and her mixed daughter.) But in addition to my reading, and these interviews, my main tool has been the introspective participatory observation work done on myself via the practical project. My practical project used media technologies in conjunction with more traditional craft based technology to develop an image of me looking up at my son. I am wearing a mix of African and western clothing that has been embedded with media images. In my hand I have a laptop, which references, the film of the interview that I have yet to edit and there is also a book of pictures of my son, juxtaposed with nuggets of theory.

So my self directed learning has enabled me to engage with a range of ideas. My practical project allowed me to mull over my experiences, express my experiences and compare my experiences with other studies and my findings are a synthesize of this process. The process has been facilitated by the use of new technologies such as online research, and photoshop and editing, and given the huge expansion of young mixed British people and mixes elsewhere has relevance as a case study for both the UK and elsewhere.