Emancipatory Phenomenology Applied to a Child Sex Offender Study

Alexander demonstrates how to apply the emancipatory-phenomenology method with the Van Kaam technique using a constructivist research ideology. As discussed in chapter 4 (research method) the emancipatory research method has been titled advocacy, social advocacy, or participant advocacy, and it is similar to action research except that the focus is purely on less advantaged individuals (as a group). This topic could present additional challenges for doctoral students and organizational researchers because the participants are often drawn from protected groups. The unit of analysis when using this variation of the phenomenology method is usually the “socially advocated problem” or the “extent of social advocacy for the problem.” This generalizes to other people in the community (generally practitioners) although it could also be generalized to researchers so as to motivate them to continue to investigate the phenomenon. The level of analysis is usually a group or community (within-group), although it could also be an individual (such as exploring the perceptions of rape victims so as to improve social policies). With the emancipatory or social advocacy method in a constructivist ideology, the researcher draws the meaning of the data or phenomenon from the community.