The End of the Dream: Postmodernism and Qualitative Research

Abstract

This article revisits the use of postmodernist theory in qualitative research in education and related fields, where such ideas remain consigned to the “fringe”—or worse. What are the grounds for this ongoing refusal of “postmodernism”? How is postmodernism useful in our research and teaching? In this article, four senior women academics of various backgrounds, one or more of us identifying as Indigenous, Immigrant, White, Colored, monolingual, bilingual, trilingual, and so forth, join forces to unpick what postmodernism offers us, and why it is still denied in mainstream academic circles. We focus on this question in the context of teaching research methods in the doctoral curriculum.