This entry follows through on the preceding one in which I endeavour to clarify distinctions between the theoretical approaches offered in WPR, RTA (Reflexive Thematic Analysis) and CFA (Critical Frame Analysis). To begin I offer a summary of the key points raised in the preceding entry and, at the end, I consider a way to combine approaches that may prove useful. I refer you also to the Research Hub entry on 23 December, 2023, entitled: “Oops, I said ‘themes’: WPR and RTA (Reflexive Thematic Analysis)”. 

The key distinctions among approaches can be tackled through three interconnected discussion points:

First, the kinds of assumptions interrogated;

Second, approaches to knowledge;

Third, approaches to materials used in analysis.

First, the kinds of assumptions interrogated:

Alvesson and Sandberg (2013) usefully identify contrasting “levels of analysis” in academic theorising based on the kinds of assumptions they examine. They mention five kinds of assumption but for our purposes I zoom in on the contrast between “in-house assumptions” and “field assumptions”. 

Put simply, “in-house assumptions” are those accepted by the discipline (e.g. psychology, economics, etc.) within which you find yourself. Alvesson and Sandberg offer the example of “trait theory” in psychology. Someone who wishes to question the traits commonly assigned a leader, for example, still accepts that it is a worthwhile project to examine something called “leadership traits”. Trait theory is taken for granted; it is not questioned. 

By contrast, if a researcher examines “field assumptions” the whole notion of a “trait” would come up for questioning. What does it mean to assign “traits” to people? What assumptions about human psychology underpin the notion of “trait”? These are the sorts of questions that would be raised in Foucauldian-influenced analysis. Hence, such analysis questions “field assumptions”. 

WPR operates at the level of “field assumptions”. Question 2 specifies the need to identify the epistemological and ontological presuppositions underpinning identified problem representations – e.g., the meanings required for something called a “trait” to exist. By contrast, RTA appears to work at the level of “in-house assumptions”.

Consider, for example, how “evidence” is treated. As an in-house assumption, “evidence” informs the use of coding, commonly adopted in RTA studies. The premise is that bits of knowledge can be identified and labelled, and henceforth manipulated for research purposes. 

WPR, on the other hand, challenges the whole idea of “evidence” – therefore it works at a different level of analysis – at the level of questioning deep-seated assumptions or field assumptions such as “evidence”. I hope you can see how disagreements about the level of analysis that is required prove problematic in blending WPR and RTA.

Second, approaches to “knowledge”: 

Closely related to the first discussion point, WPR brings a sceptical approach to “knowledge”. This scepticism becomes clear if we consider the analytic strategy it endorses. As a commencing premise in that strategy, WPR makes the case that: what one proposes to do about something indicates what is identified as needing to change and hence what is deemed to be problematic (“the problem”). The analysis therefore starts from what is proposed (e.g., recommendations, aims, implied goals, etc.) with the argument that it is possible to “work backwards” from proposals to identify what the “problem” is represented to be (problem representations). I use the example of training programs for women to illustrate this argument:  if training programs for women (to increase their representation in positions of influence) is the proposal, the “problem” is represented to be women’s lack of training.

While this point may not appear at first glance to advance the discussion in a useful manner, WPR proceeds to interrogate this proposition. To open identified problem representations to critical scrutiny, we examine the “knowledges” they rely upon (Question 2 in WPR). Note the plural use of “knowledges” instead of common references to “knowledge”. The whole point of the analysis is to question taken-for-granted knowledges commonly accepted as true. 

For example, training programs for women accept and work within assumptions that “training” increases “skills”. These “in-house” assumptions, associated with developmental psychology, provide the grounds for the proposal. Challenging this reliance on psychology as a form of “truth”, in WPR, the assumed “knowledge” of “psychology” becomes something to question as one form of (competing) “knowledges”. 

By contrast RTA offers a psychological theory. Its very premise is the usefulness of psychology as an approach to knowledge. We can see this premise operating, for example, in the work of Byrne (2022) who examines “opinions” and “attitudes”, a fairly conventional psychological approach. For WPR “opinions” and “attitudes” are “field assumptions” that require questioning. 

Closely related to these different approaches, how the “subject” is conceptualised in RTA, as a being with “attitudes” and “opinions”, sits in sharp contrast to the position on “subjectification” in WPR. On the RTA side, we see a version of a sovereign subject with “attitudes”; on the WPR side we work with a provisional subject produced in practices (Bacchi and Goodwin 2016, pp. 30, 40). 

Third, the kinds of material used: 

RTA relies on interviews and focus groups as offering access to “opinions”. As in the point just covered, this research approach presumes subjects as kinds of being who express “views” that reflect an interior consciousness. By contrast, as just noted, WPR adopts a Foucauldian perspective that questions the sovereign subject presumed in RTA. Hence, for WPR researchers, there is a need for a new approach to interviews as research materials. 

In the Appendix to Poststructural Policy Analysis, Jennifer Bonham and I (2016) develop an approach to interviews as research materials that builds on the theoretical premises informing WPR. Called Poststructural Interview Analysis (PIA) it highlights the meanings that need to be in place for certain statements to be possible. As in WPR, the focus is on underlying conceptual logics and taken for granted assumptions in interview texts rather than on a presumption that interviewees can access the “truth” of their experience. 

A possible way forward

Researchers who turn to RTA in their WPR analysis tend to want to find a way to engage large amounts of material. The common focus in WPR studies on a single piece of legislation or report as a starting point for the analysis seems to miss the opportunity to provide a wider picture of relevant texts. I should note that in Analysing Policy (Bacchi 2009: 20) I point out that “It is often, even usually, necessary to examine related texts … to build up a fuller picture of a particular problem representation”. I still find this approach useful (Bacchi 2023) but remain open to other suggestions for bringing WPR to large bodies of material. In this spirit, I introduce the innovative study produced by Stoor et al. (2021) on suicide among the Sami. 

The authors started their analysis from “proposals” in a large number of texts (40) and “work backwards” to identify problem representations – providing a highly effective example of WPR as analytic strategy. Their 40 texts produced 40 different, but related, problem representations. They proceeded to organise the material in a useful way. They introduce five categories to refer to more specific kinds of problem representation. The proposals to “address” suicide cluster around these five themes, “pertaining to shortcomings on individual (5), relational (15), community/cultural (3), societal (14) and health systems levels (3)”. 

The suggestion in this example is that it may be possible to apply the theory first (ask the WPR questions) and subsequently to organise the identified problem representations into “themes” (using a version of RTA). Here we need to remember that themes capture “some level of patterned response or meaning” (Braun and Clarke 2021: 341). Clearly, Stoor et al.’s five categories offer five forms of explanation for suicide among the Sami that emerged in their material: they found representations that problematised individual behaviour, relational situations, community/cultural factors, societal factors and the problematisation of health systems. 

This useful organisation of the material by these five themes is not the only possible organisation. By producing supplementary material, Stoor et al. keep open the possibility that problem representations could be clustered in some other way. Hence, they refuse to impose one true meaning on the material, instead acknowledging the complexity of the situation. This willingness to embrace ambiguity and contingency results in a thought-provoking analysis.

Conclusion

I realize there may be pressures applied to research students and other researchers to produce analyses that can be described as “rigorous” or “systematic”. Large bodies of material, coding and “themes” appear to fit the bill. The goal is commonly described as “producing new knowledge”. The poststructural stance associated with WPR questions “knowledge” as assumed “truth”, referring instead to “knowledges” as plural conceptions of “truth”. I believe it is necessary to reflect on these contrasting perspectives in any attempt to bring together WPR and some other theoretical framework. 

References

Alvesson, M., & Sandberg, J. 2013. Constructing research questions: Doing interesting research. London: Sage.

Bacchi, C. 2009. Analysing Policy: What’s the Problem Represented to be?Frenchs Forest: Pearson Education.

Bacchi, C. 2023. Bringing a ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ approach to music education: a national plan for music education 2022, Music Education Research, DOI: 10.1080/14613808.2023.2223220 .

Bacchi, C. and Bonham, J. 2016. Appendix: Poststructural Interview Analysis: Politicizing “personhood”, in C. Bacchi and S. Goodwin, Poststructural Policy Analysis: A Guide to Practice. NY: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 113-122.

Bacchi, C. and Goodwin, S. 2016. Poststructural Policy Analysis: A Guide to Practice. NY: Palgrave Macmillan. 

Braun, V. & Clarke, V. 2021. One size fits all? What counts as quality practice in (reflexive) thematic analysis?, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 18:3, 328-352, DOI: 10.1080/14780887.2020.1769238 

Byrne, D. 2022. A worked example of Braun and Clarke’s approach to reflexive thematic analysis. Quality & Quantity, 56: 1391-1412. 

Stoor, J. P. A, Eriksen, H. A. and Silviden, A. C. 2021. Making suicide prevention initiatives targeting Sámi in Nordic countries. BMC Public Health, 21:2035. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-12111-x