Preparations
We’ve begun packing up the house for the year in Spain, selling things on Craigslist, giving things away, making lists of new owners for our belongings.
If only preparing my study were as straightforward. Instead I spend day after day mucking around, reading, writing, talking with people, but not feeling like I make real progress.
The main thing keeping me from being excited about the year away at this point is not knowing what my project is going to look like. I work every day, but don’t finish anything. And yet, yesterday as I talked with a former student of my adviser about my dissertation dilemmas, I felt closer.
The challenge is there are so many decisions to make. Which discipline I’m most closely aligned with, since education is multidisciplinary (sociology, some political science, I think)? Which one or two theories to use (assimilation/integration, social networks, boundaries, policy implementation…)? How to sample? Whether to focus more on immigrant students or teachers of immigrants (have decided the students I think)? Two cities or one in Spain (depends on the research questions)? And the list goes on…
Any thoughts?