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Note on the Listening Guide Method The Listening Guide method (Gilligan et al. 2003) was used for collecting and analyzing all interview data during both phases of this research. Our research team originally chose this method because it is specifically designed to explore such issues as participants ’ experience of relationships, multiple layers of knowledge or awareness about these relationships, and the “central relational paradox” (Miller and Stiver 1997), as described in the Introduction. With its roots in feminist relational psychology, the Listening Guide is particularly attuned to capturing the experiences of individuals from socially and politically subordinate groups, those whose voices have historically been silenced by and within predominantly white, male, heterosexual societal structures. The interview protocols consisted of thirty-four questions in Phase I and thirtyfive questions in Phase II. In keeping with Listening Guide methodology, however, items in the protocol were used only as a starting point for the actual interviews. The content of the interviews was instead determined largely by “the lead of the person being interviewed and discovering in this way the associative logic of the psyche and the constructions of the mind” (Gilligan et al. 2003, 158). The interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim, with both utterances and pauses noted. The interviews were then analyzed in keeping with the Listening Guide’s four steps, as outlined briefly here: 1.  The first step in the analysis is to determine the “plot” or story of the interview . This step is in many respects like other forms of qualitative analysis, except that a traditional coding system is not used. Instead, using extensive text marking and memo writing, the researcher tracks her or his observation of relevant facts, dominant themes, pauses, omissions, and contradictions, as well as personal reactions to the interview (Gilligan et al. 2003). 2.  The second step involves a close, specific examination of the participant’s first-person or “I” statements. After highlighting all of the first-person 178 Note on the Listening Guide Method statements in an interview transcript—the pronoun I plus the associated verb and related words—the researcher lines them up like the lines of a poem to note patterns, rhythms, and shifts in voice of which the participant may or may not be aware (Gilligan et al. 2003). For example, a participant’s “I” statements might be clear and direct when discussing one relationship or relational context and equivocal or tentative when talking about another. 3.  The third “listening” involves an analysis of the “contrapuntal voices” (Brown and Gilligan 1992, 26) that emerge in an interview. The notion that the human voice is made up of multiple voices in counterpoint is based on psychoanalytic theories about the “layered nature of the psyche” (Gilligan et al. 2003, 157). This step consists of listening for, naming, and tracking different “voices”—verbal expressions of particular attitudes, feelings, or aspects of the self—in an iterative way (Gilligan et al. 2003). This step is in a sense a form of coding, with the concept of voice used as a “contextualizing strategy” (Maxwell 1996, 79). Like the “I” statements analysis, however, it is intended to yield subtextual data about the participants’ experiences, beyond what they state explicitly. 4.  In the fourth step, the researcher examines all three prior “listenings” and interprets them in the context of each other, noting where they both support and contradict one another. Working from the three marked transcripts for each interview as well as numerous memos and summaries written at various points in the analysis, the researcher then writes an overall analysis of each interview participant’s narrative, focusing particularly on the ways in which her or his “voices” both emerge and fade as she or he discusses key relationships and experiences. ...

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