Page 292 - Mike Ratner CC - WISR Complete Dissertation - v6

of understanding which was used to “discover the meanings of interactions observed in [one or

more deliberative dialogue] situations” (Kools et al., 1996). The following narrative details the

dimensions that comprise the core aspect intrinsic to dialogue groups (participant and facilitator)

and from the collective voices of the participants and facilitators together in a Community

Conversation. Using Schatzman’s (1991) explanatory matrix, the dimensions and associated

properties are presented as three separate explanatory matrix tables to make it easier for me to

demonstrate. Schatzman’s explanatory matrix uses five organizing elements to push the analysis

from thick description to conceptual explanations of what took place during the overall

Community Conversation experience as participants discuss difficult topics at hand to “discover

the meaning of the interactions observed” (Kools et al., 1996, p. 316).

The five conceptual components are perspective, context, conditions, processes, and (meta)

consequences or impacts. The primary conceptual component, perspective, represents the vantage

point from which groups of data, in the form of dimensions and properties, are ordered. At the core

of the analysis process are dimensions and properties. Dimensions represent an abstract concept

for understanding Community Conversations and, more generally, social situations and dialogue

associated conceptual quantitative or qualitative parameters (Schatzman, 1991) as defined by the

researcher or quantifies a research project that would undertake this sort of analysis.

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