Conversational interviews. As previously stated, I conducted 14 conversational interviews with the young people (see appendix A and B), 6 with parents (see appendix C) and 5 with Hoshūkō teachers (see appendix D). The interviews with the young people ranged from 20 to 59 minutes in length, the interviews with parents ranged from just over 45 minutes to 4 hours and the interviews with the teachers ranged from just over an hour to 2 hours. In total this was approximately 30 hours of recorded interviews. As I did not receive permission to conduct interviews in Hoshūkō buildings they took place in various locations: the informants’ homes, my home, university foyer, university classroom, university café/bar and in hotels in both London and Cambridge. I chose to interview the young people for many reasons. The conversational interviews allowed me to listen to their own interpretations and thoughts because the interviewees could ‘speak in their own voices and with their own language’ (Xxxxx, 2004, p. 182), which was predominately English with some Japanese words (cultural concepts) inserted. I listened to their voices rather than relying on the interpretations of other adults (Xxxx and Xxxxxxxxx, 2002). They allowed me to discuss topics which were salient to their lives (ibid). In addition, I chose to interview some parents and teachers to supplement the accounts of the young people. I obtained some insider information about what it means to be a parent of a young person attending Hoshūkō and the workings of Hoshūkō (see chapter 5). However, I am not claiming to provide real ‘facts’ about their social worlds (Xxxxx, 2004), rather it is ’one possible version of the social world’ (Xxxxx, 2004, p. 182). In other words, ‘it is a particular representation or account of an individual’s views and opinions’ (Xxxxx, 2004, p. 182). I felt I collected accounts of what the interviewees felt was important to their lives and how they wanted to represent their lives which was made possible through the use of conversational interviews. In the research methods literature, the term conversational interview (Xxxxxx, 2006) does not seem to be widely used. Some of the preferred terms include: ethnographic interviews (Xxxx, 2001), qualitative interviews (Xxxxx, 2004; Xxxxxx, 2002), or just simply interviews (Xxxxxxxxxx and Xxxxxxxx, 2007; Holstein and Gubrium, 2004). However, Xxxxx (1984, p. 226) and Xxxxxxxxx and Xxxx (2010, p. 44) believe that an (ethnographic) interview is a conversation. I feel that the wor...
