CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

Introduction

My study’s design and methods drew upon and were influenced by the dissertation work of Kathleen Riley (2012), in which she and her participants formed a teacher inquiry community, like those described by Cochran-Smith and Lytle (2009) and Zeichner and Noffke (2001), centered on topics related to adolescent literacy education. My teacher inquiry community centered on topics related to adolescent music education. Both Riley’s (2012) study and mine spotlight social justice themes as an intentional catalyst for discussion as well as for potential outcomes. We utilized traditions of CBPAR (Campano et al., 2015; Kemmis & McTaggart, 2005; McIntyre, 2007) to facilitate implementation and data collection. Both our studies strove toward possibilities of transformation: the hope that our process would bring us to a personal and/or collective awareness of the central problems and questions in the teachers’ [our] work, an exchange of views that [might] help us to see the problems [and questions, or solutions] in a different light, and action in the form of changed practice and [or] public sharing of our work. (Riley, 2012, p. 39)

The kind of actions, I would like to stress, that ultimately have a positive impact not only on the teachers but also on the oppressed, disenfranchised, and marginalized students within their school setting and their communities.

I situated myself, and the other teachers, within this project as both researchers and participants – a kind of “research partnership” (Campano et al., 2015) in which we “jointly examine” (p. 31) and potentially jointly act within the realm of our investigations, reflections, discoveries, creations, and transformations. In the spirit of methodological responsibilities encouraged by critical pedagogy (e.g., Freire, 1970/2018; Giroux, 2011; Luke & Gore, 1992), I92 sought to involve participants as coinvestigators within the research (e.g., Campano, 2009), co-constructors of the findings and knowledge, co-conspirators in the action, and co-authors of the results and stories. At the same time, it was understood by my partners and collaborators that I would represent the group’s work in a single-authored public research report (my dissertation). While I was a co-researcher with the group, I also was the researcher of the group, and even of myself, as I am also a teacher with the potential for coming to see things differently.

Practitioner Inquiry and Community-based, Participatory Action Research

Both practitioner inquiry and CBPAR are operationalized in a manner that “arises from and informs local problems” (Riley, 2012, p. 43), co-constructs knowledge through partnership, collaboration, and dialogue, centers the role of the inquirer as a reflexive axis between researcher and researched, and challenges the “politics of conventional social research” (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2005, p. 560). Both research traditions disrupt various binaries – researcher/researched, facilitator/participant, leader/follower, observer/actor, subjective/objective, and even teacher/learner, both in terms of knowledge generation and of the acting on new knowledge. And both provide a formal but less-constrictive structure for bringing present problems and questions to the table, engaging in discussion about them, thinking about and perhaps trying out new solutions and strategies, reflecting on ideas and actions (e.g., McIntyre’s 2007 proposed iterative cycle of exploration, reflection, and action), and potentially experiencing transformation in some way. McIntyre (2007) described participatory action research as the active participation of researchers and participants in the co-construction of knowledge; the promotion of self- and critical awareness that leads to individual, collective, and/or social change; and the building of alliances between researchers and participants in planning, implementation, and dissemination of the research process. (p. ix)

Practitioner communities of inquiry and CBPAR place emphasis on the “dialogic process for problem-posing, which has the potential to impact people’s actions, relationships, values, and interpretations” (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2005). Below, I use these two research traditions to explore five important methodological characteristics of this study: practitioner and researcher roles, partnership and collaboration, action and “going public,” subjectivity, and ethics.

Practitioner and Researcher Roles

Practitioner inquiry and CBPAR call on us to expand the definitions of our roles as researchers and researched. Within this scope, and in some concurrence with Riley’s (2012) experience, I feel it is useful to document the multifaceted practitioner/researcher roles that I manifested.

Researcher

Primarily, and perhaps most importantly, I am a researcher. In the interest of making my positionality explicit, I must be a researcher in order to satisfy this very specific requirement toward receiving my doctoral degree in Educational Leadership (Ed. D.). Although I have participated in small-scale, classroom action research projects as part of my earlier master’s in teaching (MAT) program and degree, and in my teacher credentialing and induction programs, and therefore have some experience as a researcher, this has been my first research project of this scope, magnitude, and significance. As a doctoral student, and one who pursues freedom in creativity and prefers to disrupt rather than reinforce elite, “old guard” practices and the status quo (e.g., Brown et al., 2014), there have been guidelines I must follow, permissions and approvals I must seek, and deadlines I must meet. This is not unusual for a research project, of course, it is likely that all research projects have various types of controls, checks, and balances. On the upside, although I do not have a research team, per se, I do have a dissertation committee and chair, who have reviewed my work, who have offered invaluable knowledge, skill, encouragement, and support, and toward whom I feel immense gratitude.

Practitioner

Not only am I a practitioner, but specifically, I am a music educator. Since my research participants are also music educators, this has positioned me within, and perhaps has bonded me to, the practitioner community of inquiry I established. In at least some important ways, from the outset, I was already an “insider.” I brought my past and present music education and other experience into the study group, and I began the project with substantial understanding of, and empathy for, the group participants. As I reflect on this, I acknowledge that I brought some “outsider” stance as well, since every educator’s experience, situation, circumstances, and relationships are unique and in at least some ways differ widely from mine. For example, I have more in common with a medium-high socioeconomic area, mostly white elementary or middle school choir teacher, than a low socioeconomic area, predominantly BIPOC high school theater arts teacher. I have more in common with piano and voice teachers who have taught privately and in home studios than teachers who have never had those experiences. Some of the study group participants taught from within very different settings than I am familiar with.

Study Group Facilitator

The study group engaged in activities during the study group meetings, including readings, storytelling, discussions, and debates. As such, a certain amount of facilitation, topic selection, reading selection and distribution, and potentially mediation was required. I assumed this role at the onset of the project. I have practical experience as a facilitator, including from back in my information technology and systems analyst days in the corporate world – facilitating joint application development (JAD) sessions, data modeling, brainstorming, and reengineering project meetings between business leaders, software designers, programmers, and end users. In the context of CBPAR, Kemmis and McTaggart (2005) “problematize the role of ‘facilitator’ as more than merely a technical role, noting that not only are facilitators often practitioners in other contexts, but are also ‘animateurs’ of change, rather than simply technical advisors” (p. 570). This is true in my experience as well: when I was facilitating JAD sessions, for example, while I was very interested in what all participants had to contribute, I was indeed also advocating for what I considered to be positive change and improvement – I was not interested in maintaining things as they were. The facilitator is not a neutral player; the facilitator brings knowledge, skills, ideas, resources, “things learned,” and even activism from other contexts to the present context (e.g., Chen, 1990). As Riley (2012) felt, I felt myself, “enacting the role of an engaged facilitator who [has] strong beliefs and visions about [music] education” (p. 45). That said, I took care to be open to influences from within the group and even to unexpected surprises. Examples of unexpected surprises for me included how often the discussion expanded from music education to all education, and how involved music teachers were, or strove to be, in the broader affairs of their schools and school districts. When participants introduced new topics, told stories, or changed direction, I went with it. There was no rule about staying “on topic.”

Partnership and Collaboration

When our own deep questions and aspirations connect with an organization’s essence, community develops. Attunement to new learning communities, networks of relationships based on common aims and shared meaning, becomes both a strategy and an outcome for leaders. And there is nothing that limits this process to business. (Senge, 1990/2006, p. 307)

Both practitioner inquiry and CBPAR “foreground the collaborative, social nature of knowledge generation, emphasizing participants’ reliance on each other to expand and reform frameworks for understanding a problem or phenomenon” (Riley, 2012, p. 46). Collaboration both inspires and relies on trustworthiness, as “gaining multiple perspectives is a way to better understand one’s own unique position” (Riley, 2012, p. 46). Alcoff (2006, as cited in Campano et al., 2015) reinforced this stance, reminding us that collaborative partners must be “constantly engaged in the hermeneutics of learning from and alongside differentially situated others whose own cultural and experiential horizons inform our interpretive processes” (p. 34). Senge (1990/2006) described collaboration, or “networks of collaboration,” as “how people work together to create value and to create new sources of value” (p. 270). Cochran-Smith and Lytle (2009) talked about “overlapping” and “nested” inquiry communities relative to generating knowledge of practice. Riley (2012) discussed her inquiry community project in terms of whether and how her study group might be co-constructed, and “how co-construction would occur within our particular research context” (p. 46). I sought collaborative work, and envisioned co-construction as the ideal; I have always enjoyed working as part of a team, and I am very aware of the productive, generative, and even transformative potential of teams of people working toward a common goal. That said, when the stakes are high – as has been the case with my dissertation research study – there feels to be no better position than in charge. There were obvious potential tensions there whose influences were deliberated by thoughtful participation and active listening on everyone’s part, including mine.

Action and “Going Public”

The action of this CBPAR project was what we brought to the study group meetings, and what we brought back to our classrooms, to our students, to our schools, to our communities, and implemented within our teaching practices. A central tenet of CBPAR is that the project goals themselves are co-constructed by the research/participant team. The researcher may introduce a broad or general topic and identify key stakeholders and community partners, but then, ideally, the assembled team will “collaboratively identify the problem or issue” and “collaboratively craft a problem or issue statement” (Leavy, 2017, p. 226). As Riley (2012) pointed out, both practitioner inquiry and CBPAR are “concerned with changing existing conditions, not merely representing them” (p. 44); and while practitioner inquiry is primarily concerned with improving practice, CBPAR seeks “individual, collective, and/or social change” (McIntyre, 2007, p. ix).

As a group, we considered the possibility of “going public” in some way, such as writing a paper, an open letter, or presenting at a conference, but ultimately decided there was not enough time or interest. Following Riley’s (2012) example, my intention was to use this conception of action as going public as a jumping off point – a suggestion to the group as a potential actionable goal. Cochran-Smith & Lytle (1993, 2009) suggested that the public aspect of practice is an important component of the practitioner inquiry movement. Like Riley (2012), my greatest hope was that the project would lead to changes in practice – transformations – for both the participating teachers and I. Action, in addition to readings, discussions, observations, and reflections, potentially could have served as a catalyst to transformations, whether the action that ultimately took place was “going public” or other “action in other forms” (p. 44). Like Riley, I did not “pre-determine what would count as action, but rather began the study with an inquiry into the concept of action, wondering how the group members would conceptualize action and what changes might occur as a result of the work” (p. 44). Ultimately, it was participation in the study group meetings, their own personal self-reflection, and applying things learned to their teaching practice, that teachers valued as the action of our action research.

Subjectivity

As has been evidenced thus far in my framing of this research study, never have I pretended to be neutral. That said, I have been cognizant of the benefits to idea generation, knowledge construction, reflexivity, and participant recognition and satisfaction that I sometimes take a less active role when perspectives were being voiced, stories were being told, arguments were being hashed out, brainstorming was taking place, and decisions were being made. In broad daylight I brought aspects of my own personal history, professional experience, and social position into meetings, analysis of the data, and subsequent reporting. And yet, in an equally evident manner, I have monitored, toned, and controlled what has been my instinct and tendency to direct and govern, and I have honored Frank’s (2013) wisdom that sometimes “others might be able to speak the truth of our shared experience better than we are” (p. 369).

Ethics

CBPAR “conceptualizes an inseparable relationship between knowledge and ethics” (Riley, 2012, p. 47). How we work to co-construct knowledge within our collaborative research projects must affect, and be affected by, our interactions with our co-constructors (e.g., Rossman & Rallis, 2010). In order to conduct research ethically I consistently reflected on how I was engaging with others.

An ethical orientation to research… strives to build in a self-reflexive component throughout every stage of the inquiry process, which entails [researcher] participants considering how they may be superimposing and universalizing their own principles and interests onto others. With this awareness also comes the need to take seriously others’ perspectives, concerns, and well-being. Centering ethics in research collaborations prioritizes how we engage with, learn from, and coexist with others. (Campano et al., 2015, p. 34)

Campano et al. (2015) proposed a set of “ethical and professional norms in community-based research” (p. 29) that I used as a guiding framework for my research study. These norms “make explicit a set of guidelines that affirm our shared vision of a university-community research partnership” (Campano et al., 2015, p. 33), and resonate with the social justice and critical pedagogy themes and intentions I have pursued and highlighted in my study. These norms reinforce the value of equality, of others’ perspectives, of co-design and co-construction, of community benefit, and of transparency, or “making public” (Campano et al., 2015, p. 44).

Norm 1: “Equality Is the Starting Point, Not the End Point.” (Ranciere, 2004, as cited in Campano et al., 2015, p. 37). Equality is a truism from the outset – it is not a potential; it is not dependent on something occurring in the future. That is, no real or perceived “struggle” or “lack” will limit a person’s participation, diminish the value of their contributions, or “compromise their capacity to be or become a theorist, teacher, leader, or researcher” (p. 37). Equality has been a clear and present, ongoing, daily practice that has “govern[ed] every aspect of [my] methodological practice” (p. 37).

Norm 2: “Community Members’ Knowledge and Perspectives Must Be Taken Seriously.” (p. 38). A participant’s capacity as a knowledge generator will not be discredited “owing to some feature of their social identity” (Fricker, 2007, as cited in Campano et al., 2015, p. 39). This norm seeks not just to avoid or neutralize prejudice based on identity and related biases, but to elevate the perspectives of marginalized persons due to their epistemic privilege – the special knowledge and experience they possess because of how they are situated in relation to the power and privilege of others. We want to hear the voices and understand the perspectives of those who are “germane to social justice inquiries” yet so often “excluded in traditional research approaches” (p. 39).

Norm 3. “Specific Research Foci and Questions Are Codesigned with Community Members.” (Campano et al., 2015, p. 40). As discussed above, I strove to co-construct our inquiry community and CBPAR project with the participating music teachers, thus “mitigating the tendency of universities to design studies without input and direct involvement from the community, a model that may compromise trust by reinscribing power asymmetries” (Campano et al., 2015, p. 41). I did this in part by encouraging and allowing participants to launch topics, to change topics, to decide whether and/or how to “go public,” and to reach consensus about procedural items such as meeting dates and times.

Norm 4. “Research on/with/for the Community Should Benefit the Community.” (Campano et al., 2015, p. 42). It is impossible to deny the fact that this research project will benefit me personally. It (partially) satisfies requirements necessary to obtain my doctoral degree. In addition, the experience I have gained in conducting the study, and the results of the study, will provide benefit to me personally and in my practice. I hope that there also will be some value to a broader audience of music teachers, educators, researchers, and others interested in this field of study. I suggest that virtually all research, however valuable to the field of study, benefits the researcher. My goal, in concert with this ethical norm, has been to “enact research practices that not only benefit the field in an abstract sense but also positively impact the lived experiences of community members as they themselves see it” (Campano et al., 2015, p. 42.; Lather, 1986).

Riley (2012) aligned with this norm in her description of “reciprocity” (p. 55). She sought to “find ways to give generously and authentically to the teachers” (p. 55), who devoted time and energy to the project, by offering continuing education credit toward teacher recertification requirements, by volunteering at one of the teacher’s schools, by offering professional guidance and references, by offering personal support if and as requested, by helping with the cost of a shared text, and by providing food for each in-person meeting. Yet in a larger view, she saw the “personal and professional benefits of the group that the teachers reported as the real measure of reciprocity” (p. 55). Similarly, I hoped the actions, accomplishments, changes, transformations, learning, experiences, and growth that teachers would come away with from their participation in this project would prove to be substantive benefits to them. I also have offered any guidance, references, and/or personal support that may have been or may be requested by participating teachers. As Campano et al. (2015) suggested, whatever my goals for the project, I have striven to establish “a sense from the start of how research can contribute to the well-being of the community and its individual members” (p. 43), while “preventing the objectification of participants and counteracting the academic tendency to think about abstract scholarly contributions to the exclusion of more immediate benefits to those involved in a study” (p. 44). In addition to the things that I could think of, I regularly asked the participants for their views and wishes.

Norm 5. “Research Is Made Public in Transparent, Collaborative, and Creative Ways.” (Campano et al., 2015, p. 44). My (our) research is being shared via this dissertation report. However, this norm invited us to consider possibilities of “expanding ways of going public with research insights so that community members’ intellectual and creative contributions are not solely mediated by academic practices” (p. 44). This norm aligns with Riley’s (2012) and my ideas about “going public” with some of our experiences and findings as an inquiry community and/or as part of our CBPAR project objectives and outcomes. As previously indicated, the inquiry community did not see a way to implement this idea. Participating music teachers each work long hours and are steadfastly preparing for concerts and other music performances (our study group sessions began just before the start of the winter holiday season), some are dealing with difficult administration or struggling with challenging students and parents, and some work additional jobs as musicians or private tutors that takes time away from their evenings and weekends. On top of this was the cumulative and ongoing physical and emotional impact and toll of the COVID-19 pandemic. Along these lines, Campano et al. (2015) acknowledged that, as researchers, our “desire to involve community members in [our] scholarship could be an anxiety-producing imposition that keeps [our] own agenda at the center” (p. 44). With all these concerns, in the spirit of collaboration and community action, we discussed the possibility of “going public” in some way, but ultimately decided that the study group meetings themselves were sufficiently useful and were having a positive impact on each of our teaching practices and personal well-being.

Study Design

Study Participants and Timing

To establish my teacher inquiry community, I sent invitations via email and social media to my network of friends, colleagues, associates, teachers (professors), and Facebook group members, seeking participants who were music teachers and/or teacher-director-conductors of music ensembles at the elementary, middle, or high school level in the United States (see Appendix A). This method of selecting a sample represented purposeful sampling: I sought participants who could “purposefully inform an understanding of the research problem and central phenomenon of the study” (Creswell, 2007, p. 125). These participants were music educators interested in generating knowledge about music education “through dialogue about their practice” (Riley, 2012, p. 62). My group of participants became something of an “intensity sample” (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p. 28), in that the group functioned as an “information-rich site for understanding teacher inquiry and [music] education” (Riley, 2012, p. 63).

During our interviews and online meetings that took place weekly or biweekly over the period between late October, 2021 through late January / early February, 2022), for about 60-90 minutes each session, we told stories, discussed, contemplated, and grappled with readings and topics related to social justice, music education, and all education, both generally and specifically with respect to real and potential issues being experienced or presented in each teacher’s individual classrooms or private practice, including my own. My and other teachers’ inquiries were “intertwined with each other’s and my own” as we “raised questions, posed problems, and theorized practice together” (Riley, 2012, p. 49).

Data Collection

Transcripts of Study Group Meetings

In addition to learning about music teachers’ problems of practice, I was also interested in studying the inquiry group processes and dynamics. As such, I participated in the group meetings and recorded (video and sound) and documented our discussions and work. These documents (transcribed from recordings and/or handwritten and then typed into a word processor) were systematically organized and stored electronically in labeled files on my computer and as printed versions in one or more binders, organized by meeting date.

Semi-structured Interviews

In addition to the group meetings, I interviewed, in a semi-structured format, most participants both at the beginning of the study (before the meetings began) and after the study (after the last meeting had been completed). Following Riley’s (2012) templates, in the first interview I asked teachers about “their expectations for the study group, their journeys to becoming teachers, their current questions and views, their students, and their teaching contexts” (p. 51). In the second interview I asked teachers about “the opportunities and challenges of the study group, particular moments that stood out to them from the work, their experiences of closely looking at practice, and ways their dialogues influenced their practice” (p. 51). (See Appendices B and C for interview protocols.)

Artifacts

I catalogued artifacts collected from the study group. These artifacts included texts and multimedia that we read, wrote, and shared, as well as personal and professional documents and items that the teachers brought in (or showed online).

Field Notes

At the meetings, I jotted down notes that I later typed up as field notes. These jottings focused on “elements of the environment and interactions that cannot be captured” (Riley, 2012, p. 52) or might be missed through audio-visual, Internet-based recordings. They sometimes included “my own impressions, feelings, and reflections about what occurred” (p. 52).

Practitioner Research Journal

I kept a journal of my ongoing “reflections, research and practice dilemmas, evolving questions” (Riley, 2012 p. 52), ideas, potential solutions, facilitation strategies, project planning, and related thoughts and experiences.

Trustworthiness and “Rigor with Relevance”

As a teacher, educational researcher, student, and scholar, I wanted my inquiry work to be rigorous, relevant, and trustworthy. Stokes (1997, as cited in G. Smith et al., 2013), proposed that rigor, which suggests evidence-based practices and internal validity (e.g., scientifically showing cause and effect relationships), and relevance, which suggests practice-based experiences and external validity (e.g., doing what works in one’s local context), can be complementary when applied together within a community of practice. Through my study, I sought more to learn than to prove; and yet, I believed there would be a benefit to striving toward rigor (e.g., if transformation occurs, we may get a glimpse into why and how it occurred) and relevance (e.g., through thoughtful action, we may improve practice or accomplish something in a way that immediately benefits others). A degree of trustworthiness may be furthered when academic researchers, sometimes viewed as self-anointed “guardians of the truth” (G. Smith et al., 2013, p. 149), and practitioners, sometimes viewed as reflexive rejecters of potentially valuable research (p. 150), work together toward common goals within a community of practice or through cooperative learning agreements (p. 154). In addition, I strove to conduct research that was trustworthy through efforts at dialog, extended time in the field, thick description, and crystallization.

Dialogue

Discussion is an important aspect of participatory research in inquiry communities, from learning from each other to fostering a sense of community (e.g., Wenger, 1996). At the same time, “discussion about firmly and personally held convictions often inflame existing differences rather than promote mutual understanding” (Smith et al., 2013, p. 157). Efforts at a deeper form of dialogue (Bohm, 1996; Senge, 1990/2006), on the other hand, might involve people “talking with each other to create new, shared meanings that yield collective understanding” (Smith et al., 2013, p. 157), in an environment where collaborators “suspend their assumptions, regard one another as colleagues, and use a facilitator” (p. 157).

Extended Time in the Field

My “time in the field” (28 interviews and meetings) has been valuable and extended to a useful degree – much more than, for example, conducting a single survey, one round of interviews, or a focus group session. And I took advantage of my leadership experience in both the corporate world and as a teacher – experience that has taught me much about creating a welcoming culture, developing trust among participants, focusing on common goals, encouraging thoughtful dialogue, and getting work done.

Thick Description

Like Riley (2012), I viewed descriptive and reflective “writing as a method of inquiry” (L. Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005, p. 959). Writing with “thick description” (Denzin, 2001; Geertz, 1973) offers the reader “entry into the culture as it exists and is interpreted by the researcher” (Jones et al., 2013, p. 103). Thick description “goes beyond the mere or bare reporting of an act (thin description), but describes and probes the intentions, motives, meaning, contexts, situations and circumstances of an action” (Jones et al., 2013, p. 39). A goal of thick description is to share from experiences and encounters while “immersed in the setting, getting to know the people, dynamics, cultural nuances, and rituals characteristic of the particular setting” (Jones et al., 2013, p. 104). I applied elements of this method as I wrote “running commentary” for my screenplay which comprises Chapter 6.

Crystallization

I collected and assembled meeting transcripts, interviews, field notes, reflections from my journaling, and various documents and artifacts. These multiple data sources helped me see and understand themes and patterns that emerged from the data. “Crystallization” (Low & Pandya, 2019; L. Richardson, 1997) is an approach to “validity” that goes further than triangulation, and a metaphor for viewing data from multiple angles and through different lenses, with its “infinite variety of shapes, substances, transmutations, multidimensionalities, and angles of approach” (L. Richardson, 1997, p. 92). Researchers must “assign meaning to the data they have collected” (Low & Pandya, 2019, p. 2), and crystallization can help researchers share “co-constructed interpretations from a self-reflexive position” (Low & Pandya, 2019, p. 16). L. Richardson (1997) suggests that “there is no such thing as ‘getting it right’; only ‘getting it’ differently contoured and nuanced” (p. 91). I strove to understand and interpret the data in this spirit – not from a position of supposed neutrality, enlightenment, or “expertise,” but from a transparent one, open to unfamiliar territory, unexpected insights, and multiple modalities “with ever-deepening and emergent new understandings” (Riley, 2012, p. 54).

Approach to Data Analysis

My process for and thinking behind analyzing the data is described in chapter 4. Overall, I took a phenomenological approach to data analysis, “conceptualizing the group as a culture-sharing group, allowing themes to emerge inductively, and trying to understand data from the point of view of the teachers [participants]” (Riley, 2012, p. 56). At the same time, as I performed the additional role of facilitator, I paid attention to the data from the additional perspectives of problem-solving and of moving things forward. In this context, I pondered “puzzling moments” (Ballenger, 2009) and brought my “emerging understanding to the group in formal and informal ways” (Riley, 2012, p. 56).

It's my approach as a filmmaker always to go in, not with a thesis or preconceived notion, but with curiosity and questions and inquiry. So in some way, I'm always surprised. I'm always finding paths of engagement.

– R. J. Cutler (Quotes by R. J. Cutler, 2021)