Jess, this looks like an important research project. Do you mind my asking what type of methodological approach you are using? for instance, if you are using a case study vs a phenomenological study, your analysis would be guided by that, and depending on that framework you may want to not use (or integrate with other analysis approaches) CDA.

Hope this helps!

Thanks for replying. I am looking at using a case study methodology.

Hi Jessica; when you say you want to use CDA, it depends on what it is you want to find out! And the nature of the responses that you want to elicit. If it's about lived experiences than of course CDA can work, and discourse can relate to a lot more than just what they tell you. You would have to go deeper than the surface level to examine WHY they are framing their lives experiences in such a way, in a critical fashion (hence the C in CDA). But it depends too upon your overall research philosophy, your approach, what you are drawn to, and thus your methodology. If you go with CDA then remember that you have to justify why you've gone with that and not something else. You will have to explore the work of the main theorists (particulalrly, I would suggest, Foucault) And you need to explain not only what it is, where it came from, it's emancipatory potential, how it will be assessed in terms of quality of the study; that is, its overall 'criticality' and so on. Best of luck!

Thank you both so much!