Does it ever "gel" or "conglomerate"?

In thinking about my theoretical framework, I find myself wondering about how and when it will all come together. I remember the “aha” moment when I first understood that my academic interests were in fact valid areas of research. Reading Freire was enlightening - education made human! Furthermore, finding out that people were using Freire’s ideas to guide and conduct research, inspired me. Since that first semester in the doctoral program I have known that “Critical Pedagogy” is the set of lenses that I want to use in my research. However, when considering a theory as a researcher, one also has to think about the methodologies that are aligned with the core principles of the theory. Herein lies one of my biggest hurdles, how align my desire to use critical pedagogy with the years of training in the “hard sciences”. 

During my years as an undergraduate and graduate student, I was indoctrinated into viewing the world in a positivist way: the world can be known and the laws of the universe cannot be broken. These believes were contradictory to the fact that I knew, felt, and suffered from an unjust society that often reminded me that I (being an ugly, short, hairy and smelly Latino) was overstepping my role in the social ladder. I rarely paid attention to this discordance between science and society since I was taught that science is value-free.

However, I now know better! I want to explore how science instead of being an extension of the oppression of some people, can be a tool for empowerment. However, with my own limitations and habits of mind, I have tried to design an experiment (as scientists tend to do) rather than using the tools normally associated with critical theory (such as qualitative interviews). 

So I find myself trying to accommodate my old habits of mind and my new understandings of how the human world works, and the hundreds of readings I have completed have built an arsenal of theories - but I have not yet figured out how to make them gel! It has to happen, but I wonder how and when this will happen!