Muslim researcher researching Muslim youth: reflexive notes on critical ethnography,positionality and representation

As a Muslim researcher conducting a critical ethnography about/with/for Muslim youth and their school experiences, at this time of intensified Islamophobia and overwhelming discourses of hate against Muslims, the boundaries of the personal and the academic become blurry and confusing. This paper emerges from my subjective/academic experiences as a Muslim researcher, and my reflections on reflexivity, positionality and representation while conducting my ethnographic research in a high-school setting with Muslim youth. In this paper, I present a review of the different concepts of critical ethnography that are framing my research decisions and I highlight the complexity of the insider/outsider positionality for a Muslim researcher doing research with Muslim youth and the intersections of religion, gender, class, ethnicity and age in positioning her in the field. The paper presents different ethical dilemmas that I have encountered during the first six months of my fieldwork.     

Approaches to reflexivity: navigating educational and career pathways

This paper provides a critical appraisal of approaches to reflexivity in sociology. It uses data from social network research to argue that Archer’s approach to reflexivity provides a valuable lens with which to understand how people navigate their education and career pathways. The paper is also critical of Archer’s methodology and typology of reflexivity as ‘types’; it is argued that social network research suggests people reveal different approaches to reflexivity in different situations. It concurs with Archer that the concept reflexivity is central to our understanding of the relationships between agency, structure and social change     

团队文化和领导方式对团队创新的影响及其机制

以中国南方某省级电信运营公司及其所属18个市级分公司的90个团队、306名团队成员为样本,探讨了市场导向、学习导向这两种团队文化特质与团队创新的关系及其影响机制。回归分析结果表明:(1)市场导向与学习导向正向预测团队创新。(2)团队反思在市场导向、学习导向与团队创新关系中起着完全中介作用。(3)领导方式在团队文化与团队反思的关系中具有调节作用,总体而言,在一个有利于创新的团队文化氛围中,变革型领导相比交易型领导更能促成反思和创新,但其正向调节效应并不十分稳定。     

Is This a Meaningful Learning Experience? Interactive Critical Self-inquiry as Investigation

What conditions enable educators to engage in meaningful learning experiences with peers and beginning practitioners? This article documents a self-study on our actions-in-practice in a peer mentoring project. The investigation involved an iterative process to improve our knowledge as teacher educators, reflective practitioners, and researchers. Data sets included: video-stimulated reflections; audiotaped reflexive dialogue; individual and shared reflective writings. Data analyzed through the iterative process revealed competing tensions that were not addressed by the triad, leading to a less than meaningful learning experience. We sought to name the dilemmas and document how they impeded meaningful learning; identifying tensions proved useful in data interpretation. The research led us to focus on the tension between collegiality and criticality. Managing this tension requires being authentic with and accepting of the other and working with cognitive dissonances. Collegiality and criticality together promote reflexivity and increase growth, leading to new professional knowledge.     

Dream interpretation as a component of researcher's reflexivity within an ethnographic research

Researchers' reflexivity about how they shape the phenomena that they study within the data collection process is often presented as a crucial component of ethnographic research methodology. Nevertheless, academic literature about ethnography is mostly silent around whether researchers' dreams are relevant to the research process and their interpretation can be considered a valuable material to be reflexive of. While using data from an ethnographic study in two public primary schools in Australia and Slovakia about inclusive education and school leadership, this paper demonstrates how researcher's dreams and their interpretation navigated his decisions about the data collection process, data analysis and ethical aspects of the study. This paper presents original implications for understanding the concept of reflexivity and putting it in practice when employing ethnographic research methodology.     

A porous,morphing, and circulatory mode of self‐other: decolonizing identity politics by engaging transnational reflexivity

As im/migrant researchers of color working and living in the USA, we begin this article by discussing how our own transnational selves and research have created tensions with the normalized use of socially constructed and theorized categories and differences in US qualitative research practices. We theorize an alternative reflexive mode of conceptualizing a researcher self that can illuminate more contextually engaging understanding and relationships between researcher and researched within our transnational research contexts. We argue that our reflexive approach to researcher self as non‐unitary I, circulatory mode of porous and shifting entities simultaneously fracturing and morphing into each other in relation to its changing webs of relationships and history, can bring different ways of understanding and working with the ever changing and interconnected global‐local cultural, social, and political conditions and contexts of education and research.     

Too good at fitting in: methodological consequences and ethical adjustments

When embarking on ethnographic fieldwork, a researcher must carefully consider how to present oneself when entering the field. Presentations of self become particularly important when the culture under study maintains narrowly defined expectations for personal appearance and behavior. The more defined the expectations, the more important it is for the researcher to “read” those expectations and make deliberate choices concerning her appearance, body language, use of language, and overall style. Such choices can have tangible consequences concerning a researcher’s access to the field, in regard to both the physical access of the spaces and the social access of the lived experiences of participants within those spaces. In this article, I explore the use of my own self-presentation as a method of gaining physical and social access to ethnographic sorority spaces, and then consider those methodological consequences that may ensue when a researcher becomes “too good at fitting in.”     

El Grito en Aztlán: voice and presence in Chicana/o Studies

Professor Aguirre’s essay provides a strong argument for his thesis that the academy robs Chicana/o scholars of their presence and voice. However, he does not share much on how successful the agency of these scholars has been in opening the space needed for that presence, and what gains there have been in expressing their voice. The author reviews his commentary and concerns with Chicano Studies and provides additional information on the history and current status of the field. It seems that the numbers and distribution of Chicana/o Studies units, faculty and courses signal some measure of success, even while struggles for legitimacy and acceptability continue.     

Reflexive Learning: Stages towards wisdom with Dreyfus

The ) account of seven stages of learning is considered in the context of the Dreyfus (1980s) account of five stages of skill development. The two new stages, Mastery and Practical Wisdom, make more explicit certain themes implicit in the five‐stage account. In this way ) encourages a more reflexive approach.

The themes now more explicit are, in part, derived from Aristotle on phronesis, but are also influenced by Heidegger and Foucault on cultural dimensions of meaning and value. The paper considers whether Dreyfus’ revised account tends towards a relativism of different worlds of meaning, disclosed through personal commitment. A more reflexive account of phronesis, it is suggested, needs to clarify the potentiality of phronesis for co‐ordination as it promotes patterns of unity in difference and difference in unity.     

Understanding work,learning and the remaking of cultural practices

This paper focuses on dualities in both the process and outcomes of participation in work. Firstly, the process of participation in work activities and interactions draws on contributions of both individuals and the social world in ways that are variably interdependent, that is, relational. The affordances of workplaces shape the array of experiences individuals are able to access and, they in turn, elect how they engage, construe and construct what is afforded them. Both the social and individual contributions are exercisable with different degrees of intensity, focus and intentionality, thereby making the process of participation in work a relational one. Secondly, and consistent with these processes, the outcomes of workplace participation also comprise dualities. These are individuals’ learning or change, on one hand, and the remaking and transformation of cultural practice that comprises work, on the other. In illuminating and elaborating these concepts, this paper draws upon the initial findings of an inquiry that is mapping the working lives of groups of three workers in each of four workplaces. The aim is to understand how these relational interdependences shape the participation, learning and remaking of work practices in these workplaces. Further, the paper identifies the exercise of both affordances and engagement for each participant within their workplaces. The findings emphasise the distinctive bases by which the groups of workers engage with their work and construct meaning and remake practice as a result of that engagement.