Section archive - Research Methods

The authors describe the affordances of a stance of reciprocity, illustrating the contours of the component in recruitment, participation, analysis, and presentation. They ask: How do truth traditions support reciprocity? How do we authentically reciprocate participants’ efforts throughout the research process? And finally, how might qualitative work embrace reciprocity and lead education research to a broader conceptualization of evidence, one that expands the transformative potential of our collective work?

The present article explores how researchers’ social identities influence data gathered through ethnographic research in multiracial K-12 educational settings. The authors examine how the processes of conducting, interpreting, and analyzing ethnographic fieldwork are impacted when researchers belong to marginalized social groups. The authors suggest that researchers can act as critical participants to create opportunities for dialog about racism, sexism, and other inequities in educational settings.

In this article, the authors describe the use of self-study as a frame for professional learning that grew out of a professional development program for teachers examining their practice in a dual-language K-4 school in Iowa. The authors argue that the use of self-study as the frame for their professional learning experience was seen as a powerful and positive experience overall, impacting both their own practice and the dual language program at large. The authors also argue that during the process of self-study, many of the teachers became supportive collegial friends, colleagues who appeared genuinely interested in working together to improve practice. By working as collegial friends, by engaging in critical discussions of genuine issues and teacher-chosen interests in improving practice, the dual language program as a whole benefited.

This article reports a self-study of the experiences of a teacher educator who has developed and taught a university-based action research course. The author adopted self-study as the methodology, using qualitative data collection methods. The article describes three themes which emerged during the action research: 1) Teacher culture clashes with the research world, 2) Teachers’ assumptions about teaching and learning and 3) Action research, domesticated by traditional research.