Negotiating Scholar Identity Against the Norm(ative)

• In Event: Roundtable Session 96
  In Roundtable Session: Struggles for Social Justice in Higher Education

Abstract

Utilizing autoethnography methodology, this proposal is based upon dialogues produced by a doctoral student and Education professors working through a semester long independent study on critical theory in education. Through self-reflection and autobiography, critical turning points that shape scholar identity were identified, unveiling a deeper understanding of how identity is negotiated in the context of academia. Using emerging themes from the first phase of analysis, the authors re-examined their own scholarly identities through the lenses of power, positionality, and hegemony to reinterpret their own scholarly identity development as resistance to the disembodied norm of objectivity in academe. Various topics are explored, including the role of critical theory in education, and the idea of objectivity as it relates to scholar identity.

Authors

• Aida M. Martinez-Freeman, North Dakota State University

• Nathan Wood, North Dakota State University

• Elizabeth Anne Erichsen, North Dakota State University