Using Music to Inform Researcher Positionality Statements

• In Event: 61.078 - Issues and Innovations in Teaching Educational Research

Abstract

We explore how music can help early researchers examine their own culture, language, and heritage as they consider and plan initial research projects in k-16 classrooms through statements of researcher positionality. Participating graduate students submitted initial statements of their positionality relative to a chosen topic of interest. Participants then read descriptions of popular conceptual theories (e.g., critical race theory), listened to a curated selection of musical tracks in which the artists positioned themselves relative to similar issues, annotated lyrics for those songs, and ultimately resubmitted revised positionality statements. We found that using carefully selected musical samples is an effective means of demonstrating enlightened positionality, but that novice researchers require additional structures to help form their own nuanced positionality statements.

Authors

• Alexander Pope, Salisbury University

• Timothy Patterson, Temple University