Reflexive Layers and Revisiting Research: What Might We Know Across Time?

• In Event: 49.064 - Revisiting Longitudinal Language Ethnographies: The Case of Bourdieu and Reflexivity

Abstract

1. Purpose
This paper draws on Bourdieu (2003) to explore researcher reflexivity in revisiting studies.
2. Theoretical framework
Bourdieu (2003) described reflexivity as a tool for making sense of the world. Arguing that the researcher’s goal is to reveal the rules, the game, and the habitus of the field, Bourdieu maintained that making sense of people’s experiences always involved the researcher. He lamented the “unconscious failure by most [researchers] to recognize and control the effects and influences of their own relation to the object of the research” (Deer, 2008, p. 201). Bourdieu focused on how researchers must move beyond the common sense.
3.Methods
Long-term experiences are significant for members of communities that have not been historically well-served. However, making sense is complicated by changing contexts, positionalities, and shifting perspectives. The research presented in this paper involved “periodic restudy” (Saldaña, 2003) – every three to four years - across a decade. While the full study entailed eight students over a ten-year period, this paper explores Christy’s case.
4. Data Sources
Data included interviews with Christy, her mother, foster mother, and eventually her adoptive mother; classroom observations; literacy assessments; and writing samples. While constant comparison methods (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) were used, additional analyses involved rereading transcripts to identify longitudinal patterns. My focus on reflexivity was prompted when I aspired to tell a fictionalized version of Christy’s story to engage a broader audience which invited reflection on Christy’s trajectory and my own.
5. Findings
I explore three experiences of reflexivity.
Being Christy’s Teacher. Fieldnotes from when I was Christy’s teacher documented concerns related to teaching in a poorly-funded, inner-city school. We were on the State’s list of schools that would be closed unless test scores improved. Forefront in my mind was concerns about the increased privileging of standardized testing. I was constantly reminded that Christy’s success was a reflection on my teaching.
Being an Associate Professor. I am now a researcher who survived the tenure process at a top-ranked university. Tenure involved establishing a presence in the field, publishing in top journals, adhering to established writing expectations, and citing the right people. The IRB process and relationships with senior scholars influenced my work. I have assumed the positionality of a scholar who has retired from the social world (Bourdieu, 2003) allowing me the privilege of thinking/writing about 7 students whom I taught a decade ago
Knowing Christy over Time. My analysis is also informed by being the only person in Christy’s current life who knew her mother. As a foster child who was later adopted, our relationship has invited reflection on descriptors associated with Christy’s mother (mental illness, drugs, AIDS) and her step-father (incarceration, spousal abuse). Her adoptive parents are constructed saintly.
6. Scholarly Significance
Researchers and educators are subject to socially constructed ways of thinking. While Bourdieu focused on the falseness of academia, I also reflect on how schools create their realities that are equally problematic in how they position students.

Author

• Catherine F. Compton-Lilly, University of Wisconsin - Madison