Collaborative Auto/Biographical Projects: Methodological Innovations

• In Event: 63.084 - Roundtable Session 22
  In Roundtable Session: 63.084-21 - Methodological Knowledge and Issues in Biographical Inquiry

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore the methodological possibilities of an educational biography project combining oral history interviews of retired deans of women who were active university employees from 1950s-2012 with autobiographical writings, located in archival collections, created by earlier generations of women academics (1880 – 1940s). The richness of the data sources allowed for a series of analytical approaches to be used and resulted in several meaningful methodological realizations. The methodological and pedagogical implications of educational biography projects that involve participants in a re-reading of their past by engaging in oral history interviews, reading biographies and autobiographies written by others of their professional group from an earlier time period, and by writing their own memoirs are many.

Author

• Thalia Mulvihill, Ball State University