Dropping My Anchor Here: Working With Truth Claims Within and Beyond Academia

• In Event: Critical Inquiry for the Social Good: Methodological Work as a Means for Truth-Telling in Education

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify the ways in which dialectic critical qualitative inquiry can play a role in building partnership possibilities between educators and educational leaders to move beyond politicized academic discourses to identify alternate possibilities that address various intersected micro and macro level inequities in education. Aligning with the conference theme to highlight the interplay of research, politics, and social analysis, I explore how ontology, epistemology, theoretical framework, methodology, and praxis can be bridged when addressing difficult questions about inequities in education.
Perspectives
Grounded in critical inquiry, I align with Henry Giroux (2009) as he states the role of theory in critical work is where, “Theory…becomes a transformative activity that views itself explicitly political and commits itself to projection of a future that is as yet unfulfilled” (p. 35). Utilizing various schools of thoughts in critical theory and their critiques (Darder, Baltodano, & Torres, 2009), I examine how politicized camps are creating a separation between theorizing and educational practice, thereby marginalizing the material suffering of those who experience injustices in education daily. I offer two exemplars where bridgework has been conducted to bring ontology, epistemology, theory, methodology, and praxis together that challenge hegemonic discourses, mindful of critiques from the borderlands (Anzaldúa, 1999; hooks, 2003), to create space for multiple possibilities and strategic essentialism simultaneously.
Data
I present two case studies where I was involved in partnership efforts using dialectic critical qualitative inquiry to address key issues of inequities of education and work with/against truth claims via dominant discourses while creating fertile grounds to forward alternate possibilities. The first case study involved partnering with educational leaders in Kansas to alter the accreditation process where numeric test scores would be less privileged in favor of other evaluation measures that reflect an integrated set of concerns, preferences, desires, and dreams of key stakeholders such as teachers, higher education professionals, business and industry professionals, students, and parents. The second case study involved facilitating dialogues where a university partnered with an insider from the Osage Indian tribe to build bridges between public and tribal education. In both cases, all parties remained self-aware of the contradictions between epistemic, ontological, theoretical, methodological, and pragmatic orientations of people in these spaces while establishing shared goals.
Results
Results demonstrate an understanding of the historicity of knowledge, the ways in which particular conditions are created, sustained, and now interrupted by agentic educational leaders. Further, findings reveal the possibilities of working with/against/within dynamic micro and macro level structures and their effects while conducting social justice work within and beyond academia.
Significance
Often multiplicities in qualitative inquiry challenge essentialized truths. Yet, there are social structures of oppression that function in various spaces in education daily that manifest material suffering with tangible results and realities. Using dialectic critical qualitative inquiry to create partnership with educators and educational leaders is necessary for broader implications within and beyond academia. These partnerships address difficult questions in education about injustices that necessitate dealing with fixed, dynamic, interactive, and contradictory forms of truth.

Author

• Kakali Bhattacharya, Kansas State University