61.022 - (Un)Masking Ruralities: By Whom and for What?

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Drawing on educational research conducted in four rural sites, this session explores methodological conventions associated with anonymizing, or “masking,” identifiers of people and place in publicly engaged, ethnographic research. Session presenters consider rationales, motivations, and commitments behind their choices to reflexively interrogate the insights, challenges, and possibilities of decisions for representing research activity and constructing knowledge about public education in diverse rural places. Such reflexive practice should intentionally match a “post-truth” society in order to produce meaningful narratives about social contexts where academic knowledge is created and can be returned to public questions/concerns. Together, session participants query ways rural spaces are produced and represented through educational research, wondering by whom and for what purposes masking practices endure?

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 5: Inquiry and Transformations

Chair

• Alexandra Panos, University of South Florida

Papers

• Refuse Thy Name? Critical Reflections on the Convention of Masking Place in Rural Educational Research - Jennifer C. Ng, The University of Kansas

• Masking and the Ethics of Representation - Carolyn A. Colvin, University of Iowa

• Delineations of "Truth" and Context in Rural Wisconsin - Jennifer Laura Seelig, Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Useless Narratives and an Interrogation of Practices of (Un)Masking in the Rural Rust Belt - Alexandra Panos, University of South Florida

Discussant

• Jessica Nina Lester, Indiana University