Transitioning Data as a Practice of Justice: (Re)Envisioning Methods for Enhancing Researcher Accountability

• In Event: Toward Justice-Driven Qualitative Research Methods With Young Children

Abstract

Purpose: Once data generation concludes, researchers commonly understand data as static; yet, many consider people, particularly identities, as in flux. Many adults might easily recount personal identity shifts; fewer concede children can do the same (Pugh, 2014). As educators-turned-researchers, we witnessed how children–as co-constructors of knowledge and community (James, 2007)–constantly change.

Children’s age and competencies change, and–as they engage socially and politically (Blaise, 2005)–their understandings of themselves, individually and in community, change (Dyson, 2021). Still, methods for how researchers account for children’s changing identities, especially shifts in gender, remain nascent (Keenan, 2022). In this paper, we highlight instances wherein children shared name and pronoun changes and (re)envision how researchers might ensure just representation for our youngest participants.

Framing: Rarely are children or trans people considered credible experts of their lives: children are “too young” to understand their identities (Vasquez, 2004), trans people are positioned as “mentally unwell” or “duplicitous,” with their trans identity as “proof” of such claims (Steele & Nicholson, 2020). We refute this. Grounded in an understanding that children are deeply knowledgeable about their lives, we bridged a children’s rights model (Lundy, 2007) with trans studies because the latter similarly frames trans people agentically and centers their lived understandings (Stryker, 1994). Working at the axes of these frames, we deepened our commitment to trans children’s insights, knowledge, and brilliance (Mangin et. al, 2022).

Methods: We sourced data from three critical qualitative projects: 1) Author1’s multi-year study in the Midwestern US; 2) Author1’s 18-month study in the Southern US; and 3) an arts-based, participatory study Author2 co-facilitated with an 11-year-old in Canada. Using fieldnotes supplemented by interviews (Miles et. al., 2018), we considered three analytic snapshots wherein children shared that their gender-identities had changed, before analyzing how our methodological choices opened possibilities for such sharing.

Findings & Significance: We first detail how children affirmed self-assigned genders, and declared desire for others to trust their self-assignment. Across the analytic snapshots, children asked us to change their pseudoynyms and descriptions in research outputs. For instance, a pangender child in Author1’s study indicated a mix of pronouns (e.g., he/him, she/her, they/them) should be used, stating “my gender isn’t static.” This is one instance of children’s desire for us, as researchers, to ensure our findings are accurate to who children are and how they identify now.

We then use data excerpts to outline how our choices–including our 1) theorizing and positioning of children as co-constructors of knowledge and culture (Uprichard, 2008); 2) intentionality in building meaningful relationships with them (Paris & Winn, 2013); and 3) practice of listening to children (Panel Author, 2019), even as they employed refusal as a strategy (Tuck & Yang, 2014)–afforded us to hear from children about their gender identitities. We illustrate the necessity of engaging in the epistemic justice of using children’s self-identified words, from first interactions through writing findings. Ultimately, we (re)envision possibilities for how a trans-justice practice may cultivate new ethics, practice, and responsibilities for working alongside children.

Authors

• Cassie J. Brownell, University of Toronto
  Presenting Author

• j wallace skelton, University of Regina
  Presenting Author