Practitioner Inquiry as Bridge and Boundary: Notes From a Virtual Civic Inquiry Alongside Urban Migrant Girls

• In Event: Working in, With, and for Our Communities: Humanizing Method(ologie)s in Transnational Literacies Research

Abstract

Overview
I will draw in this presentation on my Comparative Case Study (Bartlett & Varvus, 2016) alongside urban migrant girls in India and the U.S., the world’s two largest democracies. I foregrounded these young people because they face context-specific, yet comparable barriers to civic inclusion across these two nations (e.g., along the lines of age, ethnicity, gender, and more). In my study, I – an Indian American urban immigrant woman – used practitioner research (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009) to examine how thirteen girls across India and the U.S. engaged with civic learning in two separate virtual education spaces that I facilitated. Specifically, I traced how they transacted with a literacy curriculum that foregrounded their existing civic identities, knowledges, and literacies. While the wider project aimed to explore how this form of curriculum could support their civic flourishing, this presentation will examine its methodological dimensions by considering the following question: what were the affordances and tensions of using practitioner inquiry to explore the civic landscape alongside India and U.S.-based urban migrant girls?

Theoretical Framework
My study drew on an interrelated framework to foreground urban migrant girls as civic knowers, doers, and learners. I built first on transnational girlhoods, a framework rooted in transnational feminist perspectives that centers girls across borders as multiply-marginalized (e.g., by coloniality and heteropatriarchy) yet agentic actors across borders (Vanner, 2019). I drew next on sociocultural literacy studies which highlight the multiple ways that people make meaning within hierarchies of power (e.g., Luke, 2000). Finally, I drew on practitioner inquiry (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009), a participatory approach to research that joins educators and communities as they work towards shared liberation.

Data Sources
My presentation centers data from the following sources: 1) audio-visual recordings from the two virtual inquiry communities; 2) field notes; and 3) artifacts created by youth and myself. Analysis was ongoing and iterative, guided by my research question, theoretical commitments, and in-vivo concepts highlighted by participants.

Findings
Through my analysis, I identified the affordances and tensions of practitioner inquiry in this study. First, I found how methodological moves like co-participating in inquiry session activities (e.g., engaging in art-making and composing alongside youth) amplified the reciprocal and vulnerable nature of the learning spaces. Next, I found how my privileged identities (e.g., as the facilitator, as a member of various privileged groups) gave rise to moments of tension in the groups (e.g., halting the natural progression of youths’ inquiries). In other words, I will describe how practitioner inquiry as a method gave rise to bridges between myself and the youth in certain instances, and to boundaries in others.

Significance
This presentation will contribute to cross-case knowledge about how participatory virtual research methods can support and stymie justice-oriented research alongside racially, culturally, and linguistically minoritized youth worldwide. Thus, it will advance discussions of innovative methods in transnational literacies research. Additionally, by providing ongoing reflection about how research methods can advance racial equity for these young people, it will align with the AERA conference theme.

Author

• Ankhi Guha Thakurta, Boston College