Advancing Community-Centered, Just Methods for Research-Practice Partnerships

• In Event: Histories, Hauntings, and Hard Other Knowledges: Examining the Specters of Research Practice Partnerships Advancing Justice

Abstract

Objectives
Our paper explores research methods to advance anti-racist research-practice partnerships (RPP). Using ethnographic reflection, field notes, and data from our work with five schools nationwide, we offer empirically based illustrations of community-centric methodology. We emphasize the integration of community engagement across every phase of the research process from data collection to analysis, to dissemination, as we aim to dismantle racism.
Theoretical Framework
Our approach is situated in anti-racist research and RPP practices. Anti-racist research emphasizes community-driven and co-constructed practices centering on the voices of marginalized identities (Docuet, 2021; Goings et al., 2023). At the core of RPPs is active, long-term collaboration with stakeholders that capitalizes on diverse expertise to improve educational practices and outcomes (Farrell et al., 2021). Within partnerships, educators and communities drive the research questions, data is shared and democratized, and research products respond to community-relevant problems-of-practice (Docuet, 2019). We also draw upon theories of “hauntology,” engaging with the ghosts of research past and present that “push us to remember, to correct the record, and [...] do something different and better” (Yoon & Chen, 2022).
Methods
This work emerges from an ongoing RPP between a racial justice organization (RJO), a team of university-based researchers, and partner schools. We employ ethnographic reflection techniques across our partnership work to identify and analyze how we use research to support justice, how we involve communities in this process, and how we ensure findings are responsive to stakeholders. We draw on concrete data sources— interviews with educators and racial justice facilitators (n=17), survey responses (n=1949), racial justice action plans, etc.— and our reflections of data collection, analysis, and dissemination processes.
Findings and Significance
The use of research as a tool of white supremacy (Pasque et al., 2022) haunts our work. For example, educators cited fears of being “on the record” when completing surveys (despite the promise of anonymity) and participating in interviews (despite the promise of confidentiality). In today’s highly polarized and toxic political environment, educators fear losing their jobs and being judged by their administrators, their colleagues, or their students’ families. Educators of color, in particular, are exhausted from having to continuously prove that racial justice issues are worth addressing (Authors, 2023).
Our anti-racist methods recognize and navigate these ghosts, “witnessing” by centering the humanity of our partners (Yoon & Chen, 2022). Involving educators in each phase of the research process creates unique opportunities for researchers and partners to uncover and grapple with the histories/hauntings they experience within the school setting, including preconceived ideas of school-based research. We elaborate on how collaboration in selecting and designing instruments, recruiting participants, conducting analyses, critically investigating missingness, and sharing results with stakeholders both complicates and liberates the research process.
Transformation happens in community. Thus, if our research aims to transform, we must center community voices in every aspect of the process. Co-creating anti-racist research in partnership with educators challenges scholars to attend to the histories and “ghosts” they harbor, and to allow space for the unwritten, anti-racist, future of education.

Authors

• Olga Pagan, New York University

• Dana Conlin, Rice University

• Adriana Villavicencio, New York University