Our Professional Sandbox: Playing at Professional Identity in a Collaborative Research Group

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 1:30 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Collaborative Narrative Research (Table 3)

Abstract

Adopting a Sandbox metaphor, this study is part of a longer-term auto-biographical narrative retrospective examining the impact of a decade-long research and professional collaboration, The Group (pseudonym), engaging in intimate scholarship, furthering improve ourselves and our practices as researchers and college instructors. This study inquires particularly into nuanced communication patterns and practices that we have established over the years, and how these practices have come to influence our engagement with other academic peers. Conceptualizing the group as one where playful, safe, practice allows us to alter, change and improve our professional identities. Delving into sharpening gracious communication, professional leadership, and claiming research identities, this research supports sustaining practices for non-traditional entrants into the academy.

Authors

• Jane Mcintosh Cooper, University of Houston - Clear Lake

• Christine Beaudry, Nevada State University

• Leslie M. Gauna, University of Houston - Clear Lake