Educational Research and Sociological Poetry: Representations for a Public Audience

• In Event: Poster Session 2
  In Poster Session: Educational Research and Sociological Poetry: Representations for a Public Audience

Abstract

How can we better represent our research so that it speaks to a public audience? This paper describes how narrative representation emerged in the process of qualitative, participatory research with twelve high school dropouts. Both unique and transcendent, their stories reveal the costs of schooling in the era of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. Animating the lifeless statistics found in most research on U.S. dropouts, their stories make it difficult for the reader to reduce these young people to stereotypes and dismiss them as “losers.” The narrative offers one promising method for exposing dehumanizing and alienating school practices. As a mode of communication and representation, it is both accessible and resonant with a public audience.

Author

• Jeanne Cameron, Tompkins Cortland Community College