Socialization Into Serving Public Good in Educational Research: A Dialogue Around Representation and Masking

• In Event: For What Public and Whose Good? Critical Reflections on Research Practices for Advancing "Public Good"

Abstract

A central challenge to addressing what becomes taken-for-granted in research method/ethics in educational research is how socialization into the field takes place. During graduate training, students and their mentors are challenged by unique projects with varying publics/possible good that might be ‘served’. Methodological scholarship around ethical considerations for the representation of people and place related to ethnographic and historical research (Clifford & Marcus, 1986) questioned “authorial presence”, locating “textual authority” as potentially “problematic” (Koro-Ljungberg, 2008, p. 231). Broadly, representation of people and place has been described as limited and always already situated (Haraway, 1988), positional (Noblit et al., 2004), and incomplete (Goodall, 2000) or focused on describing how the process of representation often fails to protect people and place (Moore, 2012; Moosa, 2013). What remains implicit is how we come to know these taken-for-granted practices of representation.

Here, the authors, a recent PhD and her dissertation co-chair, offer a critical interrogation of the socialization experiences related to methods of masking, questions of responsibilities to varying publics, and the good that research might, or might not, do in the world in the context of a four year postcritical ethnographic study in a rural, postindustrial locale (Author, 2017; Author, 2018; Author, 2019). The study in question held particular complexity as it took place in a politically conservative, white majority, high poverty context from 2013-2017 during a time in which geographic, racial, and political divisions in the United States grew in intensity (Pew, 2018). Thus, questions of public, good, ethics, and representation were emotionally laden within and beyond the experience of the researcher, her participants, and the specific context of the study.
To generate an understanding of this process, we co-participated in a series of interactive interviews (Ellis, Kiesinger, & Tillmann-Healy, 1997) about our experiences working together. Interactive interviews are an interpretive data collection practice that is useful for gaining an in-depth understanding, particularly when considering topics that may be sensitive. We engaged in three interactive interviews, wherein we retrospectively re-counted the ways in which Author 1 was mentored around practices related masking and considerations of responsibilities to varying publics. Then, we transcribed and coded them to identify key themes. Ultimately, we crafted a co-constructed narrative (Ellis, 2004) where we share explorations of:

when/where it would have been possible for Author 1 to express/unpack the distrust/fear she felt in her own process;

how the status quo approach to ethics (e.g., IRB, member checking) in methods coursework/texts failed to fully prepare her for more difficult circumstances with a variety of publics;

her turn to theory/methodology to problem solve with Author 2 beyond her substantive field and beyond coursework in method;

other spaces that served as checks and possibilities for interrogating the most complex questions of public/good connected to race, inequity, and justice.

These dialogues serve to represent the unfolding socialization process -- one which we argue functioned to -- at times -- unproblematically present masking practices and minimize notions of public good.

Authors

• Alexandra Panos, University of South Florida

• Jessica Nina Lester, Indiana University