Policy-Making Pragmatics: What's a Critical Qualitative Researcher to Do?

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session Five
  In Roundtable Session: Power(ful) Analyses: Redressing Political, Spatial, and Institutional Hegemony (Table 2)

Abstract

The emergence of critical race theory as a wedge issue in Virginia’s 2021 gubernatorial election suggests the resistance researchers influenced by critical perspectives are likely to confront when they enter policymaking arenas. The problems are especially acute for critical qualitative researchers, given many policymakers’ already well-established preference for quantitative inquiry. This paper uses an adaptation of autoethnographic methodology and the personal essay genre to suggest how qualitative researchers, including those who embrace a critical perspective, can influence state policy. The paper indicates researchers who wish to be players in state-level policy arenas should think of themselves as translators between the very different cultures of research and policymaking. The focus here is on some specific things being a translator entail.

Author

• Robert B. Donmoyer, University of San Diego
  Presenting Author