Exploring poetry as method: “Representing faithfully” the narratives of African American high school students and their mothers

Abstract

In this article, I reflect on my experiences using poetry as a method of data analysis and data representation from a qualitative study of seven African American high school seniors and their single mothers. By applying different techniques of narrative analysis, namely poetic transcription, a deeper understanding of both participants’ and the researcher’s lived experiences were gained. Poetic transcription techniques were used to create found poems for each participant. The poems serve as a means to honor and center the unique experiences of Black students and Black mothers. The article discusses opportunities for poetry in social work research and demonstrates using poetry as a technique for data analysis and data representation.

Capturing queer and trans lives and identities: The promise of research poems to inform stigma research.

“…Research poems are also highly versatile as they can be applied within varied theoretical frameworks, utilized alongside diverse complimentary analytic methods, and disseminated in numerous ways. Much of the existing literature on research poems is informed by a social constructionist or postmodern paradigmatic approaches to the research process as a whole and within these epistemological frames, poems can and have been used to supplement other qualitative analyses including narrative (Corley, 2019), thematic (Langer & Furman, 2004), discursive (Jen, 2019), grounded theory (Paceley, 2020), or autoenthnography approaches (Furman, 2004). However, we also would argue that poems can be combined with postpositivist, multiparadigmatic, and mixed-methods approaches as well by way of complimenting predictive or descriptive statistical analyses or as a method of triangulation between various forms and sources of data (Patrick, 2013).…”

Poetry in Management Research

“…Art is an essential aspect of culture, often used as a coping mechanism for those suffering oppression. It can bring visibility to conditions that create oppression, making them valuable strategies for challenging social inequalities (Moxley, 2013, Corley, 2020. Critical artsbased research makes intentional use of imagination (Faulkner, 2017;Corley, 2020;Prince, 2021).…”

“…It can bring visibility to conditions that create oppression, making them valuable strategies for challenging social inequalities (Moxley, 2013, Corley, 2020. Critical artsbased research makes intentional use of imagination (Faulkner, 2017;Corley, 2020;Prince, 2021). It reveals itself as a performative research methodology that is structured on the notion of possibility, what could be, of a research tradition that is postcolonial, pluralistic, ethical, and transformative.…”

Poesia na Pesquisa em Administração

“…A arte é um aspecto essencial da cultura, muitas vezes utilizada como um mecanismo de sobrevivência para aqueles que sofrem opressão. Pode trazer visibilidade para as condições que criam opressão, tornando-as estratégias valiosas para desafiar desigualdades sociais (Moxley, 2013, Corley, 2020. As pesquisas críticas baseadas em artes fazem uso intencional da imaginação (Faulkner, 2017;Corley, 2020;Prince, 2021).…”

“…Pode trazer visibilidade para as condições que criam opressão, tornando-as estratégias valiosas para desafiar desigualdades sociais (Moxley, 2013, Corley, 2020. As pesquisas críticas baseadas em artes fazem uso intencional da imaginação (Faulkner, 2017;Corley, 2020;Prince, 2021). Revela-se como uma metodologia de pesquisa performativa que se estrutura na noção de possibilidade de uma tradição de pesquisa pós-colonial, pluralista, ética e transformadora.…”