Get Published, Now: An Introduction to Qualitative Education Research (QER)

Abstract

This article is the unanticipated product of a doctoral student’s first research endeavor, originally designed to investigate the impact of a change in one school district’s arts education policy. What began as a qualitative pilot study, grounded in stakeholder interviews, became a jarring disruption of the researcher’s assumptions about the implications of institutional review board (IRB)–approved, social-justice-oriented research. This project reveals concerns about the assumed beneficence of educational research. The poem’s full “text” includes giving it actual voice through performance. This vox autobiographia poetic inquiry addresses areas of serious ethical concern for graduate students training to become professional researchers and their academic mentors.

Knowing Teaching Poetically

“…In other words, despite the poet's "desire to speak from a deeper part of the self," some policymakers and educational leaders may have different expectations as it pertains to being a successful teacher and educational researcher. Teachers need to help students to pass standardized tests (Thibodeaux, Labat, Lee, & Labat, 2015;Valli & Buese, 2007), and faculty members need to publish generalizable, empirical research (Creps, 2018;Redman-MacLaren, 2015). Sometimes, teaching quality and scholarly significance is assessed according to measurable impact, rather than affective resonance.…”

Coming Out (as a Poststructuralist): A Rant

“…What if every qualitative author highlighted the most salient arts research representation in our work in an ethical and thoughtful fashion. As a first step in this effort, we point readers to artistic research expressions related to the issue we present here today-first, Lipton's (2018) poem in the style of nursery rhymes that portrays the tension new mothers who are also academics feel about their ability to be successful moms and docs, and second, Creps's (2018) poetic work formed as a dissertation cover page and outline on the uncertainty felt during the dissertation process which is so closely related to the issue of insecurity with tenure.…”