Radical Interrelated Qualitative Space in the Midst of Multipandemics: A Collaborative Scholarly Personal Narrative

Given the current unprecedented multiple pandemics of COVID-19, anti-Black and anti-Asian violence, and white supremacy, we—a group of graduate students and a faculty member who hold diverse identities across disciplines, race, gender, nationality, and additional categories—came together to focus on qualitative research as an ontological, epistemological, and axiological space toward community and culture change. Specifically, we took up scholarly personal narrative, which centers postmodernism and focuses on the reality that “we see what we believe; we observe what we narrate; we transform what we reframe.” What emerged were radical interrelated understandings of privilege, guilt, and the importance of kinship. As such, this vulnerable group reflected on graduate student experiences with multiple pandemics and how the academy may enact transformative change, reframing our own understandings of qualitative space.

Pedagogical Reflection

Instructors in higher education are often asked to reflect on their pedagogical choices in formulaic, detached, rote ways such as end of the year faculty evaluations or in response to peer review of teaching. Yet, because of the parameters for these reflections, they often lack depth or much consideration. Particularly because higher education institutions, especially in the United States, are focused on assessment, outcomes, student performance, and retention, little time is focused on particular pedagogical choices or interaction with students. Numerous studies demonstrate that faculty-student interaction has a remarkable impact on student success. This paper, a Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN), explores the value of sustained pedagogical reflection and how such reflection can benefit instructors and their students.

Junior Faculty Scholarly Personal Narrative

In this scholarly personal narrative (SPN), an assistant professor engages in a critical reflection of her journey towards tenure and promotion. The author parallels her journey to include the work done daily with preservice education students, as she works to prepare them for careers in teaching. According to the author, the intersectionality of the work done, and the expectations had for students are inseparable when conceptualizing and discussing the journey towards tenure and promotion. It is this intersectionality that has shaped the professor and a contributing factor to her success.

Remixing Approaches to Experiential Learning, Design, and Assessment

Background: Experiential learning approaches applied in classrooms are often disconnected from theory and loosely connected in classroom practice. Given critiques of experiential learning, there is a significant need for process learning theory with a practice-driven model. Scholars have only begun to explore the enhanced learning that often emerges from educative experiences designed with the fullness of experiential learning theory—designing with context, meaning-making, and assessment equal to the learning. Purpose: Through the lens of scholar-practitioner reflective inquiry, we propose a remixed approach to designing experiential learning. By shifting approaches to experiential education (EE), experiential educators benefit from planning with intentional design, instruction, learning, and assessment. Methodology/Approach: We chose to interrogate our practice and conduct a methodological investigation to explore our questions through a blend of qualitative approaches, including collaborative and narrative inquiry, scholarly personal narrative, and transpersonal research. We explore approaches to process theory of learning and other influences on experiential learning. Findings/Conclusions: A shift in approaches in experiential education will benefit educators and students, specifically by attending to holistic design, instruction, assessment, and learning with context in mind. We remix familiar components of known theories to highlight a unique experiential teaching and learning mind-set. Implications: We commence with a discussion of the remixed framework of the Design–Instruction–Assessment–Learning (DIAL) model that promotes high-quality experiences for learners and instructors.

Examining my place in social work history: a scholarly personal narrative

The social work profession began in the early 1900s and has changed and evolved in many ways since then. The author raises the question: ‘Am I who the founding mothers of social work imagined when they began their work?’ Looking at the values of the profession with a focus on social justice and language, the author explores how she is working towards social justice and how it fits into the historical perspective of the profession.

When Researching the “Other” Intersects with the Self

Although the field of critical qualitative inquiry is saturated with literature on methodologies and theoretical orientations, there is less scholarship that explores the dynamics that prevail when women of color conduct critical qualitative inquiry with participants who share their identities. Using scholarly personal narrative (SNP), our project examines the intricacies of kinship found between women of color researchers and their research participants. More specifically, this article presents narratives of an African American scholar, a British Pakistani immigrant scholar, and two Latina (Mexican) immigrant scholars who explore dilemmas and rewards that surfaced in our research within our individual communities.

Fighting Gendered Battles: On Being a Woman in a Contemporary Gaming Community

This scholarly personal narrative (Nash 2004) draws on the author’s experiences as a woman in a male-dominated gaming community. In such a space, being a woman who plays the game problematizes notions of gender for both the author and for her most-often male opponents. When playing the game, she operates in a liminal space between expert and outsider because of her gender identity. At the same time, her gender troubles her men opponents. She discusses her struggles for acceptance in this community and how her notions and enactment of gender have changed as a result of her experiences. In the article, the author explains the social norms of the game and the demographic breakdown of the game’s players; to accomplish this, the author shares stories from her time as a player.