Research Skills

Light a Fire and Watch It Burn: Disruptive Qualitative Methods in Education Research revolutionizes how qualitative research is conceptualized, taught, and practiced. Edited by Michael L. Boucher, Jr., Ph.D., this groundbreaking collection of essays by emerging and established scholars introduces equity-centered, justice-oriented methodologies designed to challenge entrenched systems of power and privilege. With a focus on amplifying marginalized voices and fostering transformative social action, this book serves as an inspiring, accessible resource for educators, researchers, and graduate students.Traditional qualitative research texts provide invaluable foundations for understanding methods such as participant observation, coding, and analysis. Yet, they often fail to address innovative approaches that challenge oppressive norms and center lived experiences of marginalized communities. Light a Fire and Watch It Burn fills this critical gap, presenting 15 concise, practice-oriented chapters on disruptive methods, including photovoice, duoethnography, feminist critical discourse analysis, and arts-based research like ethnodrama. These approaches reimagine qualitative inquiry as a vehicle for equity, inclusion, and justice, equipping readers with tools to create meaningful change.Each chapter follows a consistent structure, making the book an ideal classroom text for qualitative research courses. Readers will find clear explanations of the methodologies, their theoretical foundations, and how they disrupt systems of oppression while empowering participants. Practical examples, discussion questions, and curated lists of further readings encourage deep reflection and active engagement. This structure ensures seamless integration into weekly lessons for master’s and doctoral students, while also serving as a reference for scholars seeking to expand their methodological repertoire.From exploring anticolonial ethics to embracing culturally responsive frameworks like ʻŌiwi methodologies and Pláticas, the book highlights the potential of qualitative research to humanize and transform. Contributors share personal narratives and research experiences that illuminate how these methodologies foster trust, amplify silenced voices, and dismantle academic hierarchies. The metaphor of “lighting a fire” reflects the catalytic potential of these methods to spark curiosity, disrupt traditional paradigms, and ignite transformative social action, while “watching it burn” underscores the boldness and urgency of these practices in reimagining education research.Accessible, inspiring, and deeply rooted in critical theory, Light a Fire and Watch It Burn is an essential companion for students and educators who dare to confront power and reimagine research as a tool for justice. It challenges readers to move beyond the safe confines of traditional methods and embrace innovative practices that center humanity, equity, and resilience. Whether you are a graduate student beginning your journey, a scholar seeking to disrupt academic norms, or an educator looking for practical tools to inspire your students, this book provides the guidance and vision needed to reshape qualitative research—and, ultimately, the world it seeks to understand. Light a Fire and Watch It Burn is not just a book; it is a call to action for those ready to create a more inclusive, equitable future through research.Perfect for courses such as: Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods; Critical Theory in Education; Advanced Qualitative Research Design; Participatory Research in Education; Feminist Research in Social Sciences; Decolonizing Research Practices; Arts and Humanities-Based Inquiry; Social Justice in Education; Education Policy and Practice; Research Ethics and Methodologies

Scaffolding the Language of Power: An Apprenticeship in Writing at the Doctoral Level offers an accessible, practical, hands-on guide to developing the skills needed to successfully write a doctoral dissertation or thesis. This textbook-workbook hybrid can be used both as a program/course text and as a supplement for individual doctoral students in education and related social science and humanities fields.The book is built on three main ideas. First, writing is fundamentally connected to issues of social justice. Doctoral-level writing is part of the “language of power” in academia, which builds on the linguistic patterns of the dominant culture and serves as a gatekeeping mechanism. Second, writing is genre-based. This means that doctoral level writing is a particular way of using language, or a specific genre, with distinct rules and structures that can be taught. And third, writing can be scaffolded. Approaching writing as a pedagogical act that supports readers’ understanding through purposeful scaffolding is not just a way to successfully complete a doctoral dissertation—it is a way to make academic writing more accessible in general.In its first chapter, Scaffolding the Language of Power provides a general framework for the rules of the doctoral “language of power.” Chapter two offers an in-depth look at organization and scaffolding as key features of academic writing at the doctoral level, with discussions and activities to practice drafting supportive headings, chunking text, creating road maps and topic sentences, and strategically linking sections, paragraphs, and sentences through transitions and connector phrases. Chapter three provides lessons and exercises to develop argumentation, evidence use, synthesis skills, and academic voice. The remaining six chapters address each major task of the dissertation, including the problem statement, literature review, theoretical framework, methodology, findings, and discussion. Each of these chapters explicitly teaches the purposes and elements of its specific dissertation task, guiding students through warm-ups, annotated examples with elaborated explanations of writing moves, and carefully sequenced activities. Ultimately, these pedagogical features support students to build out the pieces of their doctoral dissertations or theses, chapter by chapter.This book is appropriate for any course on academic writing in EdD or PhD programs. It is also useful for courses that teach how to write a problem statement, literature review, and/or theoretical framework. Additional courses include: Qualitative Research; Qualitative Practicum/pilot study courses; and Dissertation seminar and support courses.CLICK HERE TO BUY THE BOOK/WORKBOOK BUNDLE AND SAVE!CPED Webinar Series--Scaffolding the Language of Power: https://vimeo.com/1029693697

All In: Community Engaged Scholarship for Social Change is the first volume of the book series URBAN Matters. The URBAN Matters Book Series is one of the three prongs of the not-for profit organization URBAN Matters, which also includes a blog and virtual talks. The goal of the series, beyond engaging with the chapters in this book, is for readers to find their way into the different spaces that the organization has created to support scholars and activists who share commitments to just education and just research as a means to creating a more socially just world. This initial volume is an extension of over a decade-long collaboration among scholars, activists, educators, and youth across the United States engaged in work with the Urban Research Based Action Network (URBAN). It is a natural outgrowth of work from a network dedicated to building the field of community engaged activist scholarship. URBAN is made up of activist scholars from diverse fields (e.g., sociology, urban planning, education) who live and work in different contexts (e.g., east coast, west coast, Midwest, urban and even rural settings). They come from higher education spaces, non-profits, community organizations and grassroots organizing.In All In: Community Engaged Scholarship for Social Change, authors at various stages of their academic and professional careers, and in very different geographical contexts and community settings, provide unique examples of the ethos of the network. Readers will be able to envision tangible examples of public scholarship for social justice and be inspired to begin, to continue and to extend their own projects within various communities. Contributors featured in this volume were invited to write about their work based on presentations they gave at the All In Conference in Santa Cruz, CA in 2022. This conference was the largest URBAN-sponsored gathering to date with 440 attendees and was co-sponsored by The Institute for Social Transformation at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The focus of the convening was on critical public scholarship and its role in working towards social justice.The book is divided into three sections: Teaching and Curriculum as Activism, Community Based Research as Social Justice, and Policy and/or Networking as Justice Work.Perfect for courses such as: Community Based Research; Research Methods; Qualitative Methods; Public Administration; Public Health

Written by scholars from three generations of qualitative methodologists, Qualitative Research Design and Methods: An Introduction situates qualitative research within the history of the field and integrates this history within discussions of specific research designs. This novel approach allows readers to come to know the genealogy of the field and how previous generations of scholars have informed what we know today as qualitative research. The text reflects these more traditional as well as emerging qualitative research approaches, providing a theoretically grounded approach to designing and implementing qualitative research studies. While some introductory research texts focus on the specific methods of qualitative research with little attention to the role of theory, this book forefronts theory in qualitative research. The authors speak to students new to qualitative research with clear discussions of theory and theoretical concepts and how those notions must be considered throughout all aspects of research design, implementation, and representation of findings. Each chapter integrates discussion of theory. In addition, the book highlights the role of ethics in the same way with a chapter at the beginning as well as discussions of ethics threaded throughout each of the design chapters. Qualitative Research Design and Methods is THE introductory textbook for students taking introductory masters and doctoral courses in qualitative research. Instructors in those classes will appreciate the straightforward language and concepts provided by the authors.Perfect for courses such as: Introduction to Qualitative Research and Qualitative Research Design

This volume brings together work developing storytelling and narrative as an educational methodological framework. Chapters foreground scholarship that helps promote creating change, both educational and societal, through the use of critical storytelling regarding diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ). These include both narratives of challenges and possibilities that educators sometimes encounter in research spaces when intentionally centering DEIJ in their educational practice. Chapters also pay close attention to research ethics and explore epistemological alternatives and attempt to find ways toward generative dialogue regarding the reception and implementation of culturally-relevant pedagogy. This collection offers much sustained reflection on shared and sharable ways of knowing that interrogate the very philosophical foundations of education, pointing us to ever-more equitable futures.

The idea of the doctorate is undergoing a transformation as experts explore the nature of “doctorateness” and its relevance for current organizational and societal challenges. The professional practice doctorate has emerged as a highly useful framework to address these challenges and it necessarily requires a distinctive approach to the doctoral dissertation. The Action Research Dissertation: Learning from Leading Change shares a framework for the action research dissertation, outlining the specific ways in which action research fosters the development of scholar-leaders. It offers both doctoral students who are practitioners in applied fields, and the faculty who guide them in their doctoral research, a comprehensive and applied approach to action research that focuses on facilitating and leading change in organizations, as well as ways to address how to translate the findings of this work into a rigorous, dissertation research study. Throughout the book, the authors explicitly address the connection between the parallel and mutually-reinforcing processes of taking action and conducting research, offering rich insights, tools, and case examples that outline specifically how to use action research to both guide a change effort and generate useful insights to contribute to theory-building. This is an essential book for a variety of readers, including professional practice doctoral students, faculty directing the studies of those students, program administrators, professional development coordinators, and many others.Perfect for courses such as: Introduction to Action Research, Action Research, Applied Research, Qualitative Research, Mixed Methods Research, and Case Study Research

Qualitative Research in the Time of COVID: Lessons Learned and Opportunities Presented During a Pandemic focuses broadly upon educational issues during the COVID-19 pandemic. The chapters make note of how contextual understandings are important for the future of researchers, especially when those contexts involve inequality made more acute since the pandemic. The chapters illustrate the importance of creating a climate of care based upon the principles of care ethics, and also examine projects that could be taken in the context of necessary self-care during challenging times. Chapters address the climate of caring in both in-person and online educational spaces and what it means to support students in an expanded conception of classroom space. In discussions ranging from exemplars of arts-based, personal narrative to completing a dissertation during a pandemic, chapters share both the immensity of the challenges and the rewards of productive and meaningful work both domestically and internationally. In the context of the living taking place after the pandemic’s coming into being as an event, this volume humbly offers writings as documents of remembrance of our historical present, offering with the hope that the historical may continue to move forward with an ethics of care ever in the foreground. Qualitative Research in the Time of COVID is perfect for such courses as Qualitative Research, Qualitative Inquiry, Ethnography, Teacher Education, Action Research, and Educational Research.

This edited book presents a range of quests for those who want to learn from others through asking questions in research interviews and conversations and attending to the more-than-human aspects of the world. Authors in this book explore how to talk to people in ways that are responsive to cultural contexts and the challenges faced by people in everyday life, how to think with concepts drawn from an array of theories, including Karen Barad’s concept of “intra-action,” Rosi Braidotti’s work on “cartographies,” and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s concepts of the “fold” and “assemblage.” Authors discuss a rich array of interview practices used by contemporary scholars—including, how to a. elicit verbal accounts from participants in culturally responsive ways;b. think with theory in relation to the use of interview methods; andc. integrate object, graphic, and photo elicitation methods and mobile and walking methods in research. The book is designed to provoke and inspire readers’ creativity to take risks and integrate different approaches to doing interviews in their research—in other words, to undertake methodological quests to experiment with the art of asking questions. Understanding the breadth of practices entailed in qualitative interview research can invigorate any researcher’s practice. This volume seeks to encourage researchers to design studies that account for how they interact with others in culturally responsive ways; to consider how they can draw on theoretical concepts to re-think, re-theorize, and question conventional interview practices; and to re-imagine the generation of interview accounts using other ways of knowing, including visual, sensory, and mobile methods.Perfect for courses such as: Introductory Research Methods │Introductory Qualitative Methods │Qualitative Research Design │Interview Research │Qualitative Data Collection

Can transformation be the primary goal of autoethnographic research? In this book, the authors present a compelling case that this is indeed possible. Since autoethnography first appeared as a nascent approach to social inquiry, much has been written about it as a useful addition to the field of qualitative research methods. Over the years, its usage has been extended across various disciplines including the humanities, human services, social sciences, leadership studies, engineering, education, counseling, and even medical education. Notably, the primary function of autoethnography to advance our understanding around sociocultural phenomena has been increasingly paired with a parallel function of the many ways in which this research method can also contribute to practice. However, though its contribution to scholarship is well documented, less has been written about its practical usage as the focal point of inquiry. Yet there is growing evidence that one of the emerging strengths of autoethnography is its transformative capabilities. In Transformative Autoethnography for Practitioners, Hernandez, Chang and Bilgen turn the spotlight on autoethnography as a tool for practitioners where the primary goal is to solve real world problems by facilitating transformational change at the individual, group and/or organizational levels. They draw on existing scholarship as well as their collective work and expertise to provide a Transformative Autoethnographic Model (TAM) for use by practitioners who are intent on effecting such changes in their respective contexts. The book contains seven chapters. Chapters One through Three provide the theoretical grounding for a transformative autoethnography model. Chapter One begins with a broad overview of autoethnographic research and the unique characteristics of this method that makes it especially suited for effecting transformational learning. In chapters Two and Three, the authors provide a quick review of the literature relevant to individual autoethnography and collaborative autoethnography respectively. Each chapter discussion is centered around explicating the transformative elements of the method as well as how it is able to effect change at the individual, group, and organizational level. Chapters Four through Six focus on the praxis of transformative autoethnography. In Chapter Four, the transformative autoethnography model (TAM) is presented in detail and templates are provided for its application. Chapters Five and Six show the application of the TAM in a variety of settings. The book ends with a final chapter discussion on the continuing evolution of autoethnographic explorations, as well as future applications for the TAM model in a fast changing digital landscape. Perfect for courses such as: Research Methods in the Social Sciences | Qualitative Research Methods | Narrative Research | Advanced Qualitative Research Methods | Coaching and Consulting | Leading Change

How do ideas change practices and people? In Ideas That Changed Literacy Practices, 32 influential scholars in literacy education get personal about how they have worked on ideas and how those ideas have worked on them. Together, the essays offer never-before revealed personal histories of the authors’ published writing about ideas that have shaped the field of literacy education. As a collection, the essays highlight some of the major themes that have guided and changed literacy practices over the last few decades. They also offer a rare glimpse into the complex ways histories of research emerge alongside personal and political influences on policy and practice. The volume includes an introductory chapter by Sumara and Alvermann in which they detail the processes they used in creating a context for the significance of this work. They begin with the premise that most literacy scholars rarely, if ever, reveal their personal and intellectual investments in ideas that have animated their research and other scholarly endeavors. That this observation rang true for all of the contributors was evidenced in their responses to the invitation. For example, some replied by saying this was the most exciting project they had engaged in because it required reflection on what motivated them to write the requested 3,500-word essay; others mentioned they were looking forward to reading what their peers would share. Ideas That Changed Literacy Practices is a unique collection of autobiographical essays that situates literacy learning and teaching in a rich context of personal and professional knowledge that highlights and celebrates the vibrant complexities of the field of literacy education. It is a unique and valuable resource for researchers and educators, whether in K-12 or higher education. Perfect for courses such as: Introduction to Literacy Research ӏ Literacy Research and Methods ӏ Language, Literacy and Culture ӏ Literacy Policy and Practice ӏ Narrative Research ӏ Interpretive Inquiry ӏ Research Methods in Education ӏ Foundations of Literacy Education ӏ Research Methods in Language and Literacy ӏ Popular Culture in Literacy Classrooms ӏ New and Digital Literacies ӏ History of Literacy Practices ӏ Educational Philosophy ӏ Reading and Language Arts ӏ Critical Theory ӏ Poststructuralism ӏ Digital Media Education ӏ Creative Writing ӏ Politics of Literacy