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Shared Context

LEAD Scholars Program at SCU
LEAD first-year writing sequence on “Education & Identity”
Partnership with Library

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Have you ever….

Asked about your family’s history or traditions?
Learned to cook a new dish?
Spent time trying to pick out the “right” movie or show to stream?
Attended a cultural or spiritual event in your community?
Gathered information to solve a problem or make a decision?

Where did you look for information? What did you learn?

[Questions from “Research Bingo”: an activity we use to demystify research as a tool that we use in our daily lives to solve problems and develop new knowledge; center BIPOC students’ cultural and rhetorical practices as ways of knowing, doing research]

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Maura’s Motivation

Efforts (ongoing) to develop teaching and learning activities that

Center the work of BIPOC and other minoritized writers,
Recognize and honor the cultural and linguistic practices of multilingual, first-gen, and BIPOC students, and
Challenge white norms of writing, research, and academic success

LEAD students’ responses to these efforts (narrative evaluations)
Need for ongoing revision and expansion (especially in CTW2).

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Maura’s Motivation (LEAD CTW1 Narrative Eval Feedback)

“I learned that I am capable of telling my own story while also being analytical…It was really rewarding to take the time to write meaningful essays while maintaining a sense of scholarship within my writing. I think this allowed me to understand that writing doesn't have to be impersonal. There are ways in which we can write formally without having to separate ourselves from the writing. This was really important to me because, in all my previous English classes, I have always felt the need to step back from myself in order to write "A" level essays. However, in this class I felt I was integrating the essence of my identity into my writing and yet still writing high quality essays.”
“... I learned [that] my experience has value because it can give insight to people as to how we can further improve society.”
“Having the opportunity to not only learn, but also use our voices to share our ideas on the topics we discussed in class was so valuable. In terms of helping me develop my critical thinking and writing skills, being able to make personal and meaningful connections allowed for a deeper understanding of the course content. I was able to scratch beyond the surface of education, the first gen experience, the POC experience, and so much more. Truly, this course pushed me to respond more critically and improve my ability to analyze texts while forming my own opinions and ideas about them.”

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Motivating Questions (Teaching Research)

What kinds of expertise and authority do we expect students to engage with in their writing and research?

How does bias, structural inequality, and white language supremacy shape who defines and controls the production of knowledge?

What frameworks and methodologies can we use to address these issues and promote critical thinking, equity, and justice in the research process?

What does it mean to teach information literacy and research in a way that is culturally responsive, socially just, and that centers antiracist commitments and outcomes?

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Data Center’s Research Justice Framework

Framework for community-driven research projects
“debunking the myth that expertise is limited to formal education, or that research is a skill reserved for the advantaged few”
Seeks to amplify voices for marginalized communities.
Marginalized communities are recognized as experts, and reclaim, own and wield all forms of knowledge and information.
Reflects on power dynamics, potential biases or inequities

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Matt’s Motivation: Shift relations to politically dominant institutions; develop critical stances toward mainstream knowledges

"Those who cannot do it well or evaluate that of others will find themselves sidelined in a world increasingly dependent on sound ideas based on good information produced by trustworthy inquiry and then presented clearly and accurately." (9)

"...[R]esearch reported by others, in writing, is the source of most of what we believe. Of your three authors, only Williams has ever set foot in Australia, but Booth and Colomb believe it exists, because for a lifetime they have read about it in reports they trust" (9)

"Without trustworthy published research, we all would be locked in the opinions of the moment, prisoners of what we alone experience or dupes to whatever we’re told." (10)

Social Reasons for Research Institutional and industrial dependence on research

Individual Reasons for Research �Intrigue, Intellectual Interest

Locating topics �Skim encyclopedias, indexes, journals, keyword searches in Google Scholar

From Booth et al, Craft of Research

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Matt’s Motivation: Shift relations to politically dominant institutions; develop critical stances toward mainstream knowledges

Social Motivations �Develop political power for communities to assert their own narratives and strategies for social change

Individual Motivations �

Locating topics �Identify issues/problems, comparing dominant vs community self-perceptions, surveying the political landscape, identifying sources of community expertise (elders, neighbors, friends, family, songs/dances, ceremonies, festivals)

From An introduction to Research Justice

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Example: Library Session

What is research?
Data Center

What is RJ method?

How can this method support your assignment?
Discuss Research Oppression

Limited/no access to information - control over knowledge production - Communities portrayed or represented negatively through biased lens - Community knowledge not recognized as legitimate source of information.

Open discussion - providing real life examples

RJ Vision

Political Power

More = mainstream knowledge
Less = experiential knowledge, cultural, and spiritual knowledge

Combining the knowledges = power is no longer structured in this top to bottom way

Activity

Crock Pot Analogy - Three Elements of Research

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3 Steps for Critical Citation

Center voices/writers from the community one investigates;
Engage with the work of scholars from minoritized groups (ex: search for peer reviewed sources via Ethnic Newswatch database), as well as theories/frameworks that support the analysis of systems of oppression and privilege; and only then
Engage with established, privileged voices (do not exclude these, aim to flip the power hierarchy instead).

Source: Januschka Schmidt. “Whom We Cite: A Reflection on the Limits and Potentials of Critical Citation Practices,” Practical Tools for Improving Teaching, Research, and Scholarship, edited by Abby Day, et. al. Bristol UP, 2022, pp. 170-185.

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centered on US immigration system because people in their communities had been affected by that system, directly and indirectly.
read García Hernández, Migrating to Prison,
identified immigrant access to resource, stigmas in representation, learning more about system reform
researched impacts of political rhetoric on immigrant lives (construction of immigration around criminality, influences on immigration officer behavior, and US law)
talked to law school professors in immigration law
represented learning as an infographic, designed to be more accessible to the friends and family that originally inspired their research.

Matt

One student centered their research revolved around the US immigration system because people in their communities had been affected by that system, both directly and indirectly. Along with several peers, they read a book from César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, Migrating to Prison, and following that, were most interested to in talking and learning more about immigrant access to resource, stigmas in representations of immigrants, learning more about immigration reform.

In a more traditional synthesis of research, this student asked about the impacts of political rhetoric on immigrant lives, focusing on how that rhetoric constructs immigration around images of criminality, how that influences immigration officer behavior, and US law. The student also talked to several instructors in our law school who specialize in immigration law, about how they would characterize the system, definitions and objectives for systemic reform, and opportunities for students to support reform efforts. They represented this as an infographic, designed to be more accessible to the friends and family that originally inspired their research.

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centered on US immigration system because people in their communities had been affected by that system, directly and indirectly.
read García Hernández, Migrating to Prison,
identified immigrant access to resource, stigmas in representation, learning more about system reform
researched impacts of political rhetoric on immigrant lives (construction of immigration around criminality, influences on immigration officer behavior, and US law)
talked to law school professors in immigration law
represented learning as an infographic, designed to be more accessible to the friends and family that originally inspired their research.

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Importance of Flipping the Power Hierarchy

Voices we pay attention to and engage with in the initial stages of research shape

the kinds of questions we ask
the problems we envision
the conversations we imagine ourselves participating in
the expertise we seek out
the knowledge and solutions we create

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Action Items

Connections between inclusive teaching and information literacy
Getting to know your students
Partner with librarians
Audit resources that you have
Frame existing expertise, cultural knowledge, interest as an asset
Encourage motivated interest, rather than disinterested objectivity
Identify ways to seek out voices from experts who may/may not be included
Encourage students to think critically about expertise and information literacy tools
Project design privileges circulation and access to transformative information and expression over adherence to formal conventions of research writing

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Discussion Questions

Are there resources you would like to share or discuss?

What are the goals of student research? What should students accomplish through research?

How do students develop and build upon expertise in their writing and research?

What kinds of authority do you ask your students to engage with in their writing and research? How do you define authority? What counts as a “credible source” in your class?

How do you ask students to develop research questions? What kind of literature/voices do you have them engage with in this process?

How might you use research justice or critical citation in your courses? What would make these changes manageable in terms of curricular development?

What resources would or could enable you to adopt research justice approaches?

How do you encourage students to engage with community knowledge or cultural expertise? How do we make this accessible in our classes?

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