Engaging in the Battle of Snails: Challenging Hegemonic Notions of Doctoral Scholarship
2018
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Please see abstract for proposal description.
Title
Engaging in the Battle of Snails: Challenging Hegemonic Notions of Doctoral Scholarship
Date
2018-05-19 - 2018-05-19
Content Type
Event
interactiveworkshop
Events
interactiveworkshop
Events
Record Created
2025-12-17
Record ID
18990
System Control Number
icot18_ICOT18_complete_calendar_37
Language
English
Note
special_requests: Request for projector and circular or U shaped table set up
Significance: We discuss our collaborative doctoral work and a critical incident that illuminates underlying conflicts between traditional and practitioner scholarship. In our research, one author focused on contested definitions of “quality” in early care and education, while the other focused on practitioners’ perspectives about professional development, and their perceived professional assets and learning needs. We brought critical stances to the roles of standardization, accountability requirements, and narrow definitions and assessments of quality and were interested in an overarching problem of practice: the marginalization of early childhood practitioners voices and perspectives. In our context, predominantly Latina immigrants working with Latino children negotiated tensions between quality improvement demands and their personal, cultural, and linguistic assets, experiences, and beliefs. Conceptual framework: The term ‘battle of snails’ refers to the epistemological battle that occurs when introducing different forms of scholarship into institutions of higher education. Such battles seem to proceed so slowly that we have to look carefully to see them happening. We explore epistemological tensions between technical rationality and practitioner scholarship and suggest technical rationality justifies narrow conceptions of research as objectively detached from the systems researchers hope to impact. Practitioner scholarship instead situates problems of practice within a context and embraces the researcher’s embedded role in that context. Through contextualized, evolving interrelationships between scholar, knowledge, and application, practitioner scholarship attempts to bridge divides between research, theory, and practice. Practitioner scholars study educational issues that perpetuate social injustices in particular contexts and work to improve them in collaboration with relevant stakeholders. This proposal relates to ICOT’s imperative for applying multiple perspectives in pursuit of creative, collaborative solutions. Although our doctoral program promoted practitioner scholarship and collaboration to advance social change, a critical incident occurred as our advisor recommended that we collaborate on, and co-author, our dissertation. Our committee approved, but the Graduate School initially demanded our co-authored work be separated. Critical incidents can be used to elucidate important theoretical issues manifested in everyday life (Cope & Watts, 2000). In our case, the incident revealed how our collaborative, co-authored work involved us in the battle of snails. We advocate for policies that support practitioner scholarship by broadening definitions of what counts as rigorous scholarship. By recognizing the demands, affordances, and rigor of context-based research, educational institutions can empower practitioner scholars to create collaborative solutions to educational problems of practice. Originality of the work: Our co-authored dissertation was a 2016 Carnegie Project dissertation of the year finalist, sparked constructive dialogue at our research university, a presentation at AERA 2017, a co-authored paper under review for publication, and a chapter in an upcoming edited book about critical issues in early childhood education. Pedagogy: Co-facilitators will visually introduce their collaborative doctoral dissertation and the battle of snails it provoked. Facilitators will engage participants through Visualization in Participatory Programmes, an approach used in both studies that relies on visualization, dialogue, and facilitation to promote active participation and positive group dynamics during group events (Salas, Tillman, McKee & Shahzadi, 2007).
Significance: We discuss our collaborative doctoral work and a critical incident that illuminates underlying conflicts between traditional and practitioner scholarship. In our research, one author focused on contested definitions of “quality” in early care and education, while the other focused on practitioners’ perspectives about professional development, and their perceived professional assets and learning needs. We brought critical stances to the roles of standardization, accountability requirements, and narrow definitions and assessments of quality and were interested in an overarching problem of practice: the marginalization of early childhood practitioners voices and perspectives. In our context, predominantly Latina immigrants working with Latino children negotiated tensions between quality improvement demands and their personal, cultural, and linguistic assets, experiences, and beliefs. Conceptual framework: The term ‘battle of snails’ refers to the epistemological battle that occurs when introducing different forms of scholarship into institutions of higher education. Such battles seem to proceed so slowly that we have to look carefully to see them happening. We explore epistemological tensions between technical rationality and practitioner scholarship and suggest technical rationality justifies narrow conceptions of research as objectively detached from the systems researchers hope to impact. Practitioner scholarship instead situates problems of practice within a context and embraces the researcher’s embedded role in that context. Through contextualized, evolving interrelationships between scholar, knowledge, and application, practitioner scholarship attempts to bridge divides between research, theory, and practice. Practitioner scholars study educational issues that perpetuate social injustices in particular contexts and work to improve them in collaboration with relevant stakeholders. This proposal relates to ICOT’s imperative for applying multiple perspectives in pursuit of creative, collaborative solutions. Although our doctoral program promoted practitioner scholarship and collaboration to advance social change, a critical incident occurred as our advisor recommended that we collaborate on, and co-author, our dissertation. Our committee approved, but the Graduate School initially demanded our co-authored work be separated. Critical incidents can be used to elucidate important theoretical issues manifested in everyday life (Cope & Watts, 2000). In our case, the incident revealed how our collaborative, co-authored work involved us in the battle of snails. We advocate for policies that support practitioner scholarship by broadening definitions of what counts as rigorous scholarship. By recognizing the demands, affordances, and rigor of context-based research, educational institutions can empower practitioner scholars to create collaborative solutions to educational problems of practice. Originality of the work: Our co-authored dissertation was a 2016 Carnegie Project dissertation of the year finalist, sparked constructive dialogue at our research university, a presentation at AERA 2017, a co-authored paper under review for publication, and a chapter in an upcoming edited book about critical issues in early childhood education. Pedagogy: Co-facilitators will visually introduce their collaborative doctoral dissertation and the battle of snails it provoked. Facilitators will engage participants through Visualization in Participatory Programmes, an approach used in both studies that relies on visualization, dialogue, and facilitation to promote active participation and positive group dynamics during group events (Salas, Tillman, McKee & Shahzadi, 2007).