Re-imagining Research Representation

A year into the pandemic and far-too-many years into the dominance of white supremacy within our academic lives, a question has moved from the back recesses of my mind to the forefront: why is educational research only considered valid when presented in the singular format of the research article within peer reviewed journals? Why can’t we--as creative scholars, educators, and thinkers--present our research in more imaginative ways that might, perhaps, reach a wider audience of readers? If inclusivity is what we strive for, the status quo of publication (as well as tenure and promotion) standards needs to be re-imagined. Drawing from texts such as Arts-Based Educational Research and Qualitative Inquiry by authors Thalia M. Mulvihill and Raji Swaminathan as well as Audre Lorde’s concise yet powerful call in her essay “Poetry is not a Luxury” and bell hooks’ concepts from Art on My Mind, I invite you to come think with me about how we might be able to bring creativity into our academic lives through the work of curriculum research we feel passionate about. Concrete examples will be provided to the participants as model texts so that they might work towards a creative interpretation of their own research results. In this workshop, we will discuss three topics: 1. The need for creativity in our lives as educational researchers and why it is important, 2. Various formats we can employ to present our research differently for publication (collage, research poems, short stories/vignettes), and 3. Where one might submit such creative pieces for publication