Being Reflexive in Critical and Social Educational Research

Geoffrey Shacklock, John Smyth

This book brings together a collection of case studies and readings on the subject of doing research in education. It differs from other texts in taking a personal view of the experience of doing research. Each author presents a reflexive account of the issues and dilemmas as they have lived through them during the undertaking of educational research. The collection fills the space often referred to in critical research as the phenomenon of the 'missing researcher'. Coming from the researcher's own perspectives, their positions are revealed within a wider space that can be personal, political, social and reflexive. With this approach, many issues such as ethics, gender, race, validity, reciprocity, sexuality, class, voice, empowerment, authorship and readership are given a much needed airing.

Acknowledgments, Series Editor's Preface, 1 Behind the 'Cleansing' of Socially Critical Research Accounts, 2 Writing the 'Wrongs' of Fieldwork: Confronting Our Own Research/ Writing Dilemmas in Urban Ethnographies, 3 Critical Incidents in Action Inquiry, 4 Ideology and Critical Ethnography, 5 Reciprocity in Critical Research? Some Unsettling Thoughts, 6 The Social Commitment of the Educational Ethnographer: Notes on Fieldwork in Mexico and the Field of Work in the United, 7 On Writing Reflexive Realist Narratives, 8 Journey from Exotic Horror to Bitter Wisdom: International Development and Research Efforts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 9 In/forming Inside Nursing: Ethical Dilemmas in Critical Research, 10 On What Might Have Been: Some Reflections on Critical Multiculturalism, 11 Raising Consciousness about Reflection, Validity, and Meaning, 12 Where Was I? Or Was I?, 13 Critical Policy Scholarship: Reflections on the Integrity of Knowledge and Research, Notes on Contributors, Index