Chapter 24: Leading for Social Justice: Notes From the Field

Field notes are an essential tool in qualitative research. It helps the ethnographer filter out noisy, unrelated information, and filter in the information and observations worthy of noting. Thus, the researcher relies most heavily on the use of these field notes to help capture the essence of the settings, people, activities, and sounds encountered, especially while in the field. Field notes can help us researchers filter through massive amounts of data in order to form the primacy of experience, validate humanness, reaffirm humanity, and to make sense of and meaning out of the human observations we make.

Similarly, for me, my field notes have been an essential tool that has aided me in academia and on my multicultural social justice journey. These field notes have kept my focus on what is important. That is, the notes have served as a sieve for sifting through piles of life experiences in order to focus on what is significant, such as fighting to eliminate bigotry, prejudice, domination, inequities, disparities, discrimination, and social injustices—and to change the laws and cultures that oppress and perpetuate oppression. Thus, with courage, I have taken the liberty of sharing my notes from the field—some of the most important gifts I have received on this social justice journey.