Chapter 4: Transformative Scholarship: Problematizing the Role of the Insider Within Educational Research in Urban Settings

Four years ago, I began my research on book clubs with urban girls of color in a small urban high school. During my first year of data collection, a colleague asked how I enjoyed conducting research, after being a counselor and teacher for 14 years. “I love it,” I told her and enthusiastically began sharing a series of conversations the girls and I were having during these experiences. Once data collection was finished, however, she asked me again how the research was going and my response was much less vibrant. While I loved facilitating the book clubs, hung on every word during transcriptions, and ferociously coded the data, the writing itself was laborious and painful. What could I possibly have to say about these girls whose life experiences overlap with mine in some ways (i.e., being female and growing up in poverty) but in others are so very different from mine (i.e., experiencing life as females of color)? On reflection, I realize that the problem with articulating my work was that I was (and am continually) conflicted by my multiple stances as both insider and outsider—as researcher and teacher, as White woman working with students of color, as woman raised in poverty working with other girls of poverty. My interactions with these girls were complex in that in some ways our identities overlapped but in others they were vastly different. I felt extremely connected to the girls in that we shared similar reactions to texts, similar experiences with our families and friends, and similar struggles related to social class. However, we also differed based on our race, our age, and educational level. It was these internal and external contradictions that in fact silenced me and I struggled with both the analysis and the writing. While I connected with the girls and we shared stories, I knew that at the same time, we were very different and that I needed to constantly be aware of my position of power—particularly as it related to my ethnicity, my age, and my role as researcher and facilitator.