Episode 39: Episode 39. 2023 QRSIG Program Preview

Qualitative Conversations

2023 QRSIG Program Preview podcast
Thu, Mar 30, 2023 8:12PM • 20:30

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

sig, sessions, qr, conference, qualitative research, opportunities, year, program, virtual, submission, jessica, members, methodologies, education, annual meeting, reception, wonderful, community, literacy, reviewers

SPEAKERS

Renuka de Silva, Alexandra Panos, Jessica Van Cleave

Jessica Van Cleave 00:04

Welcome to Qualitative Conversations, the podcast of the qualitative research special interest group of AERA. I'm Jessica Van Cleave, the chair of the QR SIG, and I'm happy to be joined today by Alex Panos and Renuka de Silva, our program co-chairs. In this episode, we preview the QR SIG program for the 2023 AERA Annual Meeting, discuss what members can expect from the place-based and virtual components of the conference, and highlight opportunities to connect for QR SIG graduate students and members.

Alexandra Panos is an Assistant Professor of literacy studies and affiliate faculty in measurement and research in the College of Education at the University of South Florida. She earned her doctorate in literacy, language and culture education, with a minor in inquiry methodology at Indiana University Bloomington in 2018. Alex takes a transdisciplinary stance in her work as a critical qualitative methodologist and grounds her theoretical, methodological and empirical work in her substantive field of literacy studies. She has published numerous articles and book chapters that focus on qualitative methodologies and literacy studies. She centers her scholarship on the reality that, to quote Octavia Butler, there is no end to what a living world demands of you. For her, this means prioritizing community engaged and post critical activities that center spatial and ecological justice. Alex is completing her three year term as program co chair at the conclusion of the 2023 Annual Meeting.

Renuka de Silva is an Assistant professor of teaching and leadership in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of North Dakota. She is the director of the Indigenous teacher education program. As a qualitative researcher she examines issues and trends in Indigenous education, diversity, equity, inclusion, and cultural contexts of higher education. Her primary research focuses on indigenous epistemology and the importance of storytelling in native and indigenous cultures. Renuka is an artist and an activist. Her activism centers on creating pathways for scholars from underserved communities to engage in research that is non Eurocentric. As an artist, Renuka's research examines relationships between artists and their works, connecting activism and transnationalism. She hopes to promote and support scholarly work, where embodied experiences are [k]new knowledge that continues to shape people and create identities that are meaningful to themselves. From this space, scholars will interrogate imposed identities with prefabricated borders and limitations placed on everything that is self and the physical body. We are fortunate to have Renuka remain as program co chair for two more years. Thank you both for joining me today for our 2023 AERA Annual Meeting program preview podcast. As we all know, the Annual Meeting can be an overwhelming experience, especially if you're attending for the first time. Hopefully, this episode will orient and help our listeners to understand the conference as well as the QR SIG offerings. So let's start by talking a little bit about the format of the conference this year. The Annual Meeting will take place in two parts with the place based meeting in Chicago, April 13th through 16th, and the virtual component of the meeting May 4th through 5th. How has that impacted the program and what can attendees expect?

Alexandra Panos 03:58

Thanks, Jessica. It's wonderful to be here today. So the place-based and virtual components are really similar to normal conference experiences. We have 13 sessions in the place based conference taking place in Chicago, and four sessions in the virtual component in May. We're really excited that we received powerful proposals for both parts of the conference. And we wanted to make sure that people realized that if you register for the place based conference, you automatically are able to join virtually in May. And of course we encourage all folks to check out the program this year and reach out to the wonderful presenters about their work, even if they're not able to attend one or both formats of the conference. We tried to make the program really visible in our newsletter that will be coming out in recent weeks and right before the place based conference, and encourage synergies and connectivities over time and space in these place based and virtual components.

Jessica Van Cleave 04:57

Thank you so much. That's really helpful to conceptualize the two different spaces where we can engage this year. So can you offer us an overview of the program? For example, how many sessions does the QR SIG offer? And what kinds of topics can attendees expect to find?

Renuka de Silva 05:55

Thank you, Jessica. I would love to answer that question. As we said, we have a total of 17 sessions this year across the place based and virtual conference opportunities. We're excited about all of our sessions. One session that is particularly exciting is one we are co sponsoring with our wonderful colleagues in Division G, social contexts of education, on Monday at 4:10, titled, Educational Research at the Intersection of Contemporary Black Studies and Posthumanism: Risk, Possibilities, and Purpose. We hope that this session brings our two units closer together to consider the important ideas the presenters are sharing. We are grateful for the broad range of expertise being shared this year with topics addressing innovative applied methods, critical engagement with qualitative methodologies, and creative and thoughtful sessions designed to bring many ideas together from many perspectives, to other place based sessions that are bringing big groups of folks together, to think broadly are Writing and Articulation of Qualitative Research on Monday at 2:50pm and Postfoundational Qualitative Inquiry on Tuesday at 9:50am. And we want to give a shout out to our virtual symposium Interrogating Consequential Education Research in Pursuit of Truth in Living Theory, which will be Thursday, May 4, at 8am CST.

Jessica Van Cleave 06:09

Wonderful! It sounds like there really are some exciting offerings this year. I'm looking forward to this. So there is a long process that gets us to this place of building such an interesting and exciting program. So can you talk to us a little bit about what is the process for reviewing and accepting submissions and what kinds of things are taken into account in that process?

Alexandra Panos 09:05

Definitely. It's the biggest part of our work as program co chairs and one that we believe is exceptionally important and something we take very seriously. So we would like to start by saying that we rely heavily on the expertise of our volunteers who share valuable insights about each submission. This is not something we do in isolation. We rely on the volunteers in our in our community here in the QR SIG. To support this process. We together as program co chairs assign each submission for reviewers with one of those being a graduate student who's getting experience in this process and practice. While supported by outside folks, as a team, then we individually and collaboratively consider each submission and its reviews to make a final decision of acceptance or rejection. And one thing I'd like to point out is that when we initially match reviewers with a submission, we prioritize matching reviewers with submissions in their areas of expertise, in particular, for work that's being proposed that has been historically in prejudice presently marginalized in the academy. So for folks who submit proposals that might have keywords or topics related to critical race theory, queer theory, feminist methodologies, or disability studies, just to name a few, certainly others, we do our absolute best to ensure, in particular for those that they have reviewers with background in those areas. We also want to note that while we certainly love having submissions that address the conference theme, we welcome all submissions, addressing qualitative methodologies, and that that's the center point. For our review process, centering methodology, qualitative methodologies, the most important part of a proposal and what we're looking for, in the QR SIG. But as a whole, the review process, we tried to make it as holistic as possible, informed by the experts that make up this wonderful community.

Jessica Van Cleave 11:09

It's still in the context of AERA, which is enormous. So how can members locate the sessions that they are interested in from the QR SIG for the place based meeting.

Renuka de Silva 11:42

Definitely check out the online program through AERA. There's a great feature that you can map out your own schedule by favoriting, or liking, your sessions. And you can search by unit to find the session for your SIG. Additionally, our newsletter will be out by the conference and includes an overview of the program. So that should be helpful.

Jessica Van Cleave 12:07

Fantastic. Yeah, there are some great tools out there and, and do look out for the information coming out via the listserv as we get closer to the play space annual conference. So how can members access the virtual sessions.

Alexandra Panos 12:24

So very similarly, you'll get login information from AERA for accessing the virtual platform, and then you'll also be able to access the sessions through AERA web page, but look for info from AERA directly, not just from us for accessing that virtual space. But in terms of our program, you can see the sessions in the program the same way you would for the placed based session. So the online program this year, while we have two components, the place based and the virtual, you can find everything within our more traditionally understood AERA online program. So star are SIG sessions, favorite, like them, whatever word we want to use for that, review the newsletter, and that includes the virtual component as well as the place based.

Jessica Van Cleave 13:14

Wonderful, thank you so much for helping us understand some of the tools that are available to us for finding those QR SIG sessions. So aside from those regular sessions, what other opportunities are there for QR SIG members to connect with our SIG?

Renuka de Silva 13:29

Well, yes, please come hang out with us. We have two opportunities together as a SIG with all members, the business meeting, which will be Friday morning, bright and early at at 8am. And then reception will be on Friday evening at 7:30pm. A whole day of SIG events. Beyond these events, there are some closed sessions that are fantastic. And that if you haven't, if you aren't involved this year, please check out for, for it for next year. The mentoring session is on Saturday. And we'll bring together groups of scholars to problem solve and explore their stuck places. We also have what we call office hours, both in person and virtual, so that folks can sign up for to get to know, one on one opportunities to talk through a specific issue with a leading scholar in our field. So those are some of the ways.

Jessica Van Cleave 14:30

Wonderful. Thank you so much. And you also hopefully saw that those office hours are were available for signing up through March 24. And if you didn't get that opportunity, as Alex and Randa mentioned, make sure to keep your eyes open for next year's opportunities. So you mentioned the business meeting and the reception. So can you talk to us about what members who attend the business meeting can expect at those events or at the reception?

Alexandra Panos 14:59

Yeah, definitely. So this year, we have a new format for gathering as a SIG. Typically in the past, we've had one evening business meeting and reception combined event. So everything took place at one time. But this year, we have been asked by AERA to separate those events. So we have a business meeting in the morning and the reception in the evening. As Renuka mentioned, we will have food at both so bright and early on Friday morning, when you join us for our business meeting, we'll have breakfast items, and coffee and tea. And at that event, we will be going over SIG business, getting program updates from our executive committee officers, we will also be sharing and giving out our awards to the exceptional work in the field that's being honored by our awards committees, including the Dissertation Award, the Book Award and the Egon G Guba Award. And then in the evening, that evening, Friday evening at 7:30pm. We will have our reception and the Guba lecture this year by Dr. Kakali Bhattacharya. So, please come and check that out. We also have a short speaker event related to the passing of Dr. Brigitte Smit. So if you would like to pay your respects to her with our, with our community, we'll be doing that in the evening. And at the evening reception, we'll have drinks and food and time to connect with one another.

Jessica Van Cleave 16:46

Wonderful. So it's great that there are all these opportunities to be together as a community in addition to sharing our work and scholarship. So what suggestions given all of these opportunities, what suggestions do you have for members to navigate the AERA program and take advantage of what the QR SIG has to offer?

Renuka de Silva 17:08

So we mentioned earlier the program options to create your own schedule to do this, AERA is so big searching by unit, and then selecting QR SIG is super helpful, too.

Jessica Van Cleave 17:23

Wonderful. So really thinking about taking those tools into account and using what is at our fingertips already is really, really helpful. So thank you for that reminder. So let's say you're interested in the QR SIG offerings, but you're not yet a member. How can you become a member of the qualitative research SIG? And what are some of the benefits of membership?

Alexandra Panos 17:45

Yeah, please become a member. But when you join AERA and become a member of the bigger community, the bigger AERA community, you have the opportunity to select and join divisions and SIGs. And what you can do is if you select the qualitative research SIG, you are a member. It's as simple as that. Benefits from joining the SIG include receiving emails specifically for our membership, which include many opportunities for connecting with other members, mentorship workshops, calls for special issues related to qualitative research, and our personal favorite opportunities to review for the conference and get that service in support of our community. I think just a final note that I wanted to share about AERA and navigating it is that it's the most important thing is to have fun. There is an overwhelming amount of things to do at AERA. It's really possible to overdo it. Jessica and I spoke earlier today about how at both of our first annual meetings, we tried to attend a session in like every slot and be at every single thing and couldn't say no to anything and it was just too much. It's completely overwhelming, not worth it to burn yourself out. So from that experience, I know I've learned to build in time to process after sessions that I attend that I'm incredibly interested in. I take time to write, even chat with colleagues, who had also attended the work like the connections are the most important part in many ways. And I think sometimes those in between spaces are where conference experiences happen. So if you get invited to lunch or coffee, or drinks or a reception at AERA, go. So just final plug for joining the business meeting in particular if you want to get involved in the SIG and learn more about it and joining our reception for time to think with one of the leading scholars in our field and have a drink with colleagues.

Jessica Van Cleave 19:56

Thank you so much. Plus AERA is really expensive. It's always in an expensive city. So find those opportunities for free meals. It definitely can help. Thank you both so much for being on this episode of the podcast to help us preview the 2023 annual meeting. Really appreciate your time.

Renuka de Silva 20:18

Thank you, Jessica.

Alexandra Panos 20:20

Thank you, Jessica. I can't wait to see everyone in Chicago.

Jessica Van Cleave 20:24

All right, coming right up y'all: April 13 through 16