Practice As Research

In conversation with Dr Sara Young

January 05, 2022 Nicole Brown Season 101 Episode 2
Practice As Research
In conversation with Dr Sara Young
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

In this podcast, Dr Nicole Brown talks to Dr Sara Young about Practice As Research.

Dr Sara Young is a lecturer at UCL Institute of Education. Sara's research focuses on the relationship between language and identity, especially in the context of contemporary Britain, pre- and post-Brexit. Her current projects investigate bi/multilingual practices and identity construction amongst adolescents, and how these various practices may be at play in different spaces. Sara is also involved in Polish migration work, and has recently completed a Covid-19 related project which explored the impact of the lockdown on Polish Saturday schools in the UK, and the subsequent impact on heritage language learning. Sara specialises in narrative inquiry, exploring how narrative can be a means to construct identity, both for the individual and for nation states, and is also involved with the ethical nature of research, including the questions that arise when working with adolescents and young people; and the ethics of data translation and transcription in multilingual research.

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Hello, welcome to this week's podcast on practice as research. And my name is Nicole Brown, and I'm here today with Sarah young who's going to talk to us about her ideas and conceptualization around practice as research side I do want to say hello.

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Yes, hello, so I'm Sarah, and I work at the Institute for Education, and I have sort of three areas of research that interlink so I look, I'm mainly based in Applied Linguistics, which looks at language, and the world around it also working with part

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in the education, but I'm also interested in Polish studies and polish migration, and the three of those managed to interlink in some way. So that's what I do.

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Thank you. Thank you. And so, let's start talking about what practice as research means to you then how do you define it.

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Okay, so for me it's, it's got two strands it's got the creative strand, where you may the research themselves might create an artifact

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or create or piece of artwork. And that contributes to understanding of the research, I doing, I think Gary that I working more closely, is to do with participant research and how participants can contribute in a much bigger way to piece of research,

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might be creating artwork with the participants, or it might be asking me to do something that then becomes incorporated in what you're looking at. So I think it's that element is participatory research that.

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That for me is quite an important strand of practice and research.

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Is that how you define your own work that you're doing participatory research, rather than practice as research.

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Probably yes, and I think I was similar to this, but one of the first pieces of research I did work with a group of teenagers. So the Polish teenagers who'd come to live in the UK.

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And I said well you know I'd like to know about your experiences.

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And one of the boys got really excited was like, I'm going to read a book that is so fantastic I couldn't I could be reading a book, and I had sort of awkward experience the same Well, it's not actually going to have to be you because I need to change

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your name and some of the locations, and it's not quite the book it's going to be a printed thing, and I suddenly thought how much better would it have been to get them all involved in this in creating some piece of

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it either written work or artwork published work involves many great tricks and I think that's what got me thinking about this, it's not always possible but that would have enhanced the project I was doing with them.

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So I agree with what you're saying, I mean the difficulty I guess is that when you're doing participatory work, and when it's when it's labeled as participatory research, there are particular kind of expectations of how that research plays out and what

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it looks like. Is that something that you are, you know now that you're kind of, you know, more engaged within the practice as research framework if you like or you're starting to think about it is that how you, you are you reframing your own research

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that's basically what I'm interested in, it's something I'm thinking about doing I wouldn't say I jumped in there quite yet, because to me I think one of the key things that comes up is as you touched on participants expectations, and what do they think

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is coming out of this.

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And also something that I'm, I'm involved with sort of as another strand of the work I do is the ethical question of it. If you've got participants involved in your research, which is great.

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It's supposed to be anonymized, but if they don't want anonymity, there's any risks that they're not aware of, and particularly sort of moving on from that if you're if you're working with people who are outside the system.

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It could be quite damaging to them. And so it's a very very fine line between wanting that full involvement. But then as a researcher feeling that you have to impose limits on that because of ethical issues that you perhaps understand more clearly than

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the person who's very enthusiastic you getting involved.

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I agree, and I mean this is the one thing that I'm always kind of trying to pursue as well is that actually ethics could not be something that's just at the beginning of a research process, it has to be negotiated, and it has to be relational.

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And, and it has going to it's got to go through the process so it's got to be a procedural as well in that says that you kind of negotiate the different stages where you are with your research.

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And is it that doing something is practice research is that is that how we should be defining it. I think it's one of the definitions, I think it's such a great umbrella term practices or tips that I think certain things sit underneath it, but people

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who work in more very broadly turned creative or artistic field. Will you will get a piece of music, or a piece of artwork. It means one thing. For those of us who work in fields that don't always lead to those sorts of outcomes.

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I think one way of approaching it is how far do we involve participants would stake holders.

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So for example, I did a project last year on language school so Saturday school during the pandemic and how they were dealing with it.

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And I was then asked to to join an online discussion with complimentary school Saturday school heads from different languages, and how they were dealing with it and what recommendations we could make the heads to parents, people who were just in the community

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who were interested.

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To me, that was a very interesting exchange of ideas and counted as something towards the research.

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And the other thing I mean, on a very practical level is that you do a piece of research and very traditional and you send it to you know to be reviewed and the whole process takes a whole year.

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You set up something with some stakeholders, and it's a lot quicker to start discussing what you're doing.

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Now, I appreciate his peer review and I pitch it as academic rigor which parts will move on to.

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But what struck me is that the data collection for the project finished in November 2020.

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The academic papers I've just done the glowing review. Meanwhile, Meanwhile the stakeholder meeting was held sometime in the spring.

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Yes. And so I think practicing research allows you to get some of that research out there, even if it is a preliminary stage, even with all the caveats.

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All it needs peer review, it needs river, but it does allow for greater engagement at an earlier stage and I think that's increasingly important.

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I really like what you're saying there and I agree that there's kind of, you know, like this is almost becoming an action research in itself in that you know you're you're coming up with some findings and straightaway they're put into, into implement

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into action they're being implemented, but actually potentially by the time you've started writing your research journal, and the situation is already a little bit different because because certain things have already happened there in terms of the development

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of things. Exactly. So I think it's an interesting. I think it's something that needs exploring but again, it needs to be something that's underpinned with.

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It needs to be underpinned ethically and that's something that I think it's important going forward.

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So one of the questions that I've kind of got, I do want to ask people is, why do you do practice as research is that the reason why you're doing it because it's kind of quicker and, and if those sort of view you can see some kind of outcome or result

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straightaway.

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I think partly that but that's not the music I think it's that engage with the people that involves.

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Um, so as I said my work on a one set of Saturday schools, might, might really help other people who are working in other areas as well and academics researching it.

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I mean the actual practitioners the actual stakeholders.

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And to me sometimes that gets lost in the research. We're very interested in publishing we're very interested in having academic discussions, which are incredibly important and I enjoy being part of, but I do like to feel that any research I do actually

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does touch people that I'm talking about. It's not some abstract thing out in the ether that no one's actually going to be involved with. So I think that's where I like it actually involves people.

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And what you sounds obvious, yes, no, I agree with you but but but what do you feel, then the challenges of doing that kind of research, as you get getting engaged in practice so research, I think.

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I think as I said one of the challenges is keeping that rigor so you've got a piece of research that speaks to different audiences and that's that sort of speak to two different areas of interest.

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And I think it is managing participants expectations. You can't go in there and say oh I just discovered this and I'd like to change the world and change everything with it.

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But at the same time, nor do I want to be someone who goes in Hey, hey I have.

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This is because I've done this piece of research, but I think it's important to keep as an exchange.

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And to be aware of the limitations of it. It's great going into it going, Okay, this will help people this is a form of social activism. But what are the outcomes actually going to be.

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And I think managing participants expectation. And again, I go back to that example the teenager who thought he was going to have a book about him.

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And then discuss, you know, spiral bound, you know, report that came out.

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I think it's important to go in there being quite open about what you can do and what you can't do with it.

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What we might like to do is a different matter. but I think being realistic with it is important.

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So one of the things that that I'm wondering, as you're talking about you know that sort of come.

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How should I say probably boundaries research projects, let's call it that, they are quite boundaries in that you're working with a particular group of stakeholders, a particular group of participants who are somehow attached to those stakeholders.

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So you've got kind of, you know, quite a boundary project there. How do you see the generalize ability because obviously that's something that within, within the with the wording of academic journals, and we always talking about you know how, how can

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we generalize from from this particular research to the biggest city. So, how do you feel about the generalize ability from these kinds of boundaries projects that are practice as research to to write a issues.

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I think there are two things that. So firstly, it sounds as though it's very bad for you. But if I'm talking about, for example excessively schools and the Polish community which is what I deal with that has implications for society for how we view heritage

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language learning how we view heritage language communities immigrant communities. So I think they do speak too much much bigger picture, much more bigger sort of a much bigger perspective, and it's a slice of perspective.

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So while I don't claim that any piece of research I do is going to change the world.

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It might open some of those or start some of those conversations.

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The other thing is that I'm a lot of the work I do is based on individuals and the individual experiences. Now, the argument is well you can't generalize from an individual.

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No, you can't. But my argument would be that perhaps we over generalize so again going back to discussions about migration.

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People are grouped together as a problem as a societal issue.

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And we don't look at the individual, which means it's very difficult to relate to those groups of people.

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Now if we sort of work in a different way and think well let's look at the individual rather than trying to generalize.

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Perhaps we can help to create a greater sense of empathy.

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Perhaps we can start challenging discourses about who these people are. Whichever group we're talking about.

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And so while we're not generalizing, in a sense, we're looking inwards and getting that individual empathy, which hopefully then leads to a more open society that's that's a very lofty aim, but that is the way that I look at it, because people are too

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generalized, particularly nowadays. And I think the way to break those barriers down, is to look at the individual and say actually what does that person feel, what does that person experienced, could you as an individual.

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Imagine yourself being that individual, rather than that group of people.

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And I think that's where it becomes important. I mean obviously I'm playing devil's advocate here you know because I'm totally with you and all of what you've said, My argument often is when people say to me, you cannot generalize from the lift experience

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of one person or perhaps a group of five people to the right of, you know, society or the way that bigger picture. My argument is always well if I wanted to generalize in that way I would have done a survey for 200 or 2000 people.

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But that's not what is of interest to me so I'm sticking with the lift experience overview.

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Yeah, I mean, I mean this is something I find quite interesting because I, I come from a background of studying English and Comparative Literature. So I'm very interested in narratives in storytelling of different people form their stories in different

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contexts.

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And while that's to do with sort of fiction, the stories that people create around themselves as individuals are not fictitious but they are equally crafted.

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So I'm very interested in how those stories are crafted, and the factors that come into that crafting, and the language that's used to create those stores.

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They do. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And like you said you know we all we all as individuals we all present ourselves in different ways in different circumstances.

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I mean I just need to think of myself as you know whether I'm a teacher, or whether I'm a mom, or whether I'm a wife or whether I'm a daughter. I'm behaving in different ways because yeah you, there's a different way of how you present your your authority

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and your role, and how you embody that so totally I agree with you. Can I just ask out of interest I don't actually know that so I'm going to ask.

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As you said you're interested in narratives and the fiction writing and crafting Do you also create those kinds of vignettes writing or journal writing fictitious writing, you know, kind of fiction writing for example or other creative writing parts to

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help you analyze data for example, I don't use it myself, but in a, in a sort of academic sense I turn a lot of literary theory to understand or to analyze narratives that that I've recorded or that narratives I sort of acquired from participants.

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I'm just asking because some people are obviously creating, you know, for example poetry from from transcripts or from research, and again that's their kind of interpretation of practice as research and I was just trying to kind of find out whether that's

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something that you have engaged with and try it out as well.

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And so, can I just ask which body of literature, in general, do you use to help define and refine your own work. Is there anything in particular that you would recommend that you've that you found or find helpful to, to kind of you know like reframe what

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it is that you do as I say, it's, it's a bit unusual to come in, using literary theory to look at real life narratives but that's something I do quite a lot as a sort of starting point and it will What are people creating around themselves.

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I'm very fond of with her back in, because he was a linguist as well as a literary theorist and had a very interesting take on puri liberalism and some aspects my work in Applied Linguistics.

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I generally see see my, the data that I've collected in those terms, and then try and and think about what linguistic theories that might sit with or what migration theories, it might sit with, but I very often will take a literary theorists approach

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first. And then, and then sort of work outwards from that it doesn't work for everybody and as they say I think it's because of my training, originally in literature, that's just, it's the way I see the world, it's the thing that shaped my academic Yeah,

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perceptions of the world and so to me it's my sort of default setting. And I have great though that's that's great though so how, what are your plans then to developing your own research practice in the future.

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So what's what's the next kinds of how do you envisage developing your particular approach of practice as research.

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I think as we said before, it would be nice to get people more involved in writing their own things. I'm assuming that we can cross the ethical bridges of that and there are obviously discussions to be had.

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But I think if they can create something more tangible.

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That could then be showcased or can be made as part of an argument. And so it was even more of a co construction than, than perhaps this research is any way.

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That would be quite interesting. If for example I went into a particular Saturday school and asked the students there to draw something or bring something or talk about something that meant something to them, and then add it into whatever it was, I was

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sort of using us and outputs.

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Yeah. And who knows you may be writing your own Elizabethan solid as well. Well, there we go.

Welcome and intro
"How do you define practice as research?"
"Why do you do practice as research?"
"What are the challenges of practice as research?"
"How do you feel about the generalisability of this kind of research?"
"Do you use creative writing to help you analyse data?"
"Which body of literature do you use to help you define and refine your work?"
"What are your plans to developing your own research-practice?"
Thank you and goodbye