TY - GEN
T1 - Suggestions for Responsible Qualitative Research with Transgender Engineering Students Using an Auto-Ethnographic Approach
AU - Jennings, Madeleine
AU - Kellam, Nadia
AU - Coley, Brooke
AU - Boklage, Audrey
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 IEEE.
PY - 2019/10
Y1 - 2019/10
N2 - The need for increasing diversity in engineering has paved the road for a rich wealth of literature exploring the experiences of marginalized students in these spaces. Much of this literature utilizes qualitative methodology to understand the experiences of these students, as told through their own words. However, work of this nature can often be influenced by the implicit biases that the researcher carries, as well as the inherent misalignment of power present between researcher and participant. These misalignments may be exacerbated when the researcher is interviewing a marginalized participant, while not identifying as part of a marginalized identity themselves. Students within the LGBTQ+ community may reside at multiple marginalized identities, and as such, the issues surrounding interviewing marginalized identities can be compounded further. Even the most well-intentioned and experienced researcher may find themselves in an interview with a marginalized individual in which implicit biases and unspoken power structures alter the trajectory of the interview. This paper seeks to provide an auto-ethnographic reflection by the first author on the interview of a transgender research participant, while simultaneously providing an opportunity to identify ways in which her interview could have been methodologically improved. This will be accomplished by the first author's analysis of the interview and meta-data. This analysis is valuable, as the first author identifies as a member of the LGBTQ+ engineering community herself.
AB - The need for increasing diversity in engineering has paved the road for a rich wealth of literature exploring the experiences of marginalized students in these spaces. Much of this literature utilizes qualitative methodology to understand the experiences of these students, as told through their own words. However, work of this nature can often be influenced by the implicit biases that the researcher carries, as well as the inherent misalignment of power present between researcher and participant. These misalignments may be exacerbated when the researcher is interviewing a marginalized participant, while not identifying as part of a marginalized identity themselves. Students within the LGBTQ+ community may reside at multiple marginalized identities, and as such, the issues surrounding interviewing marginalized identities can be compounded further. Even the most well-intentioned and experienced researcher may find themselves in an interview with a marginalized individual in which implicit biases and unspoken power structures alter the trajectory of the interview. This paper seeks to provide an auto-ethnographic reflection by the first author on the interview of a transgender research participant, while simultaneously providing an opportunity to identify ways in which her interview could have been methodologically improved. This will be accomplished by the first author's analysis of the interview and meta-data. This analysis is valuable, as the first author identifies as a member of the LGBTQ+ engineering community herself.
KW - Auto-Ethnography
KW - Inclusivity
KW - LGBTQ+
KW - Qualitative Methodology
KW - Transgender
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85082492184&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85082492184&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/FIE43999.2019.9028639
DO - 10.1109/FIE43999.2019.9028639
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85082492184
T3 - Proceedings - Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE
BT - 2019 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE 2019
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 49th IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE 2019
Y2 - 16 October 2019 through 19 October 2019
ER -