Derron Wallace  0:02
My name is Derron Wallace, I’m an assistant professor of Sociology and Education at Brandeis University and a research fellow at the Center on the Dynamics of Ethnicity at the University of Manchester. I approach research first with an eye towards the question. What is the question that I’m trying to answer that motivates this particular project? And I spend a fair amount of time trying to get the question right because I think if I get the question right, then it allows me to get my methods right. And so, for me, that is really, really central. I try not to do a whole lot of wandering, but I spend a lot of time thinking about; how do I ask the right question? Has this question been asked before? Have other folks answered this question already? So, getting the question, right is crucial. And then in terms of how I approach my work, because of my background in community organizing, my work is either motivated by, or is responsive to community needs. So, even the current ethnography I’m undertaking is very much a response to a local community’s request for this kind of work, right. And I find that to be that kind of community engaged work is incredibly hard, particularly for early career scholars. But what is really key is that the sort of superhero narrative that we have, as a sort of Lone Ranger research, flying through the woods and uncovering truth, you can abandon that when you’re doing community-based work and start to do it with others. It holds you accountable and it allows you, I think, to sort of mirror more senior scholar, to better hone your skills on interviewing in order to make your work better. That is how I approach research, by thinking clearly about my question, and also being accountable to the community. A piece of advice for new graduate students is to be clear about why you’ve come to graduate school. So, we’ve seen considerable contraction in the labor market, both in US and UK, higher education where there are not as many academic jobs, and we need to be very, very real about that. You can get a PhD and then decide, you know what, I want to go into industry, and that is totally okay. You’re by no means a failure. In fact, that might be your point of success if you decide you want to go on and become a school leader, or a policymaker, or a researcher in the public square. So, I think being clear about why you’re pursuing graduate studies, and revisiting that question, perhaps every six months is key. I’ll also raise my hand and say, I did not do a PhD thinking I will become an academic. Every day I stand in front of my students, and I look around say, “How did I get here”? Because I pursued a PhD because I met a teacher who posed a fascinating intellectual question, and I thought it was one worth answering. And it was that deep commitment to the question, that deep commitment sort of chasing truth, as it were from a social scientific standpoint that brought me to graduate studies. It wasn’t the pursuit of the professoriate. And so, I think sometimes those switches do happen but what was helpful for me was, I was clear all throughout about the set of skills I was getting. I needed to be an excellent presenter and a great teacher, I needed to make sure that I could do policy work. And more than that, I need to know how to translate research to public audiences. Those are skills that I was developing, because in my mind, I thought I would go on to become a nonprofit leader or go on and become a researcher. But that all began with a sort of clarity around what skills am I honing in my graduate studies, and what brought me here in the first place. So, that would be my bit of advice for graduate students; be clear about what brought you to graduate school and revisit the question, perhaps every six months.

Krystal Strong  4:46
I’m Krystal Strong. I’m an assistant professor of Black Studies in Education at Rutgers University. I approach research in a very passion-driven way. I’m always thinking about what feels like it matters to me but also what feels like it matters to the communities that I’m a part of and connected to. There’s this old-school anthropology book that I sometimes teach with called the Perfect Stranger by Michael Aguilar, and in that book, he has this chapter called, Who are you to do this? And I always ask that question to myself, and I always ask that question to my students, especially when I’m thinking about embarking on a new kind of collaboration or project. I think it is a question we should be asking and if I feel like there’s a reason why I should be doing it, then that’s an important precondition. Think about the people whose lives are embedded in the work in whose lives could be impacted by the work and be in community with those people.

Greg Skutches  4:47
I’m Greg Skutches, I am director of Writing Across the Curriculum at Lehigh University. Find something that’s meaningful to you. And you know, that’s a process, right? To find a really good push it takes some preliminary research, right? So, I think we shortchange this idea. We do the same thing with young people, we say, “Find your passion”. As if you’re going to be walking down the street one day, and the clouds are going to part and you go, there’s my passion! Actually, your passion isn’t something you find, it’s something you craft. You have an array of interesting things, you pursue them all, and one thing starts to get more traction. It becomes increasingly interesting. Next thing you know, you’re thinking about that at times when you’re not even working, and you’re starting to craft a passion. So, I think the same thing with research. I think the tenure system does a lot of damage in having this ticking clock. It steers the young faculty away from big ideas, right. And so, I mean, my advice would be hard because it might be seen as bad advice; find something that’s really interesting to you. So, maybe even just hold on to your ideas and find other ways of making sure that when the time comes that you can pursue the ideas you’ve already had. Although that’s questionable advice too because I think it sounds like going through the rigors somewhere along the line, your soul gets lost in this effort to keep up. So, that’s difficult, that’s challenging advice but it’s the best I can do at this point. I think just heads up about what you’re being offered here in this education. I mean, you’re not really being offered what we call an education, per se, you’re being offered training. That’s what is being offered. You can seek out education in that within that system, right. So, for example, you’ll be told to do a dissertation that’s publishable so you can get a job and maybe stay away from big ideas. And I will say, resist that. Go for your big ideas.

You Yun  7:22
My name is You Yun. And You is my family name so, I’d prefer to be called in that way. And I’m now associate professor in the Department of Education at East Normal University. So, for me doing research is a bit like detective games I would say. I don’t know if this is a good metaphor, but I do always have many puzzles in my mind and I want to fit them out. So, to do so I have to find all the evidence, empirical, historical, philosophical, construct them as an evidence chain, and then make sense of them. So, I’d say find something that really bothers you. Or in other words something that you have your real passion on. So, that might be also related to your personal experience, start from there, but also go beyond that.

Lachlan McNamee  8:09
I’m Lachlan McNamee. I’m an assistant professor of Political Science at UCLA and lecturer of Politics at Monash University. I’m guided by cases and not someone who starts off thinking that I’m going to have some grand theory, and I want to test it. I usually will be motivated by a particular case. For me, it was the kind of plight of the Uyghurs in China, or the West Papuans in Indonesia, and my kind of frustration with either the theories that don’t explain these cases very well, or just the puzzles that these cases generate. I think starting from cases, cases that you care about, and thinking from those cases to the broader theoretical framework is also a really great way to kind of generate interesting insights, things that haven’t been picked up by scholars and allow you to enter into conversations with kind of a fresh perspective. You know, again, as a graduate student, often the easiest thing you can do to make a contribution is to collect data. Collect data that people haven’t done before in a case that might be understudied, you can kind of leave the grand theorizing to later but kind of collecting your own data, which for me, in the case of like the study of settler colonialism, one of the first kind of interventions I made was actually just to collect data on settlers and where they were moving in northwestern China, and in West Papua. And these data allowed me to kind of ask things that people hadn’t been able to ask before like, why did the state settle this area at this time and not this area that time? Or why did it successfully settle this area and failed to settle this area? Often kind of collecting your own data, but you’re asking questions, and gets around that kind of fear or intimidation of theory, at least for me.

Susan Robertson  9:05
So, I’m Professor Susan Robertson. and I’m a professor of Sociology of Education, and also the co-editor in chief of Globalisation, Societies and Education. How do I approach research? For myself, reading a lot, reading very widely. Education doesn’t come packaged up, it’s certainly not a discipline, it’s a problem space, I think. It’s an issue area. And many of the different ways in which we would need to both think about and encounter the kind of education as a problem space is necessarily going to have to draw on sociology, politics, industrial relations, international relations, economics, and so on. And so, I personally approach research as thinking about education as an issue area, a problem space. But where I deliberately try and I would encourage all of my students that I work with, to do that is to see yourself as actually drawing from as much of the social sciences as you possibly can. And it’s a big ask because you have to read a lot. But I think you get closer to trying to engage with the real world, because the real world doesn’t walk through that world just as a sociology problem. And it certainly doesn’t walk through the world, as let’s say, for example, a problem of politics, certainly not to do with education. And so, I think, at great risk and great peril, and it’s not to say the disciplines are not useful, they certainly are, but we also have to understand the limitations of those disciplines. So, that’s how I approach research. The path forward is never straight, is it? The world is very complicated at times, things unexpected happen that you didn’t anticipate. COVID even being one of those. And so, I would say in conducting research, think about being as methodologically innovative as you possibly can to resolve problems and issues. You know, new angles in on something methodologically. And not only thinking about the substantive kind of problem area, I feel that when we problematize those our tools, and the problem or the issue area in space, that in fact, actually what you’re then doing is you’re contributing, it strikes me, through research to kind of at least try to approximate a decent account of something. So, the tools-the kind of methodological tools, if we think of them-are just as important as, and I would also say, fundamentally the substantive kind of area that we’re actually working in.

Jusso Nieminen  12:42
I’m Jusso Nieminen, I’m an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong and an Honorary Fellow at Deakin University Australia. I am an educator, so I approach research from the viewpoint of practice every single time. There’s no purpose in this stuff if I just keep on publishing papers for academics, I approach research as critical practice because that’s what I do. When you think about your methods for your data collection, or analysis, or finding literature, always ask yourself why. Why this specific method? Why this specific branch of literature? And a very important second question is, why not something else? This very, very useful tip has really changed my own approach to writing.

Francine Menashy  13:32
My name is Francine Menashy and I’m an associate professor at OISE at the University of Toronto. So, I have learned that the best research comes out of something you’re really passionate about. So, sometimes research projects or research directions have fallen in my lap, being kind of led by someone else or someone else’s idea. But I find that approaching research coming from your own passions works better. You’re more likely to spend time on it, you’re more likely to want to get the findings out there. So, really follow something that’s really close to your heart rather than what someone else tells you is timely or popular.

Will Brehm  14:18
Do you have any other piece of advice for like a new graduate student about to conduct research for the first time?

Francine Menashy  14:24
Make sure that it’s manageable, and you can finish it. I know we all want to produce earth shattering, groundbreaking whatever metaphor you want kind of research, but I know it’s a horrible thing to say, but it’s actually true that the best dissertation is the one on the shelf, and you want to finish at some point. So, make sure that it’s a feasible study you can do within the time you want to be in the program.

Jamie Martin  14:56
My name is Jamie Martin. I’m an assistant professor of History and Social Studies at Harvard University. I would say three things guide, the way I do research. One is to start wide kind of cast a wide net. Two is when you find something that interests you, follow your nose. Keep following it. Because if it interests you, chances are very good, it’s going to interest other people. The third thing that I really try to keep in mind, and which is sometimes difficult to follow is to avoid using research as a tool of procrastination. Always start writing before you’re ready. Don’t think that you can ever kind of complete your research in a way that it will be done and that then will allow you to start writing. Writing itself changes the process of research. So, always start writing before you feel ready to. Again, follow your nose. Even if it seems kind of irrelevant or ancillary to what you said you were doing, or what your advisor thinks you’re doing, follow your nose. Because that is, in most cases, how you’re going to find your most exciting finds.

Judith Landeros  16:00
My name is Judith Landeros, I am a PhD candidate at the University of Texas at Austin studying Curriculum Instruction in the Cultural Studies in Education program. I approach research with the idea that I have this responsibility, but also privilege, to be able to share stories, to be able to bring healing to communities or people or individuals or Mother Earth with a lot of responsibility, though, because you have to think about what you’re writing, and who you’re writing it for, and what you’re writing about. And making sure that it isn’t used in ways that could generate more harm, but in ways that really uplift and rewrite stories. If you’re not really enjoying everything you’re reading in your coursework, meet other people and find other things to read and bring that into your course. You know, advisors, professors, graduate students, its building relationships, and sharing this. Find your people and you’ll be able to learn more about the type of research you want to do.

Ezequiel Gómez Caride  17:09
I’m Ezequiel Gomez Caride, I’m working at the University of San Andres in Argentina. And I’m an assistant professor. Well, I try to somehow relate the questions that I have with the global kind of discussion about it and try to relate because very smart people have surely had these similar kinds of questions. But the challenge is to try to relate to these previous authors in a way that you can somehow say something new or different, or that is not being said. So, that’s a very complicated task. I always recommend to share drafts as soon as possible. Don’t wait to finish the book to share because you have one draft, the first chapter share it, socialize it and go to a conference and receive feedback. I think that’s very productive. Don’t wait to have the perfect draft to share it.

Kēhaulani Vaughn  18:06
Kēhaulani Vaughn, I’m assistant professor of Pacific Island Education, and Education, Culture, and Society at the University of Utah. My research was done in consultation with a community. So, for example, my dissertation research was looking at Acjachemen in Orange County. And before I wrote my dissertation, I met with some Acjachemen leaders. I met with some of the elders, their kupuna. And I really asked, Is this something that the tribe, the native nation would feel is beneficial for their community? And if not, then how could I change this? Or is there another topic in which I can write about the story and document it so that it’s beneficial for the community and not just for me submitting as my dissertation project. Do something you’re passionate about. Do not write about or do not engage in research that’s cool or sexy. It’s really thinking about what is so important to you that despite every type of situation that could prevent you from finishing, is going to make you pass that finish line.

Aizuddin Mohamed Anuar  19:18
I am Aizuddin Mohamed Anuar, and I am a lecturer in Education at Keele University in the UK. I mean, personally, I find that I always try to figure out what my personal connection to the topic is and that’s always been, for me, a very productive entryway into further understanding or further research into that topic. I guess to understand your personal imperative behind wanting to study that topic. I feel like that personal connection is very important to sustain motivation, especially when it becomes kind of difficult and you begin to wonder what the whole point of doing that work is.

Zeena Zakharia  19:18
Hi, I’m Zeena Zakharia, and I’m an assistant professor at the University of Maryland in College Park. Honestly, it’s been difficult. I think, as an untenured professor and a Palestinian scholar, there’s been a lot that I couldn’t pursue in my research. But I hope that I can leave that to others who are more secure in their spaces. And for myself, I can uplift others, through my own work, where my own security can create the possibility for doing research in those spaces. And I think a lot of my work has been guided by that. I’d say, think deeply about the ethics of your research and the implications of the work on your own security.

Nazmi Anuar  20:45
My name is Nazmi Anuar and I teach architecture in Taylor’s University. It should be something personal. I tend to narrow down on things that I’m either agitated by, or things that I feel confused about, or things that I’m struggling to understand. So, that would become something that I’ll be interested in. And for example, I’m trained as an architect. And as an architect, development is always good because it means you get to do more projects. However, the PhD I’m starting is kind of a critique of development, which as an architect, that is sort of counter intuitive because you’re sort of questioning, in a way, your very role. So, I think finding something that is not obvious but something that is perhaps allowing you to kind of have a different take on your profession, on your field, right? To find a critical position is crucial. And it’s important to do meaningful research. I mean, have something that you can foreseeably work on for a long period of time. Because I think one of my problems was, I find a lot of things interesting. And the next week, I would have something this is interesting. And then the other week, that is also interesting. So, I think also to have a clarity of thought. I’d say to put all your interests on the table and see which one is it that could lead to the most fruitful kind of research. And it’s not just a passing interest. It’s not like, Oh, I’m interested in this for two weeks, and then I’m no longer invested in it. So, I think you have to find something that like at the heart of it, that is your actual concern, I guess that makes it worthwhile.

Alison Milner  22:13
Hello, my name is Alison Milner, and I’m an assistant professor at Aalborg University in Denmark. How do I approach research? Well, I think it depends actually on the type of research. Am I working on my own? Or am I working with other people? It depends on who our research funder is. How much steering is coming from them, or how much freedom we have as researchers to set the agenda. I think in terms of the work I’ve done with my former supervisor, and I continue to do on trade unions, one of the best things about that is having really good established relationships with the research collaborators, the research funders in Brussels, and knowing what they want from the project. And having then established really good relations with the affiliates who we normally do research on or with. So, one of the bits of advice that actually my PhD supervisor gave me once in terms of impact is this idea of Don’t piss off the funder, basically. Because these are the people actually that you know, in terms of research impact, they can have a huge impact on that. They can take your research to the next level, they can be the ones that pass it on to the European Commission, they can be the ones that put it out through their social media, encourage their affiliates to use. So, actually, if you have those opportunities to work with funding providers that you work directly with, I think that’s a really important thing. Is that positive relationship with them in terms of their research? Well, I think the important thing is to see it as an iterative process. You are going to change throughout this process as well. Your views are going to change constantly, you are going to feel like you don’t know what you’re doing a lot of the time, you are going to feel as well that you are maybe not fit for research, you are not academic enough, you’re not intellectual enough. But this is something that we all kind of have to negotiate even post PhD as researchers. And I would say you have to keep going and constantly stay in dialogue with not just your PhD supervisors, but other PhD students, people in your faculty have conversations. Don’t isolate yourself, because it can be very isolating as a PhD student, and constantly ask questions. And don’t be afraid, ultimately, if something is not working in your research to throw it to one side, because actually what you may be doing is actually finding what is right in your research in doing that in the process. And it may actually be you don’t really understand your research till the very last few months, the very last few weeks of your project, but ultimately you will get there in the end.

Dinur Blum  24:45
I’m Dinur Blum, I’m a lecturer in Sociology at California State University in last Angeles.

Will Brehm  25:00
How do you approach your research?

Dinur Blum  25:02
That’s kind of a tough question in the sense that there are times where there’s a question that kind of pops to mind. And I’ll try and figure out what’s the best way to research it. There are a lot of times where I’ll read something, or I’ll hear something on the news, I’m like, “There’s a project here”, but I don’t know quite what. And what I’ll tend to do is I’ll just kind of talk about it with friends and sometimes we’ll come up with an idea. And we’ll say, okay, like, hey, let’s try and collaborate on this. Let’s try and figure something out. Sometimes we just backburner it, and we say, Okay, well, it’s an idea. And if we can think of something, then we’ll do it. I don’t necessarily think of methods first. Myself, I tend to do a little bit more qualitative work. I tend to do a little bit more interviews. But I’ve worked with some absolutely amazing quantitative scholars and so we’re able to kind of merge our different areas of knowledge. And that means I don’t have to worry about the kind of method or how I want to study something because I know that there’s someone that I can work with, even if it’s not my own methodology. Don’t expect your research to go to plan. You’re going to work really, really hard coming up with a detailed plan. And it’s going to be amazing. And you’re going to find that the survey you wrote, only a third of the people, if you’re lucky, sent it back. Those interviews you set up to talk and you were sure something came up and that person couldn’t make it and you couldn’t reschedule; shit happens. And that’s part of research that I don’t think gets taught. But it’s a part of our lives. Like remember that I’m coming at y’all as a sociologist and a criminologist. So, I deal with people. And that means I’ve got to deal with people who have their own lives, who’ve got their own schedules, who’s got their own desires. They may not want to talk to a professor about whatever it is, I’m studying, and that’s fine. They’re competent adults, we’ve got to respect that. When you run into that, be aware, it’s okay for your research not to go according to plan, just be honest about it and say, Okay. Here was the plan, here’s how it had to change because I didn’t have access to A, B, or C.

Janelle Scott  26:58
Janelle Scott, I’m a professor at UC Berkeley. I approach research by doing what I asked my students to do. I tend to follow my curiosity, I read a lot, I listen a lot, I think hard about what’s missing that I think is really important. I try and speak to the things that I think are missing. And I really enjoy and lean into collaborative projects. Try to resist the pressure to develop this huge public profile, right away. Understand that careers and life happens in seasons, and sometimes it’s a season of quiet, and it’s a season of reflection, and it’s a season of sense making, and figuring out and experimenting and trying things. And sometimes it’s a season of being out in the world and at conferences or on social media, or in relational kinds of situations, but to be patient with the seasons, and to not measure their intellectual development or professional development against someone else’s. Everyone’s path is unique.

Michael Crossley  28:11
Michael Crossley, professor of Comparative and International Education at the University of Bristol in the UK. I have to feel I’m committed to whatever the issue is. So, I have to have a real reason for wanting to do it. Narrow down your reading when you begin and focus. Don’t try to do everything.

Natasha Warikoo  28:34
I’m Natasha Warikoo, and I am Stern professor in the Social Sciences, in the Department of Sociology at Tufts University. I tend to follow kind of my instincts and questions that I have, and things that I see are kind of bubbling up to the surface. So, I think people in different fields, and even within sociology, different orientations do things differently and tend to hone in on like one or two questions over the course of their career, and I see the value in that. But I also for my own research, there are some overarching themes in the projects that I’ve done related to education, race, equity, meritocracy. I follow my gut. I don’t know how to say that in terms of what I ended up researching.

Mario Novelli  29:22
My name is Mario Novelli, I’m a professor in the Political Economy of Education at the University of Sussex in the UK. I approach research as something that the process is as important as the product. That it’s a journey, and you have to recognize that, particularly myself in the areas that I worked with, there’s a lot of empirical work. So, you’re meeting with people, no? So, it’s about thinking about not just parachuting in and out of people’s lives, thinking about reciprocity and what each partner in the research process is getting out of this. If you’re working with colleagues, thinking about them as well. What are they getting out of it? It’s not just about you, it’s about a team. So, research, I think, is a really complex thing. And so there are a range of ethical things around that I think you need to think about. I think I mentioned already, recognizing an ethics of behavior. Perhaps I would also say that be both methodologically and theoretically open, not close yourself down to the empirical reality that you’re engaging with. Don’t be driven just by the theory and the methodology. Let the research speak for itself and be prepared to move and change and think that, you know, the theory and the methodology are not ends in themselves, their means to try to solve issues. So, be open to that.

Luis Urrieta  31:02
My name is Luis Urrieta and I’m a professor of Cultural Studies of Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Texas at Austin. I would say that with a lot of respect and humility, I’m there to be a co-learner, a co-laborer. At least the work that I’ve done, I’ve tried to co-live the experience with the people that I’m in collaboration with. So, I share part of my life with them, and I learn in the process.

Will Brehm  31:30
Do you have a piece of advice for a new graduate student in terms of conducting research?

Luis Urrieta  31:34
To be respectful, to be humble, to be kind, to be generous with what you’re doing. And to always know there’s more to know even when you have to be upfront sharing what you learned that it doesn’t become a pedestal for arrogance, or that this title expert doesn’t get to your head.

Want to help translate this show? Please contact info@freshedpodcast.com

Have any useful resources related to this show? Please send them to info@freshedpodcast.com