Engagement in the Professional Community

I have continued to be engaged in my professional community both through my work as a

Graduate Research Assistant (GRA) and attendance and presentations at conferences. As a

GRA, I continued to serve as an editor for School-University Partnerships and helped begin the

process of indexing the journal in major databases. This task, in particular, allowed me to further

explore the logistics of publishing a journal and required that I work with other students to aid in

its completion.

This summer, I attended the European Literacy conference in Madrid and presented the

findings from a content analysis I did on research on refugee literacy. This was one of the better

conferences I have attended so far as a PhD student. I met many other students and researchers

studying refugee literacy from all over the world, and reconnected with a Canadian researcher

who studies digital literacies, a growing interest of mine. This conference provided a unique

opportunity to network and receive feedback on my work from fellow students and researchers

who share my concerns about the deficit perspectives framing the ways refugees are portrayed in

academic research.

Prior to this conference, I also attended the local Washington Consortium of Colleges for

Comparative and International Education and Training student conference and gave the same

presentation. This allowed me to practice my presentation with an audience of students and gave

me the opportunity to learn more about what my peers are interested in.

I also presented a literature review I wrote on research using Critical Race Theory (CRT)

to study refugee education in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia at the New

Directions in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of Tennessee. While I was the

only person studying refugee issues in attendance, this conference served as an opportunity for
me to learn more about CRT and its applications to education research in the United States and

abroad. I also realized after listening to some other doctoral students presentations of their work

abroad and then speaking with Dr. Zenkov and Dr. Baily that using three countries as sites for

my research might not be feasible. If I focus on two for a comparative study, instead of three, I

can increase the depth of the study rather than the breadth.

Preparing for Dissertation

In Portfolio Evaluation 2, I was advised to continue working on my pilot study. Prior to

Portfolio 2, I interviewed 4 teachers, 2 students, and received 7 questionnaires from preservice

teachers. This year, with Dr. Brozos help and connections, I wrote a questionnaire that was sent

to the head of a department for in-service-teacher training in a state in Germany to distribute to

teachers in his network of schools. This person was very kind and helped me to edit my

questionnaire to be more suitable for the German context. Exchanging emails with this person

helped me to realize the importance of detailed knowledge of school systems as background for

asking questions about the teaching of refugee students.

I also interviewed three people working at a non-profit serving refugees in Norwich,

England. This was before I decided to eliminate England from my future study. Interviewing

these individuals allowed me to learn more about how the non-profit sector impacts public

schools, and the ways such organizations try to fill in the gaps left by education policy and a lack

of funding in schools. I observed a program run by this organization, too. This program was for

both refugee students and parents and took place in the organization headquarters, so it was a

marked difference from the classrooms I observed.

I also interviewed a university professor in England who engages in a project similar to

some of the School-University partnerships studied in the U.S. Speaking to her made clear that
education policy is interpreted in many different ways, as it filters down through the state and

local levels and is enacted by stakeholders in various networks.

Interviewing both the non-profit workers and the university professor in England further

helped me to understand and appreciate my outsider status as an American. They explained their

context in great detail, and made no assumptions about what I already knew, which may not have

happened had they understood me to be a local student. It also prompted me to consider how I

may be seen when I interview students, teachers, and administrators in Australia, particularly as

my continued interviews with teachers stateside went very well, possibly because I was viewed

as a sort of colleague.

Influence of Coursework

Since Portfolio Evaluation II, I have completed the final course needed for my

International Education minor as well as the Advanced Qualitative research course, the

Quantitative research course, and a course in New Media and Digital Literacies. For the

International Education minor, I took Research Inquiries in International Education. I found that

completing the work for this course at the same time as I worked on the two research courses to

be especially beneficial, as I began to read studies with a more critical eye and examined the

methods sections more closely. In addition, taking these courses together prompted me to think

more deeply about my own research questions. In EDUC 815, we were asked to review the

literature related to our research interests to formulate possible research questions, and to explain

our rationale. Engaging in this exercise allowed me to reconsider what I would really like to

learn, whether the questions I have been asking are answerable, and why they matter.

Throughout this course, with the help of my peers and with Dr. Bailys guidance, I

worked to articulate a research question that captures my interest in the interaction between
language policy and what happens in the reading classroom with refugees with deficit

perspectives prevalent in the media. I also began to explore the methods that make the most

sense to begin to study these questions. In EDRS 822, we were asked to write a series of three

papers that together could serve as a draft of the methods chapter for a our dissertation, exploring

the theory, philosophy, design, and issues in quality related to our chosen research method.

Writing these three papers and engaging in deep conversations with my peers about these topics

in relation to qualitative research made me think more critically about whose voices need to be

represented in the data I collect, what sort of data I should collect and how, and the ethical issues

I am likely to face as I go about my research. Interviewing refugee students could pose a number

of ethical issues as I may not be able to fully represent their views through translation, and I must

be careful not to make assumptions or ask insensitive questions. This would be the case if I were

to interview any student with a cultural or linguistic background different from my own, but I

believe it to be especially true for refugee students, as they are already represented in negative

ways in the media and in research.