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This chapter seeks to open a conversation around the increasingly pressing question of what is the role of the white researcher in qualitative Critical whiteness Studies (CwS) research in higher education. While the past 30 years have seen an increase in scholarship that critiques the ways that whiteness operates in higher education at both individual and institutional levels, to date no work exists that explores how this research should be conducted. In introducing a Critical whiteness Methodology (CwM) for higher education, this chapter is intended to provide an initial framework to inform the ways that white CwS scholars conceptualize, and conduct themselves throughout the research process. Grounded in core theoretical frameworks in CwS and influenced by critical race theory (CRT) and critical race methodologies (CRM), we propose five tenets that serve as a starting point in the conceptualization of a CwM. Utilizing these tenets, we then provide suggestions that white researchers can utilize to intentionally structure their research designs, protocols, and practices to actively challenge whiteness through CwS scholarship in higher education.

Children and youth of color in White and adult-dominated societies confront racism and adultism that shapes their peer cultures. Yet, the “new” sociology of childhood lacks the theory and methodology to explore racialized peer cultures. Thus, this chapter aims to sharpen its research tools. Theoretically, this chapter draws from Technologies of the Self (Foucault, 1988) and Critical Race Theory (Delgado & Stefancic, 2012) to enhance Valentine’s (1997) “adult-youth binary” and Corsaro’s (2015) “interpretive reproduction.” Methodologically, it combines the “doing research with children” approach (Greig, Taylor, & MacKay, 2013) with Critical Race Methodology (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002) to do research with youth of color. These enhanced research tools are then used to explore how boys and girls of color (n = 150), 9- to 17-year olds, experience peer culture in suburban schools, under police surveillance, and on social media. In the field, interviewers navigated their adult privilege and racial/ethnic positionalities in relation to that of participants and the racial dynamic in the research setting, ultimately aiming to co-create a safe space for counter-storytelling. As a result, this chapter captured how White-dominated peer cultures used racial microaggressions against youth of color in suburban schools, boy peer cultures navigated racialized policing, and online-offline peer cultures curtailed protective and controlling racialized adult surveillance. Theoretically, the racially enhanced interpretive reproduction and adult-youth binary exposed the adultism-racism intersection that shapes youth peer cultures. Methodologically, counter-storytelling revealed the painful realities that youth of color face and that those with adult and/or White privilege would rather ignore.

This chapter features our innovative endeavors to inquire into an African-American student's potentially sensitive stories in a methodologically fluid and ethically delicate manner through two generative methods: digital narrative inquiry and musical narrative inquiry. Through a meta-level “inquiry into inquiry” approach, this work explores how we engaged in the digital and musical restorying of the participant's “Wounded Healer” narrative and uncovered its dynamism, cultural richness, and nuances. We subsequently represented the findings in humanizing ways using multimedia and music. Drawing on the insights from exploring these novel methods of digital and musical inquiry, our work illuminates noteworthy elements of narrative research: generativity, transformativity, interpersonal ethics, aesthetic ethics, and communal ethics. Additionally, the potential issue of trustworthiness in fluid narrative inquiries is addressed.

Prior to Brown v. Board of Education 1954, Black female educators played a significant and vital role in segregated schools. Despite Black female teachers’ historic presence in the field of education, presently Black female teachers are disproportionately under-represented in the US teacher workforce. Acknowledging the shortage of Black female teachers in K-12 classrooms, the purpose of this qualitative study is to explore why Black female educators teach in under-resourced, urban schools. By examining Black female educators’ initial draw to urban schools in what we conceptualized as the urban factor, we hope to reframe the implicit biases surrounding under-resourced, urban schools as less desirable workplaces and unearth reasons why those Black female teachers who enter teaching gravitate more toward urban schools. Three themes emerged about Black female teachers’ thoughts on and preference for urban schools with an unexpected finding about Black female teachers’ perceptions of student behavior. Concluding, recommendations are offered for policy and practice.

This paper aims to explore alternative literacy instruction with incarcerated youth, add to the body of existing literature documenting the literacy of those incarcerated and investigate the construction of book clubs through a critical lens.

This qualitative case study answered the following research questions: What can a critical book club reveal about the literacy lives of these incarcerated youth? What can we learn from incarcerated youth through a critical book club? Data were collected through participant observation and in-depth interviews and analyzed using a critical literacy framework.

Findings indicate students used text connections to critically reflect on selves and schools. They questioned issues of power, particularly the power of literacy in their own lives as well as the power of schools, teachers and curriculum. The paper concludes with the authors’ critical reflection on both the findings and process which results in implications for future book clubs in settings with incarcerated youth.

As educators, administrators and community members living in the “age of incarceration” (Hill, 2013), there is a social responsibility to design curriculum and pedagogy that expands instruction in correctional facilities.

The need for expanded literacy instruction in juvenile detention centers has been widely documented and supported; however, conventional methods of teaching literacy are not always successful for youth who may not have had positive experiences with traditional schooling. This study expands and explores literacy instruction with incarcerated youth through book clubs, an alternative literacy structure which challenges traditional curricula, pedagogical practices and culturally irrelevant texts which often contribute to the alienation and disempowerment of many students. Book clubs can facilitate new understandings through a critical lens.

To answer, at least initially, the question posed in the title, in the sense of observing others ethnography is another form of surveillance. However, there are specific connotations in the term ‘surveillance’ which evoke the concept of ‘the gaze’ (Foucault, 1977, 1989) as well as something more sinister such as illicit behaviour or even subterfuge. Further questions then arise, particularly with regard to personal experience research that I draw on here. These are: as ethnographers are we merely contributing to the mass of data already accumulated about society members as a result of state supported forms of monitoring? What are the ethical issues involved in personal experience research, entering people's homes and documenting our observations? To what extent, (if at all), does the contribution to knowledge and understanding outweigh the concerns with these ethical issues? Are there particular implications in researching controversial issues such as ‘race’ and education in this ethical debate?

In many organizational settings, status hierarchies result in the conferral of privileges that are based on achievement. However, in the same settings, status may result in the bestowal of privileges that are unearned. We argue that these unearned privileges are often awarded based on ascribed characteristics, but are perceived to be achieved. We further argue that these misattributions occur because acknowledging that one has benefited from unearned advantages that are awarded in a meritocracy can be threatening to a person's self-identity. We propose that by studying unearned privileges in organizational settings, a more accurate assessment of status hierarchies may result.

Most traditional research approaches emerge from the position that all “good” research is “objective.” While this is critical for conducting scholarly inquiry, we contend that it is equally important to acknowledge the significant impact social, cultural, and political contexts have on the research process. That is, research is a malleable process informed and influenced by broader socio-political forces. Because research is not conducted in a vacuum, researchers have a duty to consider the context within which one engages in research. It also requires the researcher to understand their position or status along with their participants’ power and expertise when undertaking research studies, particularly in cross-contexts. In this chapter, we explore the nuances – some overt others subtle – that have informed and influenced how our cross-cultural team navigated our research spaces. The authors of this chapter are a cross-cultural team comprised of a White American and a Black African academic. Both the United States and South Africa have complex histories of race relations and racial identity within their broader socio-political context which must be considered when conducting research. Therefore, to dissociate and compartmentalize aspects of our identity when conducting research in these contexts may in fact compromise scholarly insights which might emerge from these contexts.

There are three main analytic challenges to studying kids, especially where the core focus is inequality: (1) minimizing the power imbalance between adults/researchers and kids/participants, (2) attending to the active and imaginative communication styles of young people, and (3) getting beneath the superficial rhetoric of meritocracy, colorblindness, and post-feminism. In this chapter, we draw from our own qualitative insights when studying middle school kids (grades 6–8, ages 11–14) in providing a systematic analysis of the effectiveness of distinct visual strategies and their respective strengths and limitations for producing rich, useful, and specific data. The insights gleaned are applicable to analyses of kids, understandings of inequality, and even methodological training.