ABSTRACT

Doing Research within Communities provides real-life examples of field research projects in language and education, offering an overview of research processes and solutions to the common challenges faced by researchers in the field. This unique book contains personal research narratives from sixteen different and varied fieldwork projects, providing advice and guidance to the reader through example rather than instruction and enabling the reader to discover connections with the storyteller and gain insights into their own research journey. This book:

  • provides advice, practical guidance and support for engaging with a community as a research site;
  • covers the real-life theoretical, ethical and practical issues faced by researchers, such as language choice in multilingual communities, and the insider/outsider status of the researcher;
  • discusses challenges posed by a variety of mono- and multilingual settings, from remote island communities to large urban areas;
  • includes research from across the Asia-Pacific area, including Australia, New Zealand and East Timor, and also the US.

Doing Research within Communities is essential reading for early career researchers and graduate students undertaking fieldwork within communities.

chapter 1|12 pages

Doing research within communities

Strands within and across the narratives

chapter 2|9 pages

Human rights

Journeys start with experiences

chapter 3|8 pages

This doesn't feel right

Selecting a site for school-based ethnography

chapter 5|9 pages

What happens when a community withdraws?

Managing relationships with an Indigenous community

chapter 7|9 pages

Taking an interest

Competence in and affiliations with the expected languages of schooling

chapter 8|10 pages

Navigating the multilingual field

Language choice and sociolinguistic fieldwork

chapter 9|10 pages

Interpreter-mediated data collection

Experiences of talking to migrants through interpreters

chapter 12|10 pages

Establishing connections

A tale of two communities

chapter 15|9 pages

Imagined linguistic identity

Reflections on an interview

chapter 16|9 pages

Becoming an adopted insider

A researcher's journey

chapter 17|9 pages

The narrative journey

Adapting research design to capture the voice of the community

chapter 18|8 pages

Doing research within communities

Connecting practice to theory