Conducting research on and with your own students

Abstract

Researchers’ proximity to their field of interest can make it difficult to create what Bourdieu called “the strange point of view” needed to look beyond the field’s implicit beliefs when producing new knowledge. Based on a Bourdieusian approach to reflexive sociology, this article discusses proximity and distance when conducting research on and with one’s own students. To problematize proximity and distance in a research project, this article discusses a case in which a teacher/researcher conducted research on and with her own students in a bachelor’s degree program in sign language and interpreting as part of a project focusing on the students’ development of professional characteristics as interpreters for individuals with deafblindness. This article argues that student participation and input created an epistemological rupture and represented the strange point of view that became a counterweight to the researcher’s proximity to the field.