Teaching critical reflexivity in short-term international field courses: practices and problems

Abstract

This study critiques the use of critical reflexivity in short-term international field courses. Critical reflexivity’s benefits include preparing students for professional research, deepening their learning, and giving the chance to see how student perspectives on fieldwork sites are influenced by their own identity and positionality. I use an inter-disciplinary review of reflexivity to describe four challenges faculty must address if they wish to train students to use reflexive practices in the field. I then describe student observations from a short-term field course to Southeast Asia that incorporated reflexivity and argue that faculty should include reflexivity cautiously on short-term field courses.

Keywords:

• reflexivity
• international fieldwork
• practices
• positionality
• experiential learning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. It is possible that the consent process affected the way students wrote about their positionality. Nevertheless, this risk was outweighed by the need to adhere to ethical research practices when publishing extracts of student products.