Epistemological defiance: troubling the notion of authorship, collaboration, and re-presentation in dissertation research

Abstract

Centering the research process on building, rebuilding, and maintaining relationships, this multi-vocal article highlights the need to revisit practice. We consider research conducted in a city where all public schools are charter schools and discuss tensions between the implementation of our research approach and the university as we trouble the notion of ‘authorship,’ collaboration, and ‘re-presentation.’ Bringing our unique positionalities to the forefront, this article focuses on voice (oral story) and how voice functions in (written) text for researcher and participants in dissertation research. We argue that dissertation research is a collaborative and relational process that involves: the participants, the author, the advisor, the bodies of knowledge, and the ethical and moral principles that frame the process. Long-term, reciprocal relationships constructed a foundation for this study’s knowledge production and may be needed in all research studies, especially those that include those who are ‘marginalized’ and whose voices are often silenced.

Keywords:

• collaborative methodologies
• decolonial ethics
• Black education
• school closures
• disaster capitalism
• New Orleans

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Rethink, BEST New Orleans, the John McDonogh High School Steering Committee, and Mobilization to End Racism in Government Everywhere.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Like other places (Franklin, 1979; Patton, 1978), Black public schools in New Orleans were integral parts of their communities, and there was a struggle to open each (Jeffers, 2018). First, McDonogh 35 opened in 1917 (DeVore & Logsdon, 1991/2011). Then, the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) opened Joseph S. Clark only after community pressure concerning overcrowded and inadequate facilities at Booker Washington and McDonogh 35, (Byrd, 1946; Creuzot & Dunn, 1946). For more on Clark’s history, see Cassimere (2018). Historically Black public high schools also include Walter L. Cohen and George Washington Carver.

For purposes of the study, school closures initially occurred under the School Improvement Grant program under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965) as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) (2001). This program required that states and districts implement one of four prescriptive models: turnaround, transformation, restart, or closure (U.S. Department of Education, 2010). The restart model, implemented at Clark, Carver, and Cohen, required that districts convert a school or close and reopen it under a charter school operator, charter management organization, or education management organization, which was then ‘required to enroll, within the grades it serves, any former student who wishes to attend the school’ (U.S. Department of Education, 2010, p. 31). As such, one million dollars was allocated for this model model to be implemented at Cohen (U.S. Department of Education, 2013); however, the charter organization served different grades and did not enroll the previous students (Dixson et al., 2015). See Journey for Justice Alliance (2014) regarding communities in cities across the country that organized against closures. While the Every Student Succeeds Act (2015) does not require states to implement prescriptive models, school closures, oftentimes funded through the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Charter Schools Program, have continued in New Orleans and elsewhere (Jewson, 2018; Tieken & Auldridge-Reveles, 2019).

2 One way that the plantation regime has controlled knowledge production is through the Charter Schools Demonstrations Programs Law (1995), which ‘authorized experimentation by city and parish school boards [through] the creation of innovative kinds of independent public schools.’ This law created a means for people ‘with valid ideas and motivation to participate in the experiment [emphasis added], … [where] results can be analyzed, the positive results repeated or replicated, if appropriate, and the negative results identified and eliminated. … at-risk pupils [emphasis added] shall be the overriding consideration in implementing’ (La. Act No. 192, 1995/1997).

3 The NAACP (2017) called for a moratorium on charter school expansion until they became transparent and accountable, and it held hearings around the country to listen to various stakeholders. At the hearing in New Orleans, students from the group, Rethink, initially thought that their resolution supported charter schools, and they testified on how the phase out of their school, McDonogh 35, was bringing harm to their education (Jeffers, field notes, 2017). The following week, the School Board held a public hearing about turning over McDonogh 35 to a charter management organization, and the organization’s local chapter did not voice opposition (Jeffers, field notes, 2017). We shed light upon this inconsistency to show the divisive nature of the plantation regime and marketization of education.

4 In the months after Hurricane Katrina, state law makers approved La. Act No. 35 (2005), which altered the accountability standards that New Orleans public schools had to meet under NCLB and expanded the state-run, Recovery School District’s (RSD) jurisdiction from over five schools to a total of 112 schools because they had performance scores below the state average. See Sanders (2018). In response to this legislation and the subsequent handing over of schools to charter management organizations, several iterations of local working class, Black-led community groups have organized for the return of public schools in New Orleans. Schools seemingly returned to the auspices of the Orleans Parish School Board, through La. Act No. 91 (2016). Yet, all of the city’s public schools have been chartered and, in fact, most function as their own local education agencies, or districts. In other words, La. No. Act 91 ensured that when charter schools “returned” to the local school board, they would retain autonomy over hiring and firing of personnel, terms and conditions of employment, performance evaluation and management, salaries and benefits, retirement, collective bargaining, certification, yearly school calendars, daily schedules, curriculum, procurement, budgeting, purchasing, and contracting for services other than capital repairs and facilities construction

5 Similar to other cities across the country, a Black elite and politically connected class emerged in New Orleans (Reed, 1999). Building upon this history, this class now operates several charter management organizations. Woods (2017) wrote about the city’s first Black mayor, Ernest Morial: ‘The new administration defied expectations [with]… a citywide patronage system populated by middle-class Blacks and whites, professionals, appointees, firms and individual supporters’ (p. 218).

6 See Oliver et al. (2014) and Zanders (2020).

7 Spivak (1988) argued that there are ‘two senses of representation… representation as ‘speaking for,’ as in politics, and representation as ‘re-presentation,’ as in art or philosophy’ (p. 70).

8 The John McDonogh Steering Committee was a group of parents, alumni, former faculty, ministers, and neighbors whose mission was for the return of John McDonogh to its local school board and for the re-opening of John McDonogh as a direct-run community-based college and career high school. The Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education reversed its resolution in support of this committee (Jackson v. Dobard 2015). A charter school, Bricolage Academy, with a vastly different demographic of students than McDonogh had in recent decades (See Dixson et al., 2015), presently occupies the facility.

9 Tremé is considered the oldest Black, urban neighborhood in the country (Woods, 2017).

10 The Justice and Beyond Coalition travelled to the state capital to support Bouie’s school return legislation, House Bill 166 (2015) which preceded La. Act No. 91 (2016), known as ‘the school return bill’

11 Carver, located in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, was the fifth public high school to serve Black children in the city. The OPSB built it after many years of parent petitions and court battles (Jeffers, 2018). The RSD implemented the restart and turnaround models (see note one) and divided Carver into three schools: Carver High, Carver Preparatory, and Carver Collegiate Prep (U.S. Department of Education, 2016). At this meeting, a group of students called ‘the Carver Five’ were meeting with administration about their concerns (Jeffers, field notes, 2016).

12 Neighborhood schools are non-existent in New Orleans. ‘(65.5%) of the 84 schools prioritize geographic preference [and] … priority is limited to a percentage of spots available, typically 50%’ (State of Louisiana, Louisiana Legislative Auditor, 2018, p. 8).

13 The RSD initially operated Clark as a direct-run school, but it transferred it to a charter management organization, FirstLine Schools (Jeffers, field notes, 2011). Shortly afterwards, another charter school moved to Clark’s second and third floors; the following year, this school assumed the entire building while Clark was moved to another location and phased out (Dr. Joseph S. Clark Alumni Association, 2019; Morris Jeff Community School, 2019).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elizabeth K. Jeffers

Elizabeth K. Jeffers is a tenure track assistant professor at the University of New Orleans. Her Ph.D. is in Educational Policy Studies from Georgia State University. Prior to her doctoral work, she served as an educator for nearly a decade in New Orleans public schools. Her work is primarily concerned with qualitative research methodologies, research ethics, school leadership development, and socio-cultural-historical foundations of education.

Janice B. Fournillier

Janice B. Fournillier is a tenure track associate professor in the Research Measurement and Statistics unit of the Educational Policy Studies department at Georgia State University. Her Ph.D. is in Educational Psychology with a concentration in Research, Evaluation, and Measurement. Her primary research interests are the application and translation of qualitative research methodologies, program evaluation, teacher education, and teaching and learning in non-school contexts like Trinidad and Tobago’s Carnival mas’ camps where she did her dissertation work.