“The Room Where It Happens”: Doctoral Students’ Journey to Community-Engaged Research

Authors

Keywords:

doctoral education, research methods, community-engaged, humanizing research

Abstract

Doctoral education in social work equips students to be stewards of the discipline through training in practice, policy, and research methods. In this article, we, as two doctoral students, reflect on our research practicum coursework. As fans of the musical Hamilton (Miranda, 2015a), we were struck by the parallel of gaining access to “the room where [research] happens” (Miranda, 2015c) and offer commentary on the historically exclusionary practices of the empiricist-driven academy. While learning the research process, it became obvious and disconcerting that doctoral education in social work focuses on teaching students how to engage in primarily positivist, empiricist, generalizable research. However, this epistemology does not align with most social work scholarship agendas. Through critical consideration of personal and professional values, we posit that the social work profession has a responsibility to infuse humanizing, community-engaged research methods and offer points of reflection educators may consider to enhance their research courses.

Author Biographies

Jennifer Tanis, Hope College

Jennifer Tanis, PhD, LMSW (she/her) is Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Social Work, Hope College, Holland, MI (tanisj@hope.edu).

Leonardo Kattari, University of Michigan-Dearborn

Leonardo Kattari, PhD, MSW (he/they) is Assistant Professor, Department of Health and Human Services, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI (lkattari@umich.edu).

Downloads

Published

2024-07-15

How to Cite

Tanis, J., & Kattari, L. (2024). “The Room Where It Happens”: Doctoral Students’ Journey to Community-Engaged Research. Reflections: Narratives of Professional Helping, 30(3), 48–58. Retrieved from https://reflectionsnarrativesofprofessionalhelping.org/index.php/Reflections/article/view/2042

Issue

Section

Table of Contents