This episode features a group of researchers who delve into their extensive global research and share their perspectives and experiences. They discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their research, including the challenges they faced and the strategies they used to overcome them. Additionally, they provide valuable insights on how to prepare for conducting research abroad, sharing their expertise and knowledge on the topic.
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Alexandra Gottardo, Shawna Reibling, Bree Akesson, Ehaab Abdu, Magnus Mfaofo M'Carthy
[Intro music]
Shawna Reibling 00:15
Welcome to the 'I can see CLRiE now' podcast. This podcast is designed to fulfill the mission of the Center for Leading Research in Education to mobilize leading education knowledge completed by their members and students involved in the research center to the wider public and those who can benefit from the knowledge. This episode features for researchers who undertake international research related to different aspects of education. Today, they are coming together in this episode to share their perspectives on their work and international education research. Could you please introduce yourself and your affiliation to CLRiE and what vine you belong to?
Alexandra Gottardo 01:00
Hello, my name is Alexandra Gottardo and I'm a professor in the Psychology Department at Wilfrid Laurier University. I am also a CLRiE member, a member of the executive and the associate director of CLRiE. And in terms of the vines I feel like I belong to two vines, the cognitive processes, curriculum, and pedagogical development vine and the internationalization and education vine.
Magnus Mfaofo M'Carthy 01:29
My name is Magnus Mfoafo M'Carthy, I'm a faculty member in the Faculty of Social Work. In terms of the vine, I identify with internationalization and education and also the wellness and education.
Bree Akesson 01:44
Hello, my name is Bree Akesson. I'm an associate professor in the Faculty of Social Work and I'm also the Canada Research Chair in global adversity and well being and I'm a CLRiE member with the internationalization and education vine.
Ehaab Abdu 01:44
My name is Ehaab Abdu and I'm assistant professor at the Department of Global Studies. And I'm a member of CLRiE. My research and teaching focuses a lot on do we make K-12 curriculum more inclusive. So I belong to the Equity Diversity and Inclusion vine mostly.
Shawna Reibling 01:48
Who were your research partners and where were they located.
Alexandra Gottardo 02:19
So today, the project I'm talking about is a project with partners at Concordia and Wilfrid Laurier, the Aga Khan Academy in various parts as well as World Vision Kenya, World Vision Rwanda and World Vision Canada, What we are doing is we're looking at ways of improving literacy, mostly in Kenya and Rwanda. But we also have other countries in the Global South that we're working with. And the initial piece that we're working on is looking at how to use a software that's called ABRACADABRA, which is an early literacy software. It's freely available through Concordia University and was designed by Phil Abrami. And then from that, I will talk eventually a little bit about some of the things that we found when we got teachers to implement the software, and answering questions about how to improve teacher implementation of the software and how to help teachers learn about early literacy education.
Magnus Mfaofo M'Carthy 03:30
The project we're working on, it looks at inclusive education in Ghana. So we're looking at the education system and the challenges the Individuals with disability encounter, and what can be done to really assist them to ensure that they go through the normal life school system. So we have partners from Western University, Memorial. And in Ghana, we have partners from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. And then a Ghana International School.
Ehaab Abdu 03:59
Research that I will be focusing on sharing some insights on today happened in Cairo, Egypt, and it was part of my field research a couple of years ago, and it focused on working with young Egyptians trying to better understand how they interact with the official curriculum in schools, and especially the Social Studies curriculum and how it narrates various histories of various groups, and how that shapes their civic engagement and their sense of the role as citizens. So that's mainly the focus. And while doing that research, I was working there as a research fellow based out of the American University in Cairo. So I will consider the American University in Cairo to be my key partner in this process, as well as McGill University, where I was based at the time.
Bree Akesson 04:41
The project I want to focus on was actually started in Lebanon with Syrian refugee families. So we originally did the research in Lebanon several years ago. And it was really looking at refugee families experiences with space and place. So what kind of places do they access what are the places are they not allowed to access or not able to access. How do they get to school? Are children going to school? Where are families working? What are their social networks like? So we did this research with partners in Lebanon. And then it was a great success, the project worked really well. And we actually wanted to do the research again, but with a different cohort in Canada. So I'll focus more on the research that happened in Canada. It still fits under the International lens, I believe. And so we did the same research here, again, looking at mobility, but from a really different perspective, looking at families, newcomer families, refugee families who've arrived within the last five years, and looking at how they access places and spaces. How do they get from point A to point B, what kind of transportation are they using? How children in the school? Where are they working, and so forth? So it's a really interesting project because we're able to look at both methodologies in different contexts in both Lebanon and in Canada, in Ontario, looking at the same kinds of research questions.
Shawna Reibling 06:00
How did you collaborate, determine the project goals that supported the needs of your partners, as well as your own research agendas? Did the project evolve as you work together?
Alexandra Gottardo 06:10
Basically, there's quite a large team of us as you could tell from what I was talking about, in terms of people in Kenya and Canada. Also, I forgot to mention Eileen wood at Wilfrid Laurier is also involved in this project heavily. And what we are all passionate about is improving literacy in children in Africa, starting with early literacy with the goal that if you have good early literacy skills, you can then gain better later literacy skills. So that is our basic underlying goal. In terms of how we come across these goals, you can feel that everybody's always saying yes, the end goal is supporting the teachers to teach the children. We have actually weekly planning meetings with our team in Kenya, who is implementing the intervention and the teacher training. And it includes Canadian members, Kenyan members and our people in Rwanda who are implementing this. So, at each step, we do iterative changes to the program. If something doesn't work, we find another solution. If there's an issue that comes up, we problem solve together to figure out how to actually deal with that issue. So, I think these goals, although the global goal is always the same improving literacy, it gets tweaked each time. And we've also done several iterations of the intervention to try and improve it and have best outcomes.
Magnus Mfaofo M'Carthy 08:04
This project is really, we have a few people, it's not an individual one, we have partners and also co applicants. So, from Laurier we have Steve Sider and Jeff Grischow. And we have Jacque Specht and Kimberly Maich from Western and Memorial respectively. And these are individuals, particularly Steve, Jacque and Kimberly, they work in the area of inclusive education. And in Ghana, the approach to really working with individuals with disabilities quite challenging, because of the mindset and the way individuals with disability are stigmatized. So, our goal happens to be to explore how best the educational system would embrace, you know, individuals with disability in the school system. And it was quite interesting and eye opener, you know, because we went to three regions in the capital, Accra. And then we as a team, we went to the northern part of the country Tamale and also went to the Ashanti region that is in Kumasi, and we met with individuals who work with the school system, and also with a standard number of schools. And that was quite insightful, you know, amid the experiences and what we saw in our interaction with the teachers and the challenges and other things. And yeah, that was quite something. Yeah.
Ehaab Abdu 09:23
In my case, it was, as a matter I alluded to earlier, this was part of my doctoral research. So, part of it, of course, was initially conceived through preparing for that as well as working with my doctoral committee and my co-supervisors. But then when I did reach out to the partners at the American University in Cairo, it was pretty helpful. And this is something maybe I can touch on later as well, that also contextualizing how the research needs to be communicated. How do we reach out to potential participants, how it is to be positioned for instance, being Egyptian, but having lived in North America for a few years, that was also very helpful in terms of offering me some reminders about how to communicate my research, how to maybe tweak some of the questions and so on. So I would say that was really the key point in terms of the collaboration was really in how do we envision and position and communicate the research agenda? And how do we maybe formulate even some of the questions in different ways, whether it in the interviews or in some of my written narrative exercises that I used. So that was a big part of it. The other part was also, I think that institutional partnership was very helpful was I had reached out initially from McGill University to the American University in Cairo to maybe find some sort of an informal arrangement, or maybe seek their general guidance, it was very helpful to also find some sort of an institutional. So we did sign what we might call a memorandum of understanding between my department at McGill and the American University in Cairo, where they offered me that space and the label that I could use in mobilizing other partners or reaching out to participants.
Bree Akesson 10:56
I wanted to echo my colleagues point about kind of the project evolving, these research projects continually evolve. And it's always that partnership with collaborators but it's also responding to participants and their input, and then also events on the ground, right. So, our main goal project goal for projects in Lebanon, and then the subsequent cohort in Ontario, was to really understand the refugee families everyday experiences. And so we kept that in sight, that was kind of the anchor of the research, always keeping that goal and then modifying things around it so that you can reach that goal. So, kind of understanding those everyday experiences with that goal, and then telling these families' stories. So, being able to share those stories with broad audiences. Those are really the kind of the project goals that we had when we set out. Now, our project took place during COVID, like a lot of our projects. And so we had to do a methodological pivot is what we call it as well. And so this pivot was, again, keeping focused on the project goal, but how do we get that data? How do we get that quality stories from the families that we're working with in order to reach that goal that we want for the project. So whereas in Lebanon, we had gone into families' homes, we sat with them, we had coffee and tea and connected with participants that way, and to gather data through narrative and through other means and we weren't able to do that when COVID hit because face to face research was not allowed. So, we actually came up with a different kinds of methodology, where instead of going into the home, as researchers as outside researchers, and asking for the family to tell their story, I collected data that way, we trained a family member, it was a youth in the family to collect the data on our behalf. So, they became a research team member for us. So, the families actually became partners in the research. So, they became our collaborators, in addition to the community partners that we were working with. So, we trained our youth in the families, we call them 'Researcher in Families' our RIF interns, RIF interns. We train them to do narrative interviews with their families, we train them to do the activities for drawing, map making, we train them on how to use GPS devices, which is one of their mechanism for gathering data. And so that way was really, I think, a really important way to kind of respond to the everyday challenges that we were facing within the pandemic, but also to engage families in this really meaningful way that was equivalent almost to the community partners that we were working with. So, our community organizations were really critical for recruiting families and connecting with families, and we've, you know, maintained those relationships. But just as important were the families that we were working with who became partners, and who really played a vital role in the research, and we couldn't have done it. We couldn't have completed the research without those families commitment to the project and the youths commitment to the project as well.
Shawna Reibling 13:43
I wanted to ask a question about positionality. How did you bring yourself to the research work that you were doing on an international stage?
Ehaab Abdu 13:51
I think building off of some of the wonderful insights that Bree shared, I think that idea of going on with that flexibility and that ability to really listen to how the community is responding. Sometimes we have some a perfectly planned research agenda with questions with everything but then that I think what we learn on the ground is reality is pretty different and we need to be flexible and listen. And so what I would say connecting to that positionality question, Shawna, a couple of things. In my case, I think there was this insider outsider conundrum or dilemma sometimes or maybe for the lack of a better word, that blind spot, you assume simply because you're from a particular context, that you're an expert on it or you know, so and of course, your positionality through the age and their socioeconomic background and sexual orientation, having lived away for a while all these things definitely create, augment and improve maybe some perspectives and so on, but also limit in many ways. So, I think that's really where that idea of critical self-reflection continuous critical self-reflection is important. But also I think maybe it puts really, that idea of really working collaboratively with key partners on the ground, as my colleagues have already pointed to, is really key on that, and just not simply just ticking a box and saying, Oh, I have a partnership with this person, but really, from the outset, as my colleagues have been saying, developing the vision together, and the research tools, and in an ideal case scenario, of course, as we were saying, you know, even recruiting people from within community as to saying from families who would work and be trained and in different ways. So, in my case, I would say it's being from that context, took me a while, a little bit to try to critically self-reflect on what are things I need to unlearn what things I need to be learning, including, for instance, how, because there was at least maybe a 20 year gap between me and most of my participants. So, even the language that's being used and how young people are, might be using the same Egyptian word, but my generation is using in a very different way. So, making sure that I'm in tune with that. And also, after a couple of interviews not shying away from asking, What do you mean exactly by this? Can you please unpack this for me? So I would say that critical awareness is an important starting point.
Bree Akesson 16:07
I'm coming from a different position than Ehaab in terms of, you know, coming from this North American background, working with refugee families, we're coming from really different locations. So, the families in my research are coming from Iraq and from Sudan, and Syria, Afghanistan, Myanmar, all different places. So, nobody in our research team is necessarily of that culture and has had that experience, right. I mean, everybody has such different experiences. Some of my research team members are refugees themselves, but they're not going to have the same experience of the refugee families that we are interviewing. So, I think, for me, not coming from that perspective, or from our research team members not coming from that background, I think it's so much more critical is to listen to the stories and to ask questions. And to really, I guess, like I said, be a listener and really kind of prioritize the stories of the families that we're working with. And so I think that that's one key of working in these situations. And I think from that approach, I think that's where rich data comes from, from the listening from the pauses, just being able to pause and let a family continue to tell a story rather than interjecting and trying to move the conversation in a certain direction. So that's where the really rich data comes from. And we've seen that happen in our research, which is really lovely.
Magnus Mfaofo M'Carthy 17:27
Yeah, I will speak to the insider outsider experience, you know, as a Ghanian, living in the Global North. Going with a team together, was really quite enriching in the sense that my experience, you know, as a Ghanian my understanding of the culture, the nuances of the culture and other things and being able to explain it. And also going into the field and meeting with the participants and they realizing that I could understand I could speak their language, put them at ease, and also made them comfortable in terms of sharing their challenges and other things was really great. And also my ability to play the role of interpreter not necessarily interpreting the language but interpreting the culture, the mannerisms, the behavior of people, to my colleagues from the global south. So that also helped a great deal.
Alexandra Gottardo 18:16
So, our project has different roles. For example, Eileen wood and I are the researchers. And we helped set up some questionnaires with feedback from the team, then we have the people who are doing the teacher professional development. And those are our Kenyan colleagues at the Aga Khan Academy. And then there are layers within the teacher group, there are head teachers who are also local in Kenya, who are monitoring what the teachers are doing, who are providing feedback who are supporting the teachers. So most of the outward facing piece is actually conducted by Kenyans or in the case of Rwanda, by people in Rwanda, local people who have lived there all their lives, and who have been trained in so our people in Kenya have degrees from Kenya, things like that. So I think there's that piece. The one piece that was really a lot of fun, though, is the latest materials we've created for our comprehension module. We actually created it with a very large working group, including our colleagues in Kenya and Rwanda, and myself and Eileen. And it was really nice, because we were able to explain the goals of what we wanted the teachers to learn. And then they were able to interject little things like, Well, what about this? What about, you know, teaching simple vocabulary, not just difficult vocabulary, and we had sort of always understood that it could be both but with the idea that you want to also include difficult vocabulary because you don't want to have a ceiling on what children are learning for example. And so you know, they were able to say well, yes, but if you tell them difficult vocabulary, they might think, ignore the simple stuff. So, those kinds of things were really helpful. And we take feedback all the time in our meetings. So we get to hear all the on the ground challenges that people have and discuss different ways that could help the on the ground teachers deal with things.
Shawna Reibling 20:27
Speaking of difficulties, what are some of the major challenges faced by researchers when conducting studies internationally, especially during the COVID 19 pandemic?
Alexandra Gottardo 20:38
So, because of the pandemic, largely, we have had to do a lot of virtual meetings. But one of the things that we learned is that some of the time meetings are things that we had not expected. So, the first time meeting that we dealt with was when we decided to train teachers to deliver the paper and pencil version of ABRA, which they had never encountered before. And we were told that we had to get up quite early for us like 6am, which might not seem like a lot for some people, but is a big deal for Eileen and I, because we had to have our meetings early so that the teachers could go home and not encounter wild animals in their trek home from the center, which had access to the internet, because these were people living in remote areas. The other thing we did is we would have meetings with our colleagues at home who did have internet, our colleagues in Kenya. And one day one of our colleagues, he asked if he could leave, and this was at about 6:30pm his time. And we were all like, sure, that's fine. It turned out that the gas goes off at 7pm. And he would not have been able to cook dinner. We learned recently, for example, that one of our teachers, her school has not had electricity for a month, because a pole went down. And she's trying to implement an online version of the software on laptops, and she brings those laptops home every day to charge and then tethers them to a hotspot created by her phone with a battery pack so that the children can use the software on laptops in her classroom. And these are challenges that never occurred to us. And that were just, you know, the lengths that some of these committed teachers are going to, to be able to teach their children using this software is just incredible.
Magnus Mfaofo M'Carthy 22:48
Maybe I can share a few things. Our first trip to Ghana as a team, you know, was in 2019. And then there was the shutdown and we couldn't make the follow up. So, what we did is, fortunately for us, we had a team in Ghana, some of our partners, one from in Accra and Kumasi, and also internally. So, we communicated with him and these were individuals who were available, particularly those in Kumasi and Accra. So, anything we needed, we could always communicate with them. And that helped a great deal until early this year that we were able to make back to Ghana, to follow up and to visit schools and to meet with our partners. And I think so you can imagine that gap. But it worked out. I mean, when we went to Ghana, it's as if there hadn't been any gap, you know, I mean, we're able to hit the ground running and continue from where we left off. So everything did work out well.
Ehaab Abdu 23:43
I would say there were some challenges in general that needs to be taken into consideration in the initial design, but also going to the context that was doing the field research in Egypt, you also are faced with some things that maybe emerged out of nowhere, and that you have to adjust to. So, maybe a couple of things I would like to share. I think this would apply to many other similar more non-democratic or more authoritarian contexts, where access to data and research is generally looked at with suspicion and has a lot of red tape and is really managed very close and controlled by authorities in different ways. So for instance, in my case, I would have really ideally wanted to include some interviews not only with students, but also I was keen on potentially interviewing some curriculum developers from the Ministry of Education, for instance, that was not possible because of all the needed security clearances. But in addition to that, I also had some ambitious plans to have access to the National Archives, which include other curricular documents, other correspondences, political speeches, and other important texts that I wanted to analyze as well, but this is not possible. So, for instance, initially, I was hoping to find ways to do that or interview those participants I just spoke about, but I need to adjust and adapt my research in different ways. So, I would say we need to have that flexibility and find ways to overcome some of these shortcomings and maybe see those additional pieces as potentially maybe part of future research. So, as we all know, there's the pre COVID world and post COVID world and during COVID, which are different realities, as we've heard from my wonderful colleagues here, whose research has had to adapt to in different ways. In my case, it was more on the ground work, but then following up a little bit later. So, I would say maybe 85% of the time was on the ground, really. And then following up after that, maybe just via email, and some zoom calls.
Bree Akesson 25:41
Ehaab's comments really struck me because I feel like something that's so critical with international research is that balance between the in person and the virtual. So, I think virtual doesn't work unless you have that connection with your community group, with your participants already. So, I think that that's something that's so important is to kind of develop the groundwork for that collaboration, I think that's the best way to do that is in person, when you can sit around the table, share a meal with people go, you know, see where they're living, where they are working kind of be with our collaborators, and our and our participants. So, I think that's something I really wanted to mention. And this really reminds me of some of the work that I've done in Afghanistan, where the most important part of the work that I did in Afghanistan, which is, as everyone knows, a very volatile context, even when I was there, about four or five years ago, it was pretty volatile. And the most important part about working with my partners in Afghanistan was that, and that they would tell this to us and my research team, the most important thing was that we were there with them, that we were present with them. And so that when something happened, when there were security threats, or when there was an event, there was a bombing or some sort of terrible event that happened, we could be there in solidarity with them, even if we weren't there physically we were there virtually. So, WhatsApp became a really important lifeline, email, text messaging, all of these tools that we have are so critical. And I think they become more critical when we had COVID, because everyone was in lockdown. And the only way to communicate connect with people was through this virtual world. But I think we can kind of carry those tools with us and really use them in international research in a way that's very relevant, very effective, and compassionate and connecting with people. One of my studies I did in Lebanon with families is a different project that I've talked about previously, but it's about pregnancy loss. So, what families have gone through in terms of losing a child, and it's a really sensitive topic, and we have thought, "okay, how are we going to do this?" It was during the pandemic, what should we do? Should we set up a computer with the family and then we do the interview via the computer. And we decided not to do that, because it's such a sensitive topic. And a lot of the research we do is sensitive, and a lot of it requires this personable approach this one on one approach. So again, we ended up training wonderful people on the ground, who were able to collect the data on our behalf and became this really critical part of our research team.
[Musical Break]
Shawna Reibling 28:15
All of you have mentioned the importance of time and relationships and those skills that may be adjacent to the research but really are integral to making the research happen. I wondered if you thought that building in time to build relationships, either virtually or in person is even more important when you're working in an international context versus perhaps working on your own Laurier University campus.
Alexandra Gottardo 28:43
I think it's extremely important. I think, time and relationships are important for any kind of research, including, for example, graduate student supervision and things like that. And I do agree with Bree that the best relationship building happens first in person and then continues online. We were lucky, I actually got to be in Kenya twice before the lockdown and then was able to continue to build that relationship. And when we are working with our colleagues, we're sharing an office with them at the Aga Khan we're not placed in some more special place or, anything. And it's really good because you get to see the bit by bit. I think building relationships with not just the higher-up in the team, but visiting the schools getting to know the teachers and then once the teachers know you, they share additional information with you when you know who the teacher is they can say oh and so and so did this amazing thing and you actually have a face and a name and everything which is very helpful. So I think understanding the context is important and although you can hear about it if you've never seen it as well, I think it's really tricky. So for example, the last time I was there was in late January, early February of this year, and we got to see a classroom where they had ninety 1st grade children crammed into a classroom. And you get to realize that the barriers that the teacher faces in educating ninety 6 year olds squashed into these seats are huge, and no technology equipment, not even enough books for each child. So, it really helps you understand what they're up against, and try to find solutions that are actually doable solutions as opposed to the pie in the sky, if you had 20 children in your first grade class kind of solutions.
Magnus Mfaofo M'Carthy 30:53
Yes, I will say it's really, really important, because without building the rapport or relationship with individuals in the community, it's really difficult to engage in a research, you know, so it's really important to know, not necessarily where they live, but the environment, you know, for us looking at inclusive education where students attend where these kids attended school, you know, being there interacting with the teachers interacting with the family, hearing their stories and other things really goes a long way to make you really understand. And I think, even with COVID, and other things being away for a period of time, at least we had an idea, because we've established some relationships, we knew who we could connect who could speak with. And also going back recently, we were able to establish some relationships in terms of head teachers in a vocational school we visited, we went to a public school and also went to a private school. So, we're able to look at inclusive education from all these points of view. And the relationship that we will establish continues periodically, we get emails from some of the families. And also we went to the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and met with individual students with disability. And they've created a forum where periodically they send information and things here and there. So there is some form of a relationship that has been established. And I think it's really important for us to have that connection.
Ehaab Abdu 32:13
I would say that it is very key to maybe in some context more than others, but I would say maybe echo what Alexandria and Magnus said that time and developing relationships and confidence and credibility is very important. I think it becomes even more important with racialized groups and groups that have experienced research fatigue, who've been over researched, and okay, what next, okay, here's here comes another researcher who's going to, you know, extract some of the data and just go iand do their publications or, you know, get promoted, based on that. So, I think maybe one of the important things is to keep that in mind that a lot of times, even if it's not shared very openly, there's this that's going on, maybe in the back minds of some potential participants, or even partners and collaborators. Some methodologies lend themselves to already embedding, that from the outset, this idea of the participatory action research that I think most of us are within that space, and that approach where we really are keen on building those collaborations. But it is key, I think one of the tools that might be helpful maybe towards that as in my case, I've tried to elongate a little bit, the process. So, I had three or four data collection tools. And I made sure that there was at least maybe two weeks in the middle in between. So, we had a written narrative exercise. And then a couple of weeks later, a follow up interview, and then a joint visual participatory methodologies workshop. And you could see how the relationships were starting to become more organic, and how participants were becoming more forthcoming with their insights, and so on. So, not only I think there's build more confidence and credibility, and also opens up possibilities for working together and continuing that collaboration so that the research really could have an impact and so on. But also I think, building and investing in those relationships, also influences the depth of the data and the depth of knowledge that we are able to bring out and generate collaboratively with our partners.
Bree Akesson 34:12
I wil add a few things that I think are interesting kind of ways forward along this thread. I'm thinking of some work that Magnus and I did together in Ghana several years ago, and the community partners that we've worked with really emphasized this element, and I've heard this before is it's a bi- directional process. So, it's not just and this is what Ehaab said about, you know, researchers from Canada and from the Global North and North America coming over going over to different countries and extracting data. It's really not, it shouldn't be about that. It is it is about that for a lot of researchers, but I think a lot of researchers also kind of pushing against that kind of a model. So, thinking about bi-directionality and how it's not just us helping us with with air quotes, you know, going to a country and collecting data and then coming back to Canada. but it should also be about our partners and our collaborators, perhaps coming to Canada, sharing in research presentations on the data that was collected or learning about the things that we do here in order to maybe make changes or, you know, modify things back in their home country. And so when I am visualizing this, I'm seeing the globe, and I'm seeing lots of arrows going all different directions, because I really do think it's bi-directional. Another element to kind of move towards in the future is engaging students in this work. So, oftentimes, we are the ones who go there, as researchers, you know, we have the research funding, but I'd love to see more opportunities for students, again, bi-directionally. So students from the countries that we work in coming here, and then students that we work with here in Canada, going to work in other countries and learning about our research methods, learning how to do the archival research that Ehaab'ss doing, or learning to do the pedagogical research that Alexandra is doing in Kenya, and being able to work on a research team, but collect data on our behalf and really get that experience that I know that for me, and I'm sure my colleagues who are with me today know what a life changing experience it is to work in these countries. So, I think kind of how do we engage our students in that process as well. So, those are two areas, the bi-directionality, and then the engagement of students in these mechanisms of research.
Shawna Reibling 36:20
As knowledge mobilization officer, I get to talk to faculty members about their research, but also graduate students as well. And they all echo that they want to learn more about how to do research in international contexts, but also different environments, working up north is maybe just as international as flying across an ocean. And so I wonder what advice you would have to the student researchers who are thinking of pursuing international collaborations or really digging into that work, or thinking that they might want to have one of those life changing experiences within their research?
Magnus Mfaofo M'Carthy 36:57
Well, I think it's really important for us to work internationally to be very flexible, and learning to adapt, because you're moving from the global north to the global South, and people look at you differently. In my experience in Ghana, and I certainly when I go with my colleagues, I realized that because of maybe the colonial mindset, a lot of people have a tendency of looking at, particularly my colleagues, especially those who are white, they see them differently. You know, in Ghana, they use the term "Obroni" to describe them. And obroni is not a derogatory term, it's more of an honorable term, you know, like, they see you as up there, you know. And it's a matter of learning to adapt and relate to them flexible, if possible, be able to eat some of their food and be able to let them realize that you are not superior to them. And that helps establish that relationship. I recall attending a conference a years ago, where an individual shared an experience going into the Arctic, somewhere in the indigenous community. And I think when she went, the first thing they did is they gave her a piece of raw meat, you know, because it's a form of welcoming people into the community. And she said, even though she didn't really, she was somebody who was very particular about what she ate, she gathered the courage and ate it. And she said by eating it, it really enabled her connect with the community. Apparently is a way of checking in to see whether people are, people feel comfortable relating to them and other things. I'm not saying personally be going to Ghana to eat raw meat, but looking at the culture, and asking how do I understand the culture? How can I interact with the people? How can I relate to them? And that is important. And if they realize that, Hey, you don't see yourself as superior, if they realized that you can identify with them, I think they can connect with you easily, and be able to relate to you. And also in terms of data gathering make your work very easy for you.
Bree Akesson 38:50
I can also provide my own metaphors, instead of eating the raw meat, drinking the coffee. I think you've sitting down and just connecting with people in this way, I don't drink coffee, I don't even drink caffeine. And so to go to an Arab context where Arabic coffee is, I mean, I don't know if people listening to this understand how thick it is and how caffeinated it is. And so I remember sitting down with families and knowing that this is something that I'm going to do, I'm going to drink the coffee with them, despite actually being in bed in my hostel for like two days straight. So, we do these things, because we want to connect, we want to connect, we want to build rapport with the population that we're working with. We want to experience what they're experiencing, be sitting with them and kind of understand what it is like to walk in people's shoes. And that's not just our collaborators, but also our participants. Right. So, kind of both sides of that. I think that if you're asking kind of what advice do we have, I think, maintain that rapport and connection is so critical, and how do we do that? And then how do we maintain that rapport and connection when we're also doing things virtually things that we've moved into this much more virtual space, you know, post COVID And we're, I think it's a great aid, but it also has its challenges, so how do we maintain rapport and connection? We can connect with people around the world, which is amazing. But how do we make sure that we combat fatigue? You know, being online, and making people, you know, sit in meetings for long periods of time? So, how can we do that? I'll end by saying, to echo again, Ehaab and Magnus and Alexandra have all talked about flexibility. I think that's the biggest thing. It's just with international research with all research, it's flexibility. So, this is something that I really emphasize. But it's also something that's really hard for some people in project teams. So, I've actually had challenges with being too flexible in research projects, because I work with students who really want to know, what's number one, what's number two? What's step number three? What's step in? Or what's going to happen exactly. And so a lot of times, I'll be like, Let's do step one, and let's see what happens, then we'll re-evaluate, and we'll go in a certain direction, depending on what happened. And I know a lot of my students who work with me are very uncomfortable with that. So, if that's one thing that I can instill in our future generation of researchers, it is that being comfortable with the flexibility with the changing of the methodology with the pivots that we have to do in our research. Now, with that being said, I'll also emphasize that staying anchored to the research question, staying anchored to the goal of what you want to do is so critical, because if you are too flexible, then you end up kind of taking a path that you didn't intend and then you know, things can get pretty muddy, but kind of maintaining that anchor to the research question to what your goal is for the research, but maintaining the flexibility of whatever is going to be thrown your way. And I've never heard of a research project that is exactly as it's written, when we write the proposal, right, it just doesn't happen. Something always happens. And we have to react. And we have to respond while keeping the interests of the project. So the research question in mind, as well as the interests of the research participants and the collaborators.
Shawna Reibling 41:56
So, what I'm learning from you all is that one of the challenges of international research is to be vulnerable, to be flexible, and to pursue your research goals that you've created with your partners in a context that's changing. Alexandra, I don't know if you have comments on that.
Alexandra Gottardo 42:13
So, if you want a perfect experiment with perfectly clean data and randomized design, then you should never be doing that in the community, either here or in the Global South, because that's not what you're going to get. And so, we've had many situations in our research project, where teachers will work together to get the answer for the post test quiz or something like that. And we're sitting there thinking, what can we do with the data, but because for us, for Eileen, and I, and for most of the team, our goal is research, but it's also really enhancing literacy, we're able to let go a little bit of that tight, rigorous, randomized, controlled trial design that often happens in an intervention project, or sometimes does anyway, and think about the greater goal, what can we learn? What can we learn about enhancing literacy? What can we learn about enhancing teacher preparation to teach literacy, those kinds of things. So, that is our flexibility. And although Bree was talking about junior members and students, sometimes it's hard for them, because realistically, they need those publications to get the job. And it's a little bit harder if the data is messy. And certainly, if you're doing quantitative data collection, you want less messy data. But if you want to learn about how to enhance literacy, as we're doing, then it's okay if the data is a little bit messy, because we've learned something and hopefully we're doing some good.
Ehaab Abdu 43:51
Maybe just to add to that, I would say maybe building off and I think it's embedded already within that point of flexibility and vulnerability that you highlighted. I would maybe say I think being forthcoming also, I found is helpful in situations especially that vulnerability, and that being forthcoming with maybe limitations that you bring in and your awareness that this is not a perfect process, that there are things that you might know, but there are things that you really are keen on learning about including in the whole research process, that flexibility, that openness to how it might evolve in different ways. I would say an additional layer that's closely connected to that and especially comes in very handy and is quite important is to be forthcoming with also making sure your participant knows that this is a safe, brave space. I'm thinking especially of people from religious, ethnic, racial, gender, other types of minority status backgrounds, who might be coming into the process, having internalized some of having to maybe leave out parts of their identity out or not sure about how you are perceiving these questions. So, in my case, for instance, when I was interviewing some of our participants who belong to religious minorities in Egypt, I would be forthcoming in my introduction to say that part of my research would emphasize that part, even more than when I was speaking to Egyptian Muslim students versus that I didn't feel the need to highlight that part of the research wants to give voice to religious minority students experiences in Egyptian classrooms and the curricula and so on, and maybe highlighting some of my past work and my commitment as someone, maybe not from belonging to these groups, but that I'm a keen ally, on hoping to bring forth in support. I think that helps at least build some some of the comments and some of what might go unsaid in terms of what they might be some self-censorship that might be happening on the part of our partners. So, I think that maybe. And it's closely connected to what you all highlighted in terms of vulnerability and flexibility. But I would highlight the importance of developing that common understanding and common ground not leaving things unsaid. But acknowledging the differences are closing and closing the contentious controversial things that might be put aside because of internalized fears, or self-censorship.
Shawna Reibling 46:10
It really strikes me that all the participants and you all bring your whole selves to your research, and that the topics that you're dealing with, you're really strongly invested in being flexible to support those joint goals to support the whole people in your research. I wanted to end on a question that hopefully you had fun in reflecting on - what surprised or delighted you about being part of an international collaboration?
Bree Akesson 46:36
It's hard to pinpoint one thing, it's every project is new. And every project brings new surprises. And just new learning, I'm so fortunate to get to have that experience to go to different places to learn from different people from different cultures. So, even understand the small things that I would never have thought of. I remember when I was I was living in Kenya a long time ago. And I remember, whenever I would yawn, for example, people would say, Oh, you're hungry, you need to eat something. And it was such a, it's just like a small thing that I always think of yawning as tired, or bored or something like that. And so this elements of kind of the different cultural elements, I think, is so much fun to learn about. And I think just keeping that open mind is so critical. And I think as I've gotten more experienced, I've gone to different places, I think I ended up just the more and more I listen, right, the more I just listen and observe and I love, you know, writing in my journal and tech, writing notes about the things that I'm seeing and hearing. So, I guess if I was to pinpoint one thing that kind of delights, and surprises me about doing international work, international collaboration is just the possibility for new ideas, the possibility for new projects that really arise from this having a conversation with somebody over a coffee. And that leads to the potential to submit, you know, a funding application for a project for something that this person is really keen on learning about. So being able to be that collaborator with somebody leads to more surprises and more delights. And it's just this never ending kind of fountain of interesting ideas, concepts, cultural understandings, stories I really love. And this is why I love doing the work that I do.
Magnus Mfaofo M'Carthy 48:18
I think what I've learned from this experience, or what surprised me is the uniqueness of virtually every place you go to, you know, and I can look at even a place like Ghana and say, well, being in the south, the experiences in the southern part of Ghana, and to that often tend to be quite different, you know, and that is where this idea of cultural sensitivity really comes in Learning to listen, learning to engage learning to, you know, learn new things, and you know those things. So, that is what I would say. And also even going outside Ghana, you know, so for instance, spent some time in Eswatini, and also other parts of South Africa and other things. And you realize that even though they're all in Africa, you will think that perhaps maybe being in a black environment, you're going to have similar cultures, similar belief system, and they tend to be quite different. And that is the uniqueness of these experiences, and also meeting people, you know, and having to engage. And I agree with what Bree said earlier in terms of the collaboration, and having similar ideas and other things being able to come together and work together. These are all really interesting aspects of international work, and also some of the surprises that you realize.
Ehaab Abdu 49:34
One of the things I would say that is more maybe inspiring than surprising, and maybe a bit surprising, but it relates to the participants I worked with really and despite everything despite maybe a sense of defeatism among some of them because of different political developments and so on, is that resilience in that sense of hope and that sense of optimism and also that critical perspective that many of the young people brought. They were not many of the things that also for me, as someone from an older generation, as I was saying earlier, from the same context that even with all my education and critical thinking, and so on, I feel some of the things that I've internalized as maybe just common sense. Or they're asking all the very tough questions about how the world is operating about nation states, about borders, about sexuality, about this and that in very inspiring ways. So, I would say that that was really a privilege to get some of that energy moving forward and helped me also ask some of the questions about some things that have been taking for granted that might have some more critical awareness.
Alexandra Gottardo 50:37
So for me, I think I'm gonna go with the word inspiring rather than surprising. One of the things that we noticed over and over again, is how the teachers and the team were both committed, but also resilient to all the challenges. So we are trying to make things as easy as possible in terms of delivery of, for example, the intervention and things like that. But at each point we had, for example, the teacher who had to bring the laptops to be charged at home, we've had teachers who've had all their equipment stolen from the school, we've had technical glitches that we didn't even realize occurred until someone else reported it. So at each point, we've had people on the ground, teachers, students, parents, trying to implement and improve the education of the children, and doing it in the most creative ways with far, far fewer resources than we would ever see back here. And I think that is inspiring, because you hear so often in the western context that we are missing this, this isn't working well, and people are complaining, but the people who we are working with certainly are just solving the problems and not complaining. So that to me was inspiring.
Shawna Reibling 52:02
Thank you so much, everyone for sharing today your international research experiences. And one of the things that I've seen throughout these CLRiE podcasts is that researchers that are involved with CLRiE is really want to make linkages and they're vulnerable in their research to ensure that they're working with partners to have the research questions met and needs identified, and research that really is applicable and useful to the participants. So, thank you so much for sharing those resources, and for participating in the CLRiE podcast. Thank you for listening to 'I can see CLRiE now', the Center for Leading Research in Education's podcast. Stay tuned for more episodes featuring CLRiE researchers, students and community partners in conversation about leading educational research. Follow CLRiE on Twitter at WLU_CLRiE or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks to all been instrumental into the production of this episode in this series. The CLRiE podcast was recorded and produced on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishnaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples. For more information click on the land acknowledgement link in our show notes. This episode of 'I can see CLRiE now' was made with support from Laurier's Office of Research Services.