By Brenda Alling, WSU Vancouver
VANCOUVER, Wash. – A book coauthored by Richard Sawyer, associate professor of education at WSU Vancouver, will receive one of the top awards at the April conference of the American Educational Research Association, the premiere conference in education.
The award for Significant Contribution to Educational Measurement and Research Methodology recognizes a publication for quality, originality and potential impact.
Sawyer coauthored “Understanding Qualitative Research: Duoethnography,” published by Oxford University Press in 2013, with Joe Norris, professor of drama in education and applied theater at Brock University.
Duoethnography is a relatively new research genre created by Sawyer and Norris. It is a collaborative method in which two researchers discuss their disparate experiences with a phenomenon. Its purpose is to discern multiple ways of understanding and to shatter preconceived ideas.
Duoethnography has been used recently to examine institutionalized racism, beauty, post-colonialism, multicultural identity construction and boundaries between patient and practitioner in mental health professions.
Sawyer also coordinates the MIT Secondary Program on the WSU Vancouver campus as well as the teacher leadership strand of WSU’s systemwide Ed.D. program.