Tanja Burkhard
Georgia State University, Educational Policy Studies, Faculty Member
- Ohio State University, Education Teaching and Learning, Graduate StudentUniversity of Pittsburgh, School of Education, Post-DocWashington State University Vancouver, Human Development, Faculty Memberadd
- I received my Ph.D. in Education from The Ohio State University in 2017 and my M.A. from Southern Illinois University... moreI received my Ph.D. in Education from The Ohio State University in 2017 and my M.A. from Southern Illinois University in Applied Linguistics in 2013. My work focuses on applying qualitative methodology at the intersections of race, language, (im)migration and gender and family studies.edit
Drawing on two multilingual qualitative datasets (Korean/English and German/English), this paper examines the dual role and positionalities of two researchers who simultaneously act as translators, as well as the implications of this dual... more
Drawing on two multilingual qualitative datasets (Korean/English and German/English), this paper examines the dual role and positionalities of two researchers who simultaneously act as translators, as well as the implications of this dual role for multilingual qualitative research. This work is informed by transnational feminist translation studies and transnational feminist approaches to qualitative research, and founded on the two researchers' intimate familiarity with their participants' languages, contexts, and meaning-making processes. Considering the complexity of this familiarity, this work presents unique dilemmas—challenges and opportunities—with respect to translating, representing, and writing about multilingual qualitative data.
Research Interests: Education and Qualitative
This article employs Black feminist autoethnographic methods (Griffin, 2012; Burkhard, 2020) to examine a series of racialized, gendered, and xenophobic incidents in an undergraduate class focused on equity and diversity, in which the... more
This article employs Black feminist autoethnographic methods (Griffin, 2012; Burkhard, 2020) to examine a series of racialized, gendered, and xenophobic incidents in an undergraduate class focused on equity and diversity, in which the author was the instructor after the summer of 2020—now often referred to as the “Summer of Racial Reckoning.” The aforementioned incidents generated severe discomfort in the classroom and revolved around the interactions between a student who is a member of the radical far-right QAnon movement and the instructor, a Black immigrant woman. Drawing on journal entries, emails, and other artifacts, this article examines the layers of discomfort that arose in the class due to the incompatibility of ideologies that emerged from the instructor’s culturally sustaining pedagogical approaches (Paris & Alim, 2014; Wong & Burkhard, 2021) and the politicized rhetoric related to race, (im)migration, and child welfare promoted within particular circles of the QAnon mo...
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Drawing on a yearlong qualitative research project with seven Black transnational women, this article employs a transnational Black feminist approach. It is guided by the following questions: What does it look like to conduct qualitative... more
Drawing on a yearlong qualitative research project with seven Black transnational women, this article employs a transnational Black feminist approach. It is guided by the following questions: What does it look like to conduct qualitative research rooted in a transnational Black feminist framework? What implications related to storytelling, reciprocity, and the relationships with participants emerge from this work? In exploring these questions, I consider some of the ways transnational Black feminist theory can be operationalized to counter re-inscriptions of dominant ideologies onto the research process with marginalized communities, particularly under consideration of contemporary national and transnational processes and discourses.
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ABSTRACT This article de-centres imperialist, capitalist, patriarchal traditions of critical approaches in Curriculum Studies via an examination of experiences shared at The Black Women’s Gathering Place (BWGP), a non-traditional space... more
ABSTRACT This article de-centres imperialist, capitalist, patriarchal traditions of critical approaches in Curriculum Studies via an examination of experiences shared at The Black Women’s Gathering Place (BWGP), a non-traditional space where a diverse, intergenerational group of Black women engage with each other through the sharing of stories. In the BWGP, we enact components of Pinar’s [2004. What is Curriculum Theory? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum] concept of currere, simultaneously re-entering our collective and individual pasts and re-imagining our futures in an effort to reconcile our public and private selves. Taking up tenets of Black feminist theory, theoretical framings of hidden curriculum, and components of Ng-A-Fook’s [2007. An Indigenous Curriculum of Place: The United Houma Nation’s Contentious Relationship with Louisiana’s Educational Institutions. New York, NY: Peter Lang] ‘Curriculum of Place,’ we reconceptualise a curriculum of place/space that negotiates dominant norms expressed in social environments. In this space, we validate traditional knowledges upheld in communities of Black women across the Diaspora. The BWGP allows us to argue for a re-presentation of extant knowledge by and about Black women.
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IntroductionMany scholars (Darling-Hammond, 1998; DuBois, 1902; Gonzalez, 2001; Kozol, 1991) have long argued that American public education has the potential to remedy inequality of opportunity, improve social conditions, and reduce high... more
IntroductionMany scholars (Darling-Hammond, 1998; DuBois, 1902; Gonzalez, 2001; Kozol, 1991) have long argued that American public education has the potential to remedy inequality of opportunity, improve social conditions, and reduce high rates of poverty for all people, especially those of low socioeconomic status and diverse racial, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds. In fact, Mann (1848) insisted "education, then, beyond all other divides of human origin, is a great equalizer of conditions of men-the balance wheel of the social machinery" (qtd. in Hayes, 2006, p. 56). Relatedly, Gonzalez (2001) insisted, "Education is the great equalizer in a democratic society, and if people are not given access to a quality education, then what we are doing is creating an underclass of people who will challenge our very way of life" (p. 2). He continued, "[The] civil rights question of our nation today is that of access to a quality education" (Gonzalez, 2001, p. 2...
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Research Interests: History and Social Work
In this essay, we rely on a black feminist lens to challenge and extend what is appraised as rigorous research methodology. Inspired by a diverse, intergenerational group of black women referred to as the Black Women's Gathering... more
In this essay, we rely on a black feminist lens to challenge and extend what is appraised as rigorous research methodology. Inspired by a diverse, intergenerational group of black women referred to as the Black Women's Gathering Place, we employ black feminist thought (BFT) as critical social theory and embrace a more expansive understanding of BFT as critical methodology to analyze the experiences black women share through narrative. Our theoretical and methodological approach offers a pathway for education and research communities to account for the expansive possibilities that black feminism has for theorizing the lives of black women.
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Presenting poetic approaches to qualitative inquiry, two immigrant educational researchers from different minoritized communities explore their loss of research participants due to increased state-enforced violence in the context of... more
Presenting poetic approaches to qualitative inquiry, two immigrant educational researchers from different minoritized communities explore their loss of research participants due to increased state-enforced violence in the context of recent immigration policies (e.g., increased presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in immigrant communities and anti-Muslim rhetoric) through poetic inquiry. Presenting the processes and products of engaging with participant loss through poetry, the authors highlight a theoretical and methodological approach to qualitative inquiry, which works toward building intimacies among women of color feminist educational researchers. On the one hand, this work aims to develop qualitative methodologies that seek to reduce harm and violence and foster understanding among different communities of researchers and their participants. On the other hand, it seeks to illustrate how poetic approaches to qualitative research can be used as a reflexive t...
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Presenting poetic approaches to qualitative inquiry, two immigrant educational researchers from different minoritized communities explore their loss of research participants due to increased state-enforced violence in the context of... more
Presenting poetic approaches to qualitative inquiry, two immigrant educational researchers from different minoritized communities explore their loss of research participants due to increased state-enforced violence in the context of recent immigration policies (e.g., increased presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in immigrant communities and anti-Muslim rhetoric) through poetic inquiry. Presenting the processes and products of engaging with participant loss through poetry, the authors highlight a theoretical and methodological approach to qualitative inquiry, which works toward building intimacies among women of color feminist educational researchers. On the one hand, this work aims to develop qualitative methodologies that seek to reduce harm and violence and foster understanding among different communities of researchers and their participants. On the other hand, it seeks to illustrate how poetic approaches to qualitative research can be used as a reflexive t...
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In this academic counternarrative, we examine how Black students and adults get positioned by, and come to resist, discourses that favor dominant linguistic and cultural practices. We ask, How do Black youth and adults resist the gaze of... more
In this academic counternarrative, we examine how Black students and adults get positioned by, and come to resist, discourses that favor dominant linguistic and cultural practices. We ask, How do Black youth and adults resist the gaze of whiteness, or dominant discourses, in schools and communities, and what are pedagogical implications of such resistances? We address these questions by discussing three contemporary examples of injustices experienced by Rachel Jeantel, Amariyanna Copeny, and Black youth who continue the activism of Colin Kaepernik. Thereafter, we analyze data from three research vignettes of Black teachers and Youth of Color who produce counternarratives through storying. In our conclusion, we advocate for a pedagogical agenda in literacy studies grounded in cultural equality and linguistic, racial, and social justice for Black people and other People of Color. We situate this work as an academic counternarrative—an analysis of young people’s unapologetic affirmatio...
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In this academic counternarrative, we examine how Black students and adults get positioned by, and come to resist, discourses that favor dominant linguistic and cultural practices. We ask, How do Black youth and adults resist the gaze of... more
In this academic counternarrative, we examine how Black students and adults get positioned by, and come to resist, discourses that favor dominant linguistic and cultural practices. We ask, How do Black youth and adults resist the gaze of whiteness, or dominant discourses, in schools and communities, and what are pedagogical implications of such resistances? We address these questions by discussing three contemporary examples of injustices experienced by Rachel Jeantel, Amariyanna Copeny, and Black youth who continue the activism of Colin Kaepernik. Thereafter, we analyze data from three research vignettes of Black teachers and Youth of Color who produce counternarratives through storying. In our conclusion, we advocate for a pedagogical agenda in literacy studies grounded in cultural equality and linguistic, racial, and social justice for Black people and other People of Color. We situate this work as an academic counternarrative—an analysis of young people’s unapologetic affirmatio...
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In this article, I provide the historical context for the reception of Audre Lorde’s biomythography Zami’s by Black women across the African diaspora as a backdrop for my own autoethnographic engagement of the book. I narrate my journey... more
In this article, I provide the historical context for the reception of Audre Lorde’s biomythography Zami’s by Black women across the African diaspora as a backdrop for my own autoethnographic engagement of the book. I narrate my journey to claiming space within the field of autoethnography by anchoring my discussion in Zami and its themes. The goal of this work is to illustrate the crucial nature of autoethnographic work to transnational Black feminism, and its ongoing importance to women from and in marginalized communities.
