Research With or Research On: Exploring Tensions Between Ethics, Values, and Respect in Educational Research

Abstract

As a former student, elementary teacher, and a parent of three children in the French immersion (FI) program in New Brunswick, I have an intimate and inescapable relationship with the controversial language program. I have experienced the exclusionary effect of FI and expressed my dismay at a program that fails to fulfill the promise of bilingualism for all (Gerbrandt, 2022). I have also questioned how the unintended effects that disproportionately affect marginalized students are magnified when we examine the intersection of program and discipline (Gerbrandt, 2021). My doctoral work focuses on examining the tensions of learning mathematics in FI, where both the discipline (Zevenbergen, 2002) and the program (Kunnas, 2019) have been described as mechanisms for streaming students in public education.
This conceptual paper is the result of intentional learning and unlearning as I confront the challenges of doing research in a context that is inseparable from my identity. I begin by identifying the theories that explain how I see the world, connecting the ideas of an influential French sociologist from the 1950s to the intellectually liberating work of feminist post-structuralists. Together, these are the ideas that help me to reconcile the seemingly irreconcilable, as I develop a feminist research design for an elementary FI mathematics context.