Social policy framing and the researcher

Abstract

In the first few weeks of graduate studies, we were inundated with how to write academi cally. The instructor emphasized how academic writing differs from other forms of writ ing. Then, the class was given a written assignment, with the comments suggesting that we were not there yet. So, the next couple of months were spent mastering this style of writing. Yet, the process of learning never ended! Time and again, manuscripts are returned with revision or rejection comments that take issues with the proper academic writing style. This is such a universal experience that at a workshop on reflexivity in social policy, a colleague openly expressed their frustration and fear that their manuscript may not be accepted because of the way it has been written or framed. Constructivist or interpretivist research perspectives view reality as experienced dif ferently and thus, socially constructed both by the participants and researchers (Creswell, 2013; Mertens, 2015). In acknowledgement of the role and influence of the scientists’ lived experiences on their research and its interpretation, self-reflection is encouraged in the process of research. Similarly, scholarly work could be validated through a process of self-reflection (Dennis, 2018). By extension then, this process of intra-activity can impact the way a study is communicated either through writing or presentation. While communicating social policy by following all the requirements of academic practice is important, communicating it in a way that feels authentic to the scholar is important, too. However, the demand of academic writing means that, in scholarly works especially, qualitative studies must align with what Dennis (2018: 110) describes as the truth correspondence logics and empiricist forms of realism [which] set anchor into [our] methodological conversations about validity in such a way as to make it quite difficult to free ourselves from related assumptions when we enact validity practices in our research.