The University of St. Thomas will host the 11th Annual Midwest Qualitative Research Conference from June 22-24, 2005 in Minneapolis, MN. This year’s plenary session topics will focus on critical research and the examination of how power works through policy, organizational structures, and practices in our workplaces and communities. Critical research challenges practitioner-scholars to address poverty, violence, racism, and other forms of domination and exclusion.
Marjorie De Vault, Syracuse University, and Ellen Pence, Praxis International, will present the opening plenary session, "Exploring Organizations (and Making Changes): The Institutional Ethnography Approach." Dr. De Vault will introduce institutional ethnographic research and its usefulness in studying the intersections of policy, structures, and procedures in the everyday life of organizations. Dr. Pence will focus on how she and interagency research teams use institutional ethnography for safety audits that examine policies and routine practices in the criminal and civil court system dealing with domestic violence cases.
Concurrent sessions feature individual paper, panel, symposium, and works-in-progress presentations by graduate students, faculty members, and professionals from diverse disciplinary backgrounds. Experienced and novice researchers discuss struggles, epiphanies, methods, theories, and applications of their qualitative projects. Presenters use a variety of research methods, including ethnographic case studies, narrative, life history, and historical studies.
Researchers from the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts will give two panel presentations at this conference. Kimberly Kline, Debra Gentry, and Jennifer Laskowski, along with Megan Moore Gardner (John Carroll University) and Kate Boyle (University of St. Thomas), will present, "What part of this is mine? Experiences of Researchers Collaborating on a Large, National, Qualitative Study," and "A Pilot Study on Liberal Arts Outcomes: Initial Impressions of Five Qualitative Researchers."
Early registration fees apply before June 1, with a limited number of hotel rooms reserved at a special conference rate until this date. Please visit the conference website for more information.