FALL 2026

Doing Visual and Arts Based Research (UED  73200)

Wednesdays,  4:15 – 6:15

Wendy Luttrell

In the past two decades, there has been an explosion of participatory visual research projects.  This course aims to situate these projects within overlapping disciplinary traditions (education, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, and psychology) and to consider what makes this research “critical” (i.e. feminist, de-colonial, reflexive, transformative).   The course affords students the opportunity to read and review exemplary projects; and to work directly with visual data utilizing different analytic/interpretive strategies, including one I have designed called “collaborative seeing.”  Students will have access to an audio-visual archive of data I have collected based on a longitudinal visual research project with children 10-18 or can utilize an archive of their own interest.  We will consider issues of power and ethics in participatory visual research; how working with visual data can (but not necessarily) challenge traditional notions of knowledge production; the role of new technologies in disseminating and reaching new audiences; and how we align our work with the expectations and politics within the communities within which we work.    

Feminist Ethnography, Tuesdays, 4:15 – 6:15

Soniya Munshi

Feminist Ethnography is a methodology that approaches the study of people in their everyday structural and cultural contexts through feminist analyses of power to examine gender, sexuality, race, class, nation, disability and other modes of social difference. Feminist ethnography is rooted in praxis, a process that transforms theory into action, and takes up questions of how and where it can contribute to social change. Through this course, we will engage topics such as the histories of feminist ethnography including debates and critical interventions, methods, ethics and accountabilities, and applications. We will also attend to practical considerations, such as strategies to build meaningful relationships with people and place over time that take into account the realities of everyday graduate student life in NYC.  In this course, you will be invited to work with a research question that will inform an independent feminist ethnographic research project over the course of the semester. This course will also attend to the craft of feminist ethnographic writing through close readings of texts as well as our own practice with the genre.   

Study of Lives, Thursdays, 9:30 – 11:30, HYBRID

Molly Andrews

A course in the study of lives invites students to grapple with the uniqueness, challenges, and wisdoms of the individual person.  In addition to reading some critical (and interesting) life stories, including those of people who contend with various forms of injustice and struggle, we will reflect on the theories, interviewing and interpretive strategies, and ethical issues connected with the study of lives.  Throughout the course, we will consider how the study of lives fits with, enhances, and is distinctive from a variety of other conceptual and methodological frameworks that students are engaging within their own research.  Please note that we will focus much of our energies this semester on the “doing” of the work as students sketch the life of another person. 

Conceptual and Methodological Foundations of Qualitative Research (PSYC 70311)

This course introduces students to the shared principles and varied approaches to qualitative research theory and methods in the social sciences. The course presents the foundations of diverse qualitative research methodologies in terms of their epistemologies, practices, and contributions. Presentations by faculty members illustrate the range of traditions of qualitative methods presented by faculty actively using the approach and thus able to share it and reflect on it critically as well as practically. Faculty coordinating and guiding the course invite colleagues teaching qualitative courses and providing a diverse range of approaches, such as ethnography, grounded theory, narrative inquiry, the listening guide, study of lives, and so on. Students will be introduced to methods of data collection and analytic strategies typically employed in qualitative inquiry and will discuss special issues the confront qualitative researchers.

SPRING 2027

Critical Discourse Theory and Analysis, (PSYC72203) , 3 CR

Colette Daiute, Thursdays, 2:00 – 4:00

Critical Discourse Theory and Analysis focuses on expression as activity and subjectivity in processes of social change and learning. Expressive media, like personal narratives, policies, laws, images, interviews, and curricula occur in tension, synergy, and transformation. We review research focused on how individuals, cultural groups, and institutions use those and other discourse genres to share/impose/resist/innovate ways of knowing and living, especially at moments of major change such as in social movements and displacements. Drawing on social sciences and humanities, we consider research designs within naturally occurring practices and craft detailed analytic strategies to learn about interactions among and within diverse participants, privileging especially the voices of people who have been marginalized, discriminated against, and excluded in other ways, while also shining a light on those with resources and power. Topics organizing our work include literary readings of everyday interactions, the language of microaggressions, silences in policy reports, and multiple voices in interviews. The course features discourse analysis workshops, with previous data sets and as applied to students’ projects. We also work with computer databases, such as Atlas ti, Nvivo, and selected AI tools. Students are invited to bring their own projects and data to the course.  No prerequisite.

Methods of Qualitative Research, SSW77000 

Vicki Lens

Wednesdays, time TBA

This course is an introductory doctoral seminar on qualitative research. We will explore five major approaches to qualitative research: ethnography, grounded theory, narrative, phenomenology, and case studies. Students will learn by doing, with students designing their own research project, culminating in a research proposal, and where the classroom will be designed as a group learning space where students will get and give feedback on their research proposals.

Students successfully completing the course will be able to:

Identify the history, purposes and philosophies underpinning qualitative methods;

• Decide when qualitative methods are appropriate;
• Identify major methodological approaches including ethnography, grounded theory, narrative, phenomenology, and case studies;
• Formulate a research question and design a qualitative study;
• Demonstrate basic skills in gathering qualitative evidence (interviews, observations and archival);
• Critically evaluate and ensure high quality data;
• Engage in the beginning stages of data analysis.