Creating a Diverse Reference List

As you begin your inquiry, you may be wondering how to find work by traditionally underrepresented or marginalized voices to inform your project. This guide should act as a starting point for the challenging task of creating a reference list that centers diversity in voice and perspective.

Why is it important to consider a researcher's identity?

Although objectivity is an aim in research, a researcher's identity can situate them differently within their area of study and can impact the work they produce. How a researcher is situated within their work is often referred to as researcher positionality, which Holmes (2020) defines as "both...an individual’s world view and the position they adopt about a research task and its social and political context" (p. 1).

Jacobson & Mustafa (2019) expand on this, urging researchers to critically reflect on their own positionality and make it explicit in the work they publish, arguing that doing so actually improves the research: "It is known that the way that researchers perceive the social world is largely dependent on their position within it, which further impacts the way that the research is approached, interacted with, and interpreted. Understanding our position, particularly in comparison to the social position of our participants, helps us to better understand the power relations imbued in our research and provides an opportunity to be reflexive about how to address this....No matter the research tradition, it is beneficial to reflect on positionality and how one’s social identity impacts the research. Therefore, we view positionality as a research tool" (p. 2).

As you engage in your own process of inquiry, you may want to consider the positionality of those whose work you draw upon and actively seek to include a diversity of voices in your project. You may also begin by considering your own positionality and how it may influence:

your chosen area of inquiry
the work you choose to cite in your project
your approach to inquiry
your final product

Searching with Diversity in Mind

Despite the widely accepted importance of considering researcher identity and positionality, it can be challenging to actively search for research by traditionally underrepresented voices. This is because search systems are not designed to make work discoverable based on the identity of the author. Consider the search filters available in most standard research databases. You will have noticed earlier in this module that in most databases, you can filter search results by things like content type, date, subject area, scholarly & peer reviewed sources, etc. but there are no search filters that apply to the identity of the researchers creating the work you find there. There is also no simple way to search for this using subject headings or keywords, as those are also typically determined based on the subject of the work and not the identity of the author or researcher.

So how can we search with diversity in mind?

Instead of relying on traditional research strategies, we need to be creative when we want to actively seek out work by those who are traditionally marginalized based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and/or mental or physical ability. Here are some strategies to try:

1. Look within your search results to find information about an author's identity.

Some researchers and authors choose to self-identify and make their positionality explicit in their work. For instance, note the way Dr. Valin S. Jordan (2018) states in the Introduction to her piece "A Counternarrative or Merely a Narrative? Pre-service Teachers’ Understandings of Counternarrative Children's Literature" Links to an external site.:

“As a Black woman teacher educator, I am dutifully committed to supporting pre-service teachers in understanding how their position as raced and gendered people impacts their future classroom practice" (p. 27).

Your turn!

Read the section titled "Researcher identities" in the following article (pg. 79 of the PDF) to see how the authors discuss their positionalities:

Nicol, C., Archibald, J., & Baker, J. (2013). Designing a model of culturally responsive mathematics education: Place, relationships and storywork. Mathematics Education Research Journal, 25(1), 73-89. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13394-012-0062-3 Links to an external site.

Find the article through the Library. Links to an external site.

Complete the following quote from that section:

2. Look outside the text of a piece to learn about an author's identity.

Researchers and authors do not always explicitly state their identity or positionality in their work, but you can use other sources to find this information. For instance, you may be able to learn more about them through other pieces they've written, their website, interviews they've given, social media accounts, or faculty/researcher/author profiles, etc.

As an example, look at the faculty profiles on the UBC Faculty of Education’s Office of Indigenous Education website: https://indigenous.educ.ubc.ca/indigenous-faculty/

Take note of the ways Indigenous faculty have chosen to self-identify.

3. Seek out work from professional, specialist, or scholarly organizations whose leadership (or membership) includes BIPOC, queer, or otherwise underrepresented voices.

Here are a few local, provincial, and national examples:

1. Anti-Oppression Educators Collective (BC): https://aoec.ca/anti-oppression-educators-collective/ Links to an external site.
2. First Nations Education Steering Committee (BC): http://www.fnesc.ca/membership/ Links to an external site.
3. UBC’s Social Justice Institute: https://grsj.arts.ubc.ca/directors-vision/
4. Ontario Alliance of Black School Educators: http://www.onabse.org/home.html Links to an external site.
5. Asian Canadian Educators Network: https://www.acenetedu.ca/about-us Links to an external site.

Your turn!

This is an area of learning for all of us. Do you have any additional ideas or strategies for centering diversity in your inquiry? Is there a particular individual or organization whose research or resources you would like to share? Please feel welcome and encouraged to add your suggestions here. You can add a note to the Padlet wall using the plus sign (+) icon in the bottom right corner.

Don't worry if your suggestion is not added immediately. It will be sent to a librarian first for approval.

Related Research Guides:

We also encourage you to explore the resources included in the following research guides created by UBC librarians:

X̱wi7x̱wa Library's First Nations and Indigenous Studies Guide demonstrates how to find Indigenous-authored materials at X̱wi7x̱wa: https://guides.library.ubc.ca/aboriginalstudies/findingindigenousperspectives
The Gender, Race, Sexuality & Social Justice guide includes a list of multidisciplinary databases you can try searching in: https://guides.library.ubc.ca/c.php?g=307292&p=2049876

References

Holmes, A. G. D. (2020). Researcher positionality -- A consideration of its influence and place in qualitative research -- A new researcher guide. Shanlax International Journal of Education, 8(4), 1. https://doi.org/10.34293/education.v8i4.3232 Links to an external site.

Jacobson, D., & Mustafa, N. (2019). Social identity map: A reflexivity tool for practicing explicit positionality in critical qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 18, 160940691987007. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406919870075 Links to an external site.

Jordan, V. S. (2018). A counternarrative or merely a narrative? Pre-service teachers’ understandings of counternarrative children's literature. Research Issues in Contemporary Education, 3(2), 27.