Issues of Equity

Issues of Equity: Key Concepts in Qualitative Methods provides practical and theoretical tools to advance equity in qualitative research, featuring chapters on research methods, concepts, and populations. The short chapters offer guidance for researchers, students, and practitioners to conduct ethically sound and transformative qualitative research focused on diverse perspectives and social justice principles.

This book covers a wide range of topics essential to equity in qualitative research. Methods like testimonio research, person-centered interviewing, black liberation research, and liberatory participatory action research provide ways to amplify marginalized voices, promote collaboration, and create knowledge grounded in participants’ lived experiences. Key concepts such as transformative-emancipatory praxis, critical reflexivity, and counternarratives offer innovative frameworks for analyzing power dynamics in qualitative research. Chapters on research with culturally diverse populations, within the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, and Two-Spirit (LGBTQIA2S+) community, and through Diné (Navajo) Philosophy and Indigenous Ways of Knowing highlight the importance of uplifting cultural identities and ways of knowing... The book’s main findings emphasize the importance of integrating social justice principles in all phases of research, encouraging critical reflexivity, and understanding context-specific challenges to conducting equitable qualitative research studies.

Aimed at qualitative researchers, students, and practitioners, the book provides practical and theoretical tools to center equity in research design, implementation, and analysis.

Johanna Creswell Báez is Masters of Social Work (MSW) Director and Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, USA, in the Department of Social Work. She specializes in qualitative research and technology with a focus on equity and social justice in practice and research methodologies.