Oral History for the Qualitative Researcher

Valerie J. Janesick, PhD, is Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of South Florida, Tampa, where she teaches classes in qualitative research methods, curriculum theory and inquiry, foundations of curriculum, ethics, and educational leadership. Her text Stretching Exercises for Qualitative Researchers includes ways to integrate the arts in qualitative researchprojects. Dr. Janesick’s writings have been published in Curriculum Inquiry, Qualitative Inquiry, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, and other major journals. Her chapters in the first andsecond editions of Handbook of Qualitative Research use dance andthe arts as a metaphor for understanding research, and her chapterin Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Inquiry: Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples, and Issues addresses John Dewey and the arts andeducation. She is completing oral history interviews of female schoolsuperintendents as part of a larger project on women leaders and iscurrently taking classes in yoga and meditation. Her most prizedpossession is her British Library Reader’s Card, in particular for herwork on an archival project on John Dewey’s letters to internationaleducators and their subsequent influence.

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