Using duoethnography to explore pathfinding as ECRs in education

In this presentation we shall explore how we, two Early Career Researchers working at the same university, dialogically examined our experiences of professional pathfinding. Faced with the uncertainty engendered by universities across the country enacting restructures (Jack, 2025), we will consider how duoethnography might help us to make sense of our ECR experiences.

There is no correct way to develop one’s practice when transitioning from doctoral study to life as a professional academic. Similarly, the transition from school-based teaching to university-based teacher education and research can take many forms. Therefore, it is useful to adopt a dialogic approach when considering such periods of our careers. Duoethnography is a dialogic approach to research that is characterised by four ‘basic tenets’ (Norris, 2008, p. 235): (1) It is dialogic, and therefore not prescriptive; (2) ‘each individual voice is made explicit’(ibid.), meaning that the resultant text often comes to resemble a play script; (3) shifts in perspective are of central importance, as the research aims to explore how dialogue can transform our understandings; and (4) it embraces difference, seeking not only to unearth similarities but also highlighting points of contrast.

By participating in two hour-long dialogic writing sessions, we will generate a text that will help us to explore our experiences as ECRs. In our presentation, we will share excerpts from this text, exploring what our experience with duoethnography has unearthed, and how it has changed us. Our presentation will offer insights into the practice of duoethnography and the ways that it can be used to make sense of ECR experiences.

The researchers are both lecturers in Initial Teacher Education at a Higher Education Institution in the Southeast of England, and they have both studied for PhDs at London universities. ES joined the university in 2005, and SH joined in 2024. However, as Breault observes, in the context of duoethnography, it is important for the ‘the researchers to bring some distinctive differences into the exploration of a shared experience’ (Breault, 2016, p. 788). Importantly, therefore, the two researchers involved in this project have taken different routes towards becoming ECRs.

ES taught music in secondary schools in Kent before beginning to teach part time on ITE routes including PGCE, School Based, Teach First and SCITT. After a decade of educational experience, she began her PhD in 2017, exploring cognitive aspects of North Indian classical music learning amongst children in 6 urban field sites in North India.

SH taught English at a university in France for one year, before qualifying as a teacher of English and working at an inner-city secondary school for 8 years. In this time, he completed an MA in creative writing and education and began his PhD, exploring the possibilities for Interactive Fiction in the secondary school English classroom.

Teacher educators play many roles. For instance, according to Lofthouse, teacher educators “increasingly combine the characteristics of architects, agitators and activists” (2024, p.145). As two ECRs working in teacher education, we will collaboratively explore what this might mean for us.

Breault, R. A. (2016) Emerging issues in duoethnography. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 29(6), 777–794. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2016.1162866

Jack, P., (2025), ‘UK universities spend more than £200 million on severance pay’, Times Higher Education, January 31st 2025, Available at: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/uk-universities-spend-more... [accessed 6th February 2025]

Lofthouse, R., (2024), ‘Charting contested terrain in teacher education’, in Ellis, V., Teacher Education in Crisis: The State, the Market and the Universities in England, London: Bloomsbury Academic pp. 133–148

Norris, J. (2008) Duoethnography. In L. M. Given (Ed.) The SAGE encyclopedia of qualitative research methods (Vol. 0, pp. 234-236). SAGE Publications, Inc., https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412963909