[MUSIC].

>> In your opinion what makes a good

research question? >> I think that ties in with my initial answer which is
addressing social
issues, pressing issues. For example, in my own research the reason
I got into studying urban youth and urban immigrant youth is I
used to be a teacher. I worked with 13-year-olds and I found
that every year, no matter how many times I tried to redo
my lesson plans or going for professional
development or going back for my masters, I just, I couldn't reach a
certain population of students. And it's not because they weren't
interested in doing better. I don't really think students set out to
not want to do well. But the method and the approach that I've
been trained to utilize to work with students, it just wasn't
working for the immigrant youth. Often multilingual and often raised in, in
environments where they just didn't have the resources at home or that
their parents couldn't speak English. Socioeconomically they were disadvantaged.
So, as a teacher, I felt I had to do more
than read the books and do the training. And doing ethnographic research for three
years actually following the students and seeing it from
their perspective. That made a difference. It was really transformative. And ever
since then I felt that the work
that I do even though research takes time and it
takes years I can go back and work with other teachers
so they have tools and resources to better work with
such populations of students.