Experiments in Care
Co-facilitation, Responsiveness and Relational Learning in Collaborative Doctoral Fieldwork Projects
DOI :
https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.wx6fgx-2563Mots-clés :
care, education, collaborative research, doctoral research, focus groups, collaborationRésumé
Practising collaborative research methodologies involves relational skills and offers relational learning opportunities for researchers. In this critical intervention, I explore my experiences of co-facilitating focus groups about care as part of my doctoral research in schools. I draw upon the lenses of care and therapeutic scholarship to present insights from my own relational learning journey and explore care in collaborative research more broadly. Through creative, autoethnographic approaches, I look back on the joys of shared responsiveness in the co-facilitated focus group space and reflect upon moments when I found it challenging to step back and co-lead. In doing so, I consider what might further support doctoral researchers—and researchers more broadly—to develop care-full practices in co-facilitated focus groups, collaborative research, and beyond. This intervention contributes to calls for more practical support for researchers engaging with the nuances and complexities of these methodologies, as well as to broader, interdisciplinary calls for more relational orientations to research.
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© Julia Dobson 2026

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