Autoethnographic Inquiry in Qualitative Education
Summary
Autoethnographic inquiry has emerged as a robust qualitative approach in educational research, blending personal narrative with cultural critique to illuminate the lived experiences of teachers, students and academic communities. Rooted in ethnography, this method foregrounds the researcher’s own story as a site of analysis, enabling deep engagement with issues such as identity formation, pedagogical change and emotional labour. Practitioners document and reflect on journal entries, field notes or multimedia artefacts, then situate these self-accounts within broader sociocultural and institutional contexts. This reflexive turn has expanded understandings of how educational policies, digital platforms and power relations shape everyday classroom practices. By harnessing analytic autoethnography, scholars move beyond mere description to theorise how individual and collective experiences intersect, fostering critical insights into resilience, equity and professional development. Global applications range from investigating teacher wellbeing in hybrid learning to exploring student choice strategies in diverse schooling systems. The method’s emphasis on narrative richness and ethical self-examination provides a powerful vehicle for bridging the gap between scholarship and practice, supporting transformative enquiry that centres voice, agency and social justice.
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Autoethnographic Inquiry in Qualitative Education publication trend
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Technical terms
Autoethnography: A qualitative research method in which the researcher’s personal experience serves as primary data for cultural analysis.
Analytic autoethnography: An approach emphasising systematic analysis of personal narratives to generate theoretical insights beyond descriptive accounts.
Collaborative autoethnography: A method involving multiple researchers who co-construct and analyse shared personal narratives to enhance intersubjectivity.
Reflexivity: The process of critically reflecting on one’s own position, biases and influence in the research process.
References
- Language Teacher Educator Wellbeing in Online Classes: An Analytic Autoethnography. European Journal of Education (2025).
- The Impact of Large Language Models on Medical Education: Preparing for a Revolutionary Shift in Doctor Training. Journal of Artificial Intelligence General science (JAIGS) ISSN 3006-4023 (2024).
- Why Do Vocational High School Students Opt for College?. Education Sciences (2024).
- Ethical Autoethnography: Is it Possible?. International Journal of Qualitative Methods (2021).
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