Assistant professor receives the 2020 Illinois Qualitative Dissertation Award

Maureen Flint, an assistant professor in the Mary Frances Early College of Education’s department of lifelong education, administration, and policy, was selected as the winner in the Experimental Category of the 2020 Illinois Qualitative Dissertation Award, International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI).

Flint successfully defended her dissertation, titled “Methodological Orientations: College Student Navigations of Race and Place in Higher Education,” on March 7, 2019. Her work explores questions of belongingness and the socio-historical context of race on campus. The theoretical focus of the dissertation answers calls from higher education scholars who argue for research that moves beyond deficit frameworks and that explores the processes of belonging and the environments that contribute to belonging in higher education.

“Throughout my dissertation, I wondered what the concept of faithfulness as an active practice of working the tensions between theory, artmaking, and traditional research methods,” Flint said. “It is an honor to receive this award.”

Flint’s dissertation also received the Qualitative Research SIG’s Dissertation Award from the American Educational Research Association (AERA) for contributing research that seeks to reduce inequality and injustice in schools and society.