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Fostering awareness and action: empowering marginalized colleagues to recognize and address systemic silencing in workplace decision-making processes: a qualitative action research study

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Fostering awareness and action: empowering marginalized colleagues to recognize and address systemic silencing in workplace decision-making processes: a qualitative action research study

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Content Fostering Awareness and Action: Empowering Marginalized Colleagues to Recognize and
Address Systemic Silencing in Workplace Decision-Making Processes:
A Qualitative Action Research Study
by
Adaline Melissa Tatum
Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
A dissertation submitted to the faculty
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Education
May 2025

© Copyright by Adaline Melissa Tatum 2025
All Rights Reserved

The Committee for Adaline M. Tatum certifies the approval of this Dissertation
Douglas Shook
John Pascarella
Julie Slayton, Committee Chair
Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
2025

iv
Abstract
This study examines my leadership as the Faculty Support Analyst at the Southern Crest
University (SCU), focusing on empowering marginalized individuals within marginalized
communities to recognize and confront the systemic silencing of their voices in decision-making
processes. Drawing on my personal experiences as a Latina in higher education, where I faced
microaggressions and systemic barriers related to my identity, race, ethnicity, gender, age, and
power, this research examines how I navigated these challenges and used my position to foster
change. I created a holding environment and applied adaptive leadership strategies, combined
with andragogical moves, to help my participants (critically) reflect on their own positionalities
and epistemologies. By challenging power dynamics that perpetuate marginalization, I aimed to
equip participants with the tools to disrupt oppressive structures in their work environments.
Through this action research, I facilitated critical reflection dialogues that allowed participants to
explore their experiences with systemic silencing. As a result, I was able to make progress in the
direction of critical reflection, helping my participants develop a deeper understanding of how to
recognize and address the systemic silencing of their voices. The study highlighted the
transformative potential of these strategies in empowering marginalized individuals to amplify
their voices and drive meaningful change.

v
Dedication
To my Lord and Savior, I give You all the glory, honor, and praise! Your plans to prosper me and not
harm me, to give me hope and a future, have filled me with strength and dignity. Thank You, Lord!
To my mom, #1 cheerleader, thank you for your sacrifices, unconditional love, prayers, and endless
encouragement. Your strength and resilience inspire me to persevere and pursue my passions.
To my dad, thank you for your love, encouragement, and unwavering belief in the “American Dream,”
which continues to inspire me.
To my daughter, thank you for your encouragement, patience, and unconditional love. You’ve taught me
that it perfectly fine to be bold, confident, and determine.
To my grandson, thank you for the abundant joy in your smile, which brightened even the most
challenging writing days and nights.
To my family, thank you for your constant love, support, and understanding. Your unwavering belief in
me has been a source of strength and motivation throughout this journey.
To my USC cohort and friends, thank you for your steadfast support, encouragement, and belief in me.
Your presence and friendships have been a constant source of inspiration and strength.
To my participants. Thank you for your participation in my study and for providing me with the
opportunity to support you and grow as an educational leader and teacher educator.
To my mentors. Thank you for your invaluable guidance, wisdom, and unwavering support, which have
been instrumental in my growth and success.
Finally, to my boyfriend, thank you for your love, patience, encouragement, advice, and unwavering
support. Your constant reminders about deadlines and meetings with my chair were invaluable, and I am
deeply grateful for your presence throughout this journey.

vi
Acknowledgements
I am deeply grateful to my committee, professors, friends, and colleagues for their
unwavering guidance and encouragement throughout this transformative journey. Your insights
and support have challenged me to slow down, reflect deeply, question my assumptions, and
embrace the discomfort of re-learning. The discussions we’ve shared, the readings you’ve
recommended, and the wisdom you’ve imparted have pushed the boundaries of my thinking,
enabling me to grow not only as an educator but also as a person.
To my committee, Dr. Julie Slayton, Dr. John Pascarella, and Dr. Douglas Shook, thank
you for your guidance, support, and encouragement throughout this transformative journey. Your
expertise, thoughtful feedback, and belief in my potential have challenged me to think critically,
reflect deeply, and grow as an educator and leader. Thank you for dedicating your time and care
to fostering my development and creating a space for discovery and growth. The lessons I’ve
learned from your mentorship will continue to shape my work and inspire me to empower others.
To my professors, thank you for creating a space where critical reflection and growth could
thrive. Your passion for teaching and commitment to fostering understanding have inspired me
to carry those values forward in my own work.
To my friends and colleagues, your camaraderie, shared experiences, and encouragement
have been invaluable. You’ve shown me the power of collaboration and the importance of
building trust and empathy in every step of the process.
Choosing this concentration has been life-changing, and I am forever thankful for how it
has shaped me into a more thoughtful, resilient, compassionate, and reflective individual. I carry
forward all that I have learned from you with immense. Thank You!

vii
Table of Contents
Abstract.......................................................................................................................................... iv
Dedication ....................................................................................................................................... v
Acknowledgements........................................................................................................................ vi
List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. ix
List of Figures................................................................................................................................. x
Historically Entrenched Inequity ........................................................................................ 3
Context................................................................................................................................ 7
Role ..................................................................................................................................... 8
Conceptual Framework..................................................................................................... 12
Adaptive Leadership and Andragogical Moves.................................................... 14
Andragogical Moves............................................................................................. 21
Critical Reflection................................................................................................. 25
Research Methods............................................................................................................. 30
Participants and Setting......................................................................................... 32
Actions.................................................................................................................. 36
Data Collection ..................................................................................................... 41
Data Analysis........................................................................................................ 44
Limitations and Delimitations............................................................................... 45
Credibility and Trustworthiness............................................................................ 47
Ethics..................................................................................................................... 48
Findings............................................................................................................................. 49
Form of Assistance: Questioning.......................................................................... 77
My Growth Reflections: My Experience as a Teacher Educator and
Facilitator .............................................................................................................. 92

viii
Afterword........................................................................................................................ 102
Evolving as an Adult Learning Facilitator and Adaptive Leader ....................... 103
Beyond the Study: Cultivating Inclusive Leadership and Equity at UCLA ....... 107
Commitment to Change ...................................................................................... 108

ix
List of Tables
Table 1: Teacher Educator-Leadership Actions Before Study and Cycle 1 37
Table 2: Teacher Educator-Leadership Actions Before Study and Cycle 2 39
Table 3: Teacher Educator-Leadership Actions Before Study and Cycle 3 40

x
List of Figures
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework 14

1
Fostering Awareness and Action: Empowering Marginalized Colleagues to Recognize and
Address Systemic Silencing in Workplace Decision-Making Processes:
A Qualitative Action Research Study
My parents were originally from Guanaja, a little island off the coast of Honduras, and
both were the oldest children in their families. As the oldest, a lot was expected from them.
When my father was 7, his father died suddenly, forcing him to act as an adult and become the
family breadwinner. This tragedy disrupted my father’s entire life’s plan and resulted in his exit
from school at third grade. My mother only completed fifth grade because there was little reason
to formally educate girls when their predetermined roles were to be wife, mother, and runner of
the household. If anything, when she was growing up, the belief was that a formal education
interfered with those roles (Patel, 2016).
My mom would share stories from her childhood with us at bedtime, which for me
indicated her resilient spirit. One of her stories that often flashes back in my memory was that, at
8 years old, she had to wake-up at 3:30 am daily to participate in her family devotion, followed
by walking 4 miles to the farm with her dad and two younger brothers to milk the cows and be
back home by 6:30 am. She then had to get dressed for school, eat, and walk another 3 miles to
attend school.
My parents’ childhood experiences of working hard from such young ages translated to
them wanting their six children to live a better and less challenging lifestyle. They played their
parental roles well, empowering us however they could. My mother was our friend, mentor,
teacher, nurturer, and greatest cheerleader, continuously modeling our family values. Of these
values, having ambition and being kind to others while achieving as much education as we
possibly could were paramount. Being the dedicated person she was, my mom instilled strong

2
Christian values in all of us, while ensuring we were focusing on learning and being respectful
human beings in whichever community we lived. They also provided us with what was
necessary to be successful and consistently highlighted the importance of receiving an excellent
education. We were encouraged to attend school, complete assignments, read daily, listen to
teachers, and be respectful. While my experience of my parents was that they always wanted the
best for their children, their parenting approach and epistemology reflected a colonial mindset in
this era. We were not encouraged to be critical thinkers and to analyze situations so that learning
translated meaningfully. We were taught that the teacher was right. We were taught that
instructions from teachers were a must-do as the teacher was the ultimate authority on all
subjects. Teachers in our schools were authoritarians, thereby reflecting the colonial system. This
authoritarian approach, emphasizing obedience and unquestioning respect for authority, is
commonly associated with colonial educational models that prioritize control over creativity and
critical thinking. Studies show that authoritarian parenting, characterized by strict rules and little
room for open communication, often leads to lower academic achievement and disengagement
from school (Teixeira, Sampaio, & Almeida, 2014). Additionally, colonial-era educational
systems often suppressed critical thinking, fostering environments where students were
discouraged from questioning or analyzing information, which hindered meaningful learning
(Mikkonen & Rajani, 2018).
Throughout my childhood in Belize and Honduras, my father shared his belief that the
United States (US) was “the land of opportunities” (Mullins, 2017, p. 1). He believed that one
day we would migrate to the US as a family, become citizens, further our educations, find dream
jobs, and live the American dream, just like in the movies. And although I had envisioned the US
as the land of opportunity since I was 10, the first time I visited the US was with my 1-year-old

3
daughter vacationing in beautiful California. As we toured around Los Angeles, I was in awe of
this beautiful town as the lights twinkled in my eyes, and the cold air chilled my face. I distinctly
remember the excitement in my spirit driving by the University of Southern California (USC) for
the first time. That view of the campus sparked a new insight into the possibilities of education
for me and most definitely contributed to my father’s dream, the land of opportunities, and mine
of attending USC, one day. That moment in time still represents an unconscious manifestation of
my Trojan identity today.
However, arriving at USC and achieving success in some ways, I have realized that while
I have inhabited part of my father’s dream, the system here—much like many other systems—
has remained colonialist in nature. It continues to marginalize people like me and others from
historically marginalized groups, while privileging those already in power. This recognition is
crucial as I consider how to promote understanding with my marginalized colleagues within
marginalized communities. How do we, as individuals with shared experiences, recognize and
address the systemic silencing of our voices? How do we empower each other to challenge and
transform the oppressive structures that limit our participation in decision-making processes? By
acknowledging the colonial roots embedded within our systems and working together, we can
begin to shift the power dynamics, allowing for more inclusive and transformative change in the
US and the world.
Historically Entrenched Inequity
In the 1940s, White women and men developed programming languages, which
eventually led to the creation of the field of computer science. The field of computer science
gave birth to the information technology (IT) industry (Moghaddam, 2009). To comprehend the
IT industry, it is essential to understand the distinctions between computer science and IT.

4
Although computer science and IT have many similarities, they also differ in some ways
(Triplett, 2019). Computer science is the study of how computers work, focusing on creating
programs, algorithms, and computing systems. On the other hand, IT focuses on using
computers, devices, and software to solve real-world problems and manage technology for
practical use (Evans, 2023).
In 1943, the first programmed computer and numerical calculators were created in the
United States by Ada Lovelace who is credited with bringing in the modern era (Farah, 2021).
She was British, an author, and a mathematician who contributed to the creation of Charles
Babbage’s Analytical Engine, often known as the ENIAC machine—the first computer that used
binary coding. This year marked the beginning of the digital revolution, which spread quickly in
the following decades to all facets of life and business, bringing about the IT era in the early
1980s in fields such as civil and military, science, telecommunications, education, medicine,
management, audiovisual and media, economy and finance, commerce, arts and crafts, strategy,
decision-making, forecasting and calculations for the future, services, social communications,
etc. Market Business News (2022) defines IT as the development, maintenance, and
implementation of computer software, hardware, and networks. IT can also be applied to the
distribution and processing of data.1
IT focuses on using computing as a practical approach to
solving problems.
As organizations attempt to incorporate more IT solutions into their company operations,
studies by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate an increase in IT-related professions for the
future. It is anticipated that overall employment in computer and information technology
professions will increase by 15.4% between 2021 through 2031 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics,
1 Facts, opinions, statistics, and other information that has been collected for use, storage, or analysis are referred to
as data.

5
2022). This is substantially faster than the average for all industries as the IT industry will add
around 682,800 new jobs to the economy during that time. Organizations are attempting to
strengthen their ranks with experts in cloud computing, collecting, and managing corporate
information, and cybersecurity; these industries are expected to add approximately 531,200 new
IT positions (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2022).
Although the IT industry continues to thrive, these positions are not expected to be filled
by individuals from specific marginalized communities at the same rate as their White and Asian
counterparts. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (2024) report entitled, High
Tech, Low Inclusion: Diversity in the High Tech Workforce and Sector 2014-2022 examined the
nature of employment in high information technology industries, and the labor force
participation. Their findings indicated that the high-tech workforce became increasingly racially
and ethnically diverse between 2014 and 2022, with workers of color representing 40.1% of the
workforce in 2022. However, despite this progress, the results highlighted concerns about
ongoing barriers to equal opportunity within the high-tech sector. The study also revealed that
Black, Hispanic, and Asian workers are underrepresented in high-tech management roles
compared to their overall representation in the high-tech workforce. Black workers constitute
7.4% of the high-tech workforce but only 5.7% of high-tech managers, despite comprising
11.6% of the total U.S. workforce. This marks only a modest increase from their 2005
representation of 6%. Hispanic workers make up 9.9% of the high-tech workforce but just 8.1%
of high-tech managers, while accounting for nearly one-fifth (18.7%) of the total U.S. workforce.
Asian workers represent 18.1% of the high-tech workforce but only 15.3% of high-tech
managers (The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2024).

6
Within the IT industry, a subset of professionals known as educational technologists
plays a critical role in enhancing teaching and learning through technology and instructional
design principles. These professionals collaborate with educators to integrate digital tools into
classrooms, ensuring technology is effectively utilized to improve learning outcomes. By
bridging the gap between technological advancements and educational practices, educational
technologists create enriched and supportive learning environments (Reiser, 2012).
However, despite the potential of educational technology (EdTech), Zubairi et al.’s
(2021) article, EdTech to Reach the Most Marginalised: A Call to Action, highlights significant
shortcomings in addressing the needs of marginalized learners. The authors argue that EdTech
often fails marginalized communities due to design and distribution biases, as most tools are
developed in high-income countries. These tools may not be culturally relevant or accessible to
underserved populations. Without intentional efforts to address equity, EdTech can exacerbate
existing inequalities. For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, many students from
marginalized backgrounds struggled to access online learning due to a lack of devices, internet
connectivity, and supportive environments.
These challenges highlight the critical need to address equity in EdTech. Technology has
the potential to either worsen or alleviate existing educational inequities. When thoughtfully
designed and implemented, EdTech can provide marginalized groups with access to learning
opportunities that would otherwise be out of reach. However, Zubairi et al. (2021) emphasizes
that many existing tools are not accessible or relevant to marginalized learners, particularly those
from low-income or remote backgrounds.
Additionally, individuals working to improve EdTech in these settings—particularly
marginalized women, such as myself—often face systemic barriers. The environments in which

7
we operate are rarely conducive to fostering the inclusive innovation necessary to serve all
learners. Without concerted efforts to create more equitable, inclusive, and culturally relevant
EdTech solutions, the gap between privileged and marginalized communities will only continue
to widen, perpetuating systemic inequalities. I will discuss in more detail how these challenges
intersect with my role and how they contribute to the reproduction of marginalization.
Context
The Southern Crest University (SCU, a pseudonym), Information Technology Services
(ITS) department was undergoing a digital transformation aimed at enhancing the university’s
services and operations through digital technologies. This transformation was critical in
supporting education, research, and administration at SCU. Digital transformation refers to
integrating digital technologies into all aspects of an organization to fundamentally change how
it operates and delivers value, often involving new business models, processes, and cultural shifts
to improve customer experiences and gain a competitive edge (Salesforce, 2021). Under the
leadership of the Chief Information Officer (CIO), ITS was divided into six verticals, including
Customer Experience, where my department, the ITS Learning Environments (LE) Department,
was housed. This vertical focused on delivering user-centered IT solutions with an emphasis on
personalization, convenience, and digital innovation.
As part of the digital transformation, the LE department was restructured with a new
team of 12 employees. The demographic composition included: one White male director in his
early 50s, two African American males in their 40s, one White woman in her early 20s, three
White males in their 20s, one Latino male in his 50s, one White male in his late 30s, one Chinese
male in his 30s, one Indian woman in her 20s, and one Latina in her late 30s (me). Despite the
apparent diversity, no employees from marginalized communities were included in the senior

8
leadership team, effectively silencing our voices in the decision-making processes from the
outset.
The lack of representation of marginalized groups in senior leadership roles within the
LE department reinforced existing power structures, excluding the voices of employees like me.
This exclusion not only prevented us from influencing the direction of the department and its
digital transformation but also reinforced systemic inequities in the leadership structure, which
failed to integrate diverse perspectives. The absence of such diversity stifled innovation and
perpetuated traditional power dynamics, preventing voices like mine from contributing to key
decisions that could have shaped a more inclusive and effective transformation.
Research supports that the underrepresentation of marginalized groups in leadership
positions can hinder organizational progress and innovation (Salesforce, 2021; Forbes Business
Council, 2023). The lack of diverse leadership can create a cycle of exclusion that prevents
meaningful changes and limits the potential for diverse perspectives to influence organizational
growth (Davis, 2018). These systemic issues require urgent attention to ensure that leadership
structures should prioritize inclusion and give underrepresented voices the opportunity to
contribute and shape the future of the department.
Role
In my role as the faculty support analyst within the LE department, I held responsibilities
that aligned with those of an educational technologist and customer service manager. As the
faculty support analyst, my primary role was to support the integration of technology in
educational settings, much like the responsibilities outlined in the literature above for an
educational technologist. I created and facilitated training for faculty, staff, and student workers

9
to effectively use classroom technology and support the creation of learning environments that
leveraged educational technology to enhance teaching and learning.
However, the title of “Faculty Support Analyst” differed from that of “Educational
Technologist”; a distinction that carried implications in terms of recognition, responsibility, and
compensation. Despite performing the same functions as an educational technologist, I was not
compensated as an educational technologist, which is often more aligned with higher pay and
status within the industry. This discrepancy in title and pay serves as a subtle but clear example
of how marginalization is reproduced in organizational structures, particularly when roles
predominantly held by marginalized individuals—such as women of color—are undervalued or
misclassified.
The misalignment between my title and responsibilities highlights how systemic
marginalization operates. Despite holding a master’s degree in my field and having years of
relevant experience, I was assigned a less prestigious title and not compensated accordingly. This
resulted in my implicit exclusion from the higher status and recognition typically given to
educational technologists, effectively silencing my contributions and diminishing my
professional standing. This practice not only undermines the value of my work but also
reproduces the inequities that exist within the IT and educational technology fields, where
marginalized individuals, particularly women of color, face barriers to recognition and
advancement. During my four years at SCU, I consistently voiced my concerns in meetings and
interactions, even when power dynamics sought to dismiss me and render my input irrelevant.
A notable example of how marginalization was reproduced in my workplace occurred
during an incident related to the Center for Excellence in Teaching (CET) faculty session in
April 2020. After a brief meeting with a White woman facilitator from the CET to clarify a

10
faculty training that my then-manager had assigned to me, I was falsely accused of being rude
during a previous Zoom session with over fifty other SCU faculty members, in which I made no
verbal contributions. When my White director brought this issue to my attention, I requested a
meeting to address the situation and ensure that my voice and perspective were heard. I
suggested that we meet with the White woman facilitator and review the session recording to
clear up the misunderstanding. My director responded dismissively, saying that the recording
would likely be edited and that a meeting would not resolve anything. He stated, “I will handle it.
I just need for you to be more careful.” However, instead of advocating for me and ensuring that
my side of the story was included, my director chose to dismiss the issue and accept the claim
made by the White woman without question. I left that meeting in disbelief and curious of what
had just transpired. His refusal to support my request for a meeting reinforced the silencing of
my voice and allowed the White facilitator’s narrative to dominate, without consideration for my
own perspective. This situation highlighted the way in which my director, a White male,
perpetuated marginalization by siding with the White woman’s account and dismissing my
request for an open dialogue. This lack of advocacy and failure to validate my voice not only
exemplified the silencing that many marginalized individuals face in the workplace but also
underscored the deep-seated biases and inequities in leadership that prevent marginalized
employees from having their experiences acknowledged and addressed.
Another example of silencing marginalized voices within the LE department was when
our LE customer service (CX) division had been functioning without management for over seven
months. To ensure our unit ran effectively, we all cooperated to consistently deliver exceptional
service. Several of my teammates and I were qualified for the management role. However, the
vacancy was never posted internally, and none of my qualified coworkers received an offer. I

11
was personally uninterested in the position, but a coworker who had been fulfilling the role’s
responsibilities for 14 years without the official title expressed his interest. Unfortunately, our
director dismissively told him not to apply after he inquired. What else could it be if not
microaggression and oppression? He is not White. In a staff meeting at the end of January, we
learned that a White male CX manager had been hired after six months of searching, and he
would start working with us the next month.
Through these experiences, I became determined to explore how critical reflection could
empower marginalized voices, including my own, in leadership and decision-making processes.
This drive for advocacy grew from my understanding of how White supremacy and systemic
silencing function within workplace cultures, particularly in the IT field, where marginalized
employees face additional barriers. The absence of advocacy, structural support for equitable
hiring practices, and accountability for discriminatory actions further highlighted the ongoing
racial and gender inequities within the department.
These experiences deeply influenced my commitment to fostering an environment of
inclusion and equity, where marginalized voices can be heard and respected. Through my
doctoral studies and professional experiences, I continue to challenge and reflect on how
systemic marginalization operates within academic and professional settings. My research study
aims to promote understanding with marginalized colleagues within marginalized communities
in recognizing and addressing systemic silencing of their voices, empowering them to challenge
and transform oppressive structures that limit their voices in decision-making.
The conceptual framework that governs my theory of action for this action research study
will be outlined and explained in the following sections of this study. Also included is a
description of the research methods I used to address my research question.

12
Conceptual Framework
Maxwell (2013) defines a conceptual framework as a foundation of interconnected
concepts, assumptions, and theories that guide research. In my study, this framework served as a
tentative theory of action, shaping and directing my approach to action research. It provides a
visual representation of systems involving disempowered or marginalized individuals, with the
goal of fostering critical consciousness. Critical consciousness emphasizes the process of
recognizing and addressing systemic oppression through reflection and action (Freire, 1970).
This process empowers individuals to advocate for themselves, demand representation, amplify
their voices, and actively participate in decision-making. Additionally, the framework highlights
the interrelated and interdependent components of my research, including my own positionality
within these systems (Coghlan, 2019).
My conceptual framework, shown in Figure 1, is a revised model based on my field
experiences and theories aimed at supporting marginalized individuals. I focus on helping
colleagues recognize their exclusion from decision-making and how those in power routinely
leave them out, perpetuating marginalization. In this study, I worked with individuals who were
on the receiving end of power, rather than leaders or decision-makers as originally planned. It
was intended to address the systemic silencing of marginalized voices by empowering my
participants to challenge oppressive structures that limited their participation in decision-making.
This revision reflects how my theory of action has evolved as a result the study. I have
refined the framework to align with what I achieved and learned in practice. During my time in
the field, I made progress toward my long-term goal by leading my participants through a
structured, ongoing process that encouraged them to (critically) examine their assumptions
(Brookfield, 2017) about their experiences. Moving forward, I will describe my current theory of

13
action to maintain progress toward my long-term goal. This ongoing work will continue to shape
and inform any future revisions to my conceptual framework.
As outlined in my conceptual framework, I see it as my responsibility as a teacher
educator to practice andragogical moves and adaptive leadership in cultivating a strong holding
environment for my participants. This environment is anchored in the interconnected principles
of mutual trust and vulnerability. Within this space, there are clear expectations that individuals
can openly express themselves, voice concerns, and take risks without fear of retribution or
judgment. Such an environment fosters mutual trust, openness, and support, which in turn
enables participants to engage in critical reflective dialogue and internalize their experiences.
This reflective process is essential for transformative learning—a process through which
individuals reshape their deeply held frames of reference to become more inclusive, discerning,
open, and emotionally capable of change. Transformative learning empowers individuals to
generate beliefs and opinions that are more grounded in understanding and reflection, rather than
simply applying abstract concepts (Mezirow, 2000). I made progress in implementing
andragogical move to guide my participants in recognizing and (critically) reflecting on their
actions. This process was intended to help them cultivate a deeper awareness and understanding
of their learning journey, fostering meaningful growth and consciousness throughout the study.
In the following section, I will further describe how my conceptual framework has
evolved because of my in the field experiences (see Figure 1). I will begin by explaining
adaptive leadership and andragogical moves and then the holding environment. I will end by
contextualizing the critically reflective process that will help my participants to recognize and
address systemic silencing of their voices, empowering them to challenge and transform
oppressive structures that limit their voices in decision-making.

14
Figure 1
Conceptual Framework
Adaptive Leadership and Andragogical Moves
While in the field, I did not fully enact all aspects of adaptive leadership. As a novice, I
found it challenging to implement all five elements I had initially planned. However, I was able
to some extent to get on the balcony, manage distress, maintain disciplined attention for (critical)
reflection, and give the work back to the people, particularly in protecting my participants who
were members of historically marginalized communities and who had experienced
marginalization at SCU. I will explain each component in more detail below. Despite not fully
implementing every aspect, I still believe adaptive leadership is central to my ability to help my
colleagues adapt and develop awareness of how marginalization perpetuates inequities. It also
encourages (critical) reflection on how their actions may (re)produce marginalization in
decision-making. Therefore, I have decided to retain adaptive leadership within my current
theory of action.

15
As defined by Northouse (2019), adaptive leadership is “the behavior of and the actions
undertaken by leaders to help people address and resolve changes that are central in their lives”
(p. 258). In simpler terms, it is a complex process that seeks to create adaptive change in a social
system. Conflicts arise from divergent needs, attitudes, and preferences; and adaptive leadership
is often described as a “generative dynamic” that develops from the system itself rather than
from any one individual or action. I will continue to draw on the strengths of adaptive leadership
while acknowledging its limitations, particularly its colorblind approach. Colorblindness, as
defined by Bonilla-Silva (2015), refers to a form of discrimination where race is ignored, and
“raceless” explanations are used for race-related issues. This subtle, institutional form of racism
maintains and perpetuates White supremacy. To address this, I have integrated aspects of
adaptive leadership into andragogical strategies. Now that I have described adaptive leadership, I
will explain its overlap with andragogical moves.
There is an overlap between adaptive leadership and andragogical moves because both
aim to help people learn and adopt new lifestyles so they may successfully manage problems and
develop as individuals. Mezirow (1991) described andragogy as a planned and continuous effort
to support adult learners in a way that strengthens their capacity to function as self-directed
learners. Andragogy is used to educate adults (those who can support themselves) so they can
contribute to the improvement of society and cause transformative learning (TL) to transpire.
Drawing on Mezirow (2000), TL is the process by which we change our assumptive frames of
reference to make them more open, inclusive, emotionally adaptable, and reflective so that they
can produce beliefs and opinions that will prove to be more real or justified to direct our actions
through understanding, rather than by acquiring knowledge by first learning abstract concepts,
and then applying it. Mezirow asserts that TL is a logical procedure (2002). People frequently

16
undergo a change in their frame of reference or worldview when they consider and debate their
assumptions about the world. To encourage group members to explore different perspectives and
to challenge one another’s assumptions, critical reflection between individuals is necessary.
While I initially believed—and later confirmed—that we might not achieve critical reflection
during this action research, it was essential that my participants were fully informed about the
subject under discussion during our reflective dialogues. Additionally, it was important to
maintain impartiality and ensure that the setting fostered acceptance, empathy, and trust
(Mezirow, 1997, 2000). In my role as a teacher educator, I was able to facilitate progress towards
transformative learning by using forms assistance, which led to reflection dialogues. I
encouraged these critical reflection dialogues to help my participants make progress to recognize
and address systemic silencing of their voices, empowering them to challenge and transform
oppressive structures that limit their voices in decision-making.
Conceptually, adaptive leadership and andragogical moves overlap and I will continue to
combine them to assist adult learners. In this next section, I will explain the andragogical and
adaptive leadership moves I continue to believe are essential to promote transformative learning
with members from historically marginalized communities so that they understand that their
exclusion from decision-making is part of a larger system of marginalization and they can
challenge these systems of exclusion: 1) enacting adaptive leadership moves, 2) creating the
holding environment necessary to engage in (critical) reflection dialogue, 3) identifying my
participants’ zone of proximal development (ZPD), and 4) engaging in andragogical moves to
help my participants to engage in transformative learning.

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Adaptive Leadership
Adaptive leadership is the process of empowering people to overcome complex
challenges and create conditions for managing distress along the way (Heifetz et al., 2009;
Northouse, 2016). I continue to believe that adaptive leadership moves are essential if I want
learners to flourish in novel contexts with new aspirations, demands, tactics, and talents that
depend explicitly on the capacity to adapt to change.
Get on the Balcony. Getting on the balcony symbolizes stepping back to see the bigger
picture during challenging situations (Northouse, 2016). It’s like viewing a dance floor from
above, where leaders can observe interactions and patterns from different perspectives, allowing
them to better understand and address complexities. During the first cycle of my study, I
grappled with getting on the balcony due to my discomfort with silence which pushed me to fill
those quiet moments with my own comments and doing most of the talking. I also struggled with
slowing down and being fully present to my participants making it difficult for me to remove
myself from dance floor. Later in my research study, I was able to recognize this challenge
through self-(critical) reflections, and I adjusted by consciously choosing to slow down and
address my participants’ concerns, demonstrating empathy and understanding (Heifetz & Linsky,
2002). For instance, I implemented the concept of getting on the balcony rather than pushing
forward with the planned agenda. I stepped back to reflect on the dynamics within the holding
environment. I continue to believe that this strategy is important for me to gain distance away
from the noise, activity, and chaos the situation, allowing for me to watch myself as well as my
participants in-action. From the balcony, I will gain a clearer perspective, allowing me to identify
patterns and assess whether there is excessive tension as the issue is discussed.

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Holding Environment. Drawing from my field experience, I have come to understand
that adult learning occurs within a holding environment, a concept I have since incorporated into
my framework. A holding environment is an established space where participants feel safe to
tackle difficult problems and/or challenges, but not so safe that they can avoid them (Northouse,
2019). The purpose of this holding environment is to allow me, as the teacher educator, to serve
as a reality check for information, orchestrate opposing viewpoints, and facilitate critical
reflection dialogues to help my marginalized colleagues within marginalized communities to
recognize and address systemic silencing of their voices, empowering them to challenge and
transform oppressive structures that limit their voices in decision-making.
During my study, my goal was to provide my participants with a space to engage in
critical reflection dialogues that would produce challenging conversations without feeling the
need to hide themselves. The most I could guarantee was that whatever was discussed in the
space would remain there, with the understanding that it was confidential, and the ground rules
and norms of the space would be upheld. Building on Arao and Clemens’s (2013) concept of a
brave space and Heifetz and Linsky’s (2002) framework for cultivating a strong holding
environment to manage distress, I suggested that we adopt Arao and Clemens’s (2013) ground
rules, or dialogue norms and agreements. The goal was to cultivate a strong holding environment
conducive to critical reflection dialogues. By using these norms and agreements, participants
were encouraged to address and critique issues arising in the conversation without blaming any
individual, thus ensuring psychological safety of my participants. I still believe that adopting
ground rules is an essential part of cultivating a strong holding environment.
Although I struggled as the teacher educator to manage distress among my participants, I
continue to believe it is essential to ensure the psychological safety of my learners. I now

19
understand that I need to attend to the possibility of mutual distancing. Mutual distancing refers
to the process by which leaders and followers create psychological distance between themselves
to handle the pressures and realities of confronting challenging issues (Heifetz et al., 2009).
Mutual distancing negatively impacts the holding environment, making it difficult for
participants to express themselves openly, voice their concerns, or take risks without fear of
retribution or judgment. This leads to a lack of trust, making it much harder to regulate the
distress within the group. Thus, managing distress is critical to developing a strong holding
environment.
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Bridging understanding gaps can be
challenging (Elmore, 2002), especially when addressing issues of race, identity, and equality
with colleagues who hold different perspectives. Given that these issues are often hidden or
overlooked, it is crucial for me to meet my participants where they are. Unfortunately, during my
study, I did not discover my participants’ zone of proximal development. Nonetheless, I remain
committed to the principles of ZPD, believing it is essential to meet participants at their current
level. Vygotsky (1978) defines ZPD as “the difference between the level of potential
development as determined by problem-solving under adult guidance, or in partnership with
more capable peers, and the level of actual development as determined by independent problemsolving” (p. 86). Before choosing the forms of assistance to act as a “more capable peer,” I
continue to believe it is critical for me to understand my participants’ “ways of knowing,” as
outlined by Drago-Severson and Blum-DeStefano (2017). They identified four ways of
knowing—instrumental, socializing, self-authoring, and self-transforming—which represent
stages of development in cognitive, affective, interpersonal, and intrapersonal capacities. These
stages will be essential in future development of the framework of this study.

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In this section, I define the four ways of knowing, as outlined by Drago-Severson and
Blum-DeStefano (2008), in the order they were introduced. Instrumental knowers have a
concrete understanding of the world and recognize that there is a reality beyond their own. They
tend to follow norms and feel supported by clear guidance and instructions to achieve their
objectives. For instrumental knowers, considering the interests of others is only relevant if it
directly impacts their own.
Socializing knowers, in contrast, have a capacity for reflection and can think abstractly.
They recognize that there is no single “right” way to live, learn, lead, or teach and can consider
others’ expectations and views. Socializing knowers prioritize others’ needs and desires, often
seeking acknowledgment and support from others.
Self-authoring knowers, on the other hand, have developed their own internal value
systems and authority. They can identify abstract ideas, long-term goals, and opposing
perspectives, and they are able to balance their internal norms with external demands and
expectations. Self-authoring knowers are notable for aligning their actions with self-determined
principles and values.
Finally, self-transforming knowers have developed their own worldviews and belief
structures, yet they remain open to future development and change. They focus on psychological
intimacy, cooperation, and reciprocity as key components of growth and transformation. Selftransforming knowers constantly explore and refine the intersectionality of their thinking,
feeling, understanding, and identities, while helping others do the same. They recognize that
plurality is essential to human progress and development (Drago-Severson, 2009, 2012; DragoSeverson & Blum-DeStefano, 2016; Kegan & Lahey, 2009, 2016).

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Andragogical Moves
Andragogy is the systematic and ongoing endeavor to support adults’ learning in a way
that improves their capacity to act as self-directed learners (Mezirow, 1991). My long-term goal
for my participants was to use critical reflection, discussed in a later section, to disrupt the cycle
of (re)producing marginalization for members of marginalized communities by addressing the
systemic silencing of their voices and limiting their exclusion from decision-making processes. I
enacted andragogical moves that supported my participants in making progress towards
recognizing and addressing the systemic silencing of their voices, with the longer-term goal of
empowering them to challenge and transform the oppressive structures that limited their
participation in decision-making.
I supported my participants as they made progress towards transformative learning by
using a variety of forms of assistance. Forms of assistance are strategies that teacher educators
utilize to support learners in determining what they can accomplish on their own and what they
can achieve with assistance (Tharp & Gallimore,1989). I adopted two of the three originally
planned forms of assistance (modeling, feedback, and questioning) to try to meet my participants
where they were. I still believe that all three of these forms of assistance are necessary to
promote the adult learning I set out to achieve.
Although I do not discuss this form of assistance in my findings, modeling was the first
form of assistance I used. Modeling is a method of demonstrating actions for others to follow
(Tharp & Gallimore, 1989). I modeled vulnerability to decenter power and examine how
our positionalities and epistemologies operated in our interpersonal interactions. My actions
contributed to my efforts to produce a strong holding environment.

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I continue to believe Brown’s (2017) theory that vulnerability includes risk, uncertainty,
and emotional exposure. When a leader is willing to put themselves in danger and go “all in,”
even knowing that doing so may result in failure or injury, they are demonstrating courageous
leadership. Contrary to popular belief, weak or fragile leadership is not vulnerable leadership.
Honesty and courage, according to Brown (2017), both sound and feel vulnerable. Although they
are rarely comfortable, honesty and bravery are never signs of weakness. I continue to believe
that it is essential for me to model vulnerability to my learners so that they will be willing to
participate in critical reflection dialogues. I will be open and vulnerable while still retaining a
healthy amount of self-disclosure to do this (Hardly, 2013).
Although I implemented feedback as a form of assistance, I didn’t enact it as originally
planned. I believe I could have supported my participants more if I had possessed the necessary
skills to know when to incorporate it into our (critical) reflection dialogues. According to
Henderson & Associates (2019), feedback is the “processes where the learner makes sense of
performance-relevant information to promote their learning” (p. 17). The goal of utilizing
feedback was to enhance understanding, identify areas for improvement, and offer guidance on
important next steps. I provided my participants with minimal verbal feedback both individually
and as a group based on our (critical) reflection dialogues. This form of assistance could have
helped my participants understand and recognize how marginalized colleagues within
marginalized communities experience systemic silencing, empowering them to challenge and
transform the oppressive structures that limit their participation in decision-making. I provided
minimal feedback by using accessible language, clearly communicating the purpose, breaking it
down into manageable steps, and explaining terminologies within the context of the (critical)
reflection dialogue based on literature that seemed unclear or misunderstood. My feedback

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during those (critical) reflection dialogues was intended more for clarification so my participants
could reflect and decide how to apply the strategies in their everyday life and experiences. I still
believe that feedback is essential to promote learners’ participation in transformative learning.
My final form of assistance was questioning. Questioning, as a request for a spoken
answer, assists participants by generating thoughts they may be unable or unwilling to develop
on their own. I firmly believe that questioning holds the greatest potential to provide impactful
support to help my participants engage in critical reflection dialogues. However, my novice
skillset limited my ability to fully utilize this strategy and maximize its effectiveness in the field.
I still hold that questioning is intended to challenge learners—to encourage them to pay
close attention, to analyze their thoughts, and to think critically while engaging in our critical
reflection dialogues (Newmann, 1988). Initially, I planned to use two main types of questions:
(1) probing questions, which would ask for clarification, justification, or explanation, and (2)
guiding questions, which would assist my participants in using strategies and concepts to
overcome (address) challenges. Although I did not fully deploy both, I still believe that they are
both important forms of assistance.
Adopting Sahin and Kulm’s (2008) criteria for identifying probing questions, I continued
to ask my participants to: 1) elaborate on and explain their thinking to promote learning and
encourage deeper reflection on the topic being discussed, 2) use their prior knowledge and apply
it to a current problem or topic, and 3) justify or provide an example of their ideas or how they
would respond. Consistent with what I did in this study, the probing questions I used included:
How are you? How does that make you feel? How are you feeling? What do we hear, see, think
about, observe, or how do we define it? How do you define …? Can you say more on that?
Would anyone else like to share? Do you want to elaborate on any of those …?

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For the purposes of this action research study, I did fall short due to my lack of the
necessary skillset as the teacher educator to fully enact all these criteria for identifying and
delivering effective probing questions. I do believe that if I had utilized all these identifying
criteria, it could have extended my participants’ knowledge beyond factual recall and copying of
learned skills. This would have pushed them to use previous knowledge to explore and develop
new concepts and procedures for our (critical) reflection dialogues, which was my goal.
Consistent with Kawanaka and Stigler (1999), I intended on maximizing guiding
questions as well into critical reflection dialogues to help my learners discuss problems and
discern concepts and methods but fell short due to my novice skillset. If I had been more
experienced to utilize these questions, I believe I could have guided my participants in using
critical reflection to understand and recognize how marginalized colleagues within marginalized
communities experience systemic silencing, empowering them to challenge and transform the
oppressive structures that limited their participation in decision-making and achieve
transformational learning. I continued to use guiding questions such as asking 1) for a specific
answer or an example, 2) for a next-step solution, 3) for them to think about or recall a general
heuristic or strategy (Polya, 1947), and 4) for a sequence of factual questions that provided ideas
or hints leading toward understanding a concept or completing a procedure. Some of the guiding
questions I used include: So how is that going? Does anyone have an example? How does it
make you feel, knowing that you’re trying to do your best complying, doing your job but then
there are these people on campus that’s in your opinion they have this privilege over you despite
that this is your job? Where do you go from here?
In summary, although I did not successfully employ all the andragogical moves as
originally planned, I am committed to ensuring that I attend to these andragogical moves more

25
effectively in future efforts. By refining my practice and building on these lessons, I aim to better
foster and support transformative learning as I continue to work with adult learners.
Critical Reflection
According to Mezirow (2000), a distinguishing characteristic of being human is our
desperate need to comprehend and arrange the meaning of our experiences to integrate them with
what we already know and eliminate our fear of chaos. Consistent with Mezirow (2000), when
we are unable to understand, we frequently rely on explanations from authorities that we have
blindly accepted or we turn to various psychological techniques, such as rationalization and
projection, to create artificial meaning. For my participants to actively unpack their
positionalities and epistemologies to decenter themselves, they would need to engage in the
critical reflection. In Dewey’s (1933) words reflection is “active, persistent and careful
consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that
support it and the further conclusion to which it tends” (p. 9). I implemented the Rodgers’s
reflective cycle to enable my participants to raise their consciousness and their hidden
assumptions so that they could confront them and actively work to disrupt them in their
interactions. The Rodgers (2002) reflective cycle “rest[s] in its ability first to slow down
teachers’ thinking so they can attend to what is rather than what they wish were so, and then to
shift the weight of that thinking from their own teaching to their students’ learning” (p. 231). For
me to transition from a completely andragogical perspective toward an adaptive leadership lens, I
needed to leverage Rodgers’s definition of the reflective cycle of slowing down by moving
away from my own thinking to my participants experiences. The first phase of this reflective
cycle focuses on being present in the experience, developing the ability to recognize what is
happening, differentiating it, and giving it meaning, as well as responding wisely—in the

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moment and from moment to moment. It takes practice to develop the capacity to “see” the
world, to be aware of all its nuances (Rodgers, 2002). At the start of the study, I struggled to
practice slowing down. However, following self-critical reflection at the end of Cycle 1, I began
to partially enact slowing down and being present throughout the remainder of the study.
Consistent with Rodgers, I believe that there are two qualities that are universally acknowledged
in academic settings: love and passion which are an awareness and imitation of a presence that is
energetic, curious, vigilant, and free of judgments. When I say “love,” I do not mean romantic or
sexual love; alternatively, I mean an open appreciation of others without discrimination and
filled with respect for their talents as my participants, coworkers, and just as humans (Rodgers,
2002). For me, having passion means that I care deeply about both the work I do and the human
achievement of transforming how my participants approach their interactions and decisionmaking.
The second stage of this cycle is learning to describe and differentiate. At this stage,
understanding an experience depends on being able to distinguish between description (which is
what one sees) and interpretation (which is what one gives meaning to). At this point, it is
recommended to present a story while remaining open a variety of perspectives, creating
opportunities to observe my participants’ experiments, constructions, and mistakes (Rodgers,
2002). The third phase of the cycle involves analyzing from many perspectives and providing
explanations. When participants have mastered the skills of describing and differentiating, they
are prepared to proceed to this stage of critical thinking and theory creation. According to Ball
and Lampert (1999), analysis involves formulating several explanations or “conjectures” to
explain assumptions before selecting a theory or hypothesis that the learner is willing to put into
practice in real life situations to make sense of what occurred. According to some scholars, the

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reader, not the text, determines an event’s meaning (Ball & Lampert 1999), which brings us to
the next essential step in the analysis—unpacking assumptions. My intention and plan were for
my participants to unpack their assumptions through critically examining their assumptions and
experiences to recognize and address the systemic silencing of marginalized voices in decisionmaking. The fourth and last step of the Rodgers reflective cycle is experimenting, which involves
learning to take intelligent or smart action. According to Rodgers (2002), this stage serves as
both the previous experience and the risk-taking stage because participants can only reach this
stage after extensive effort in describing and analyzing with a combination of constructive
theory. Dewey claims that as a result, the action is seen as intelligent rather than routine (1938).
My goal, as outlined in my conceptual framework, was to encourage my participants to
advance through three phases of the Rodgers reflective cycle: see (be present), describe and
differentiate, and analyze from multiple perspectives and explanations. Although not represented
in my findings, I believe that these three phases of the reflective cycle enabled my participants to
make progress toward comparative reflection. My participants were able to recognize and
consider their experiences, as per Jay and Johnson’s (1999) comparative reflection known as
“frame experiment” by Schön (1983).
Brookfield (2017) promotes critical reflection, but his theory is not a reflective cycle,
whereas Rodgers (2002) presents a reflective cycle that lacks a critical dimension. Therefore, I
characterized critical reflection as a hybrid of both theories. Combining Brookfield and Rodgers,
I defined critical reflection as the process of deconstructing the fundamental principles and
norms that have been established for behavior, integrating theory and practice together by
challenging oneself to think deeply and outside the box. Kegan (2000) asserts that most
individuals “just have not developed their capacities for expressing and evaluating the

28
fundamental assumptions of their own thinking, nor do they critique the thinking of others in this
manner” (p. 73). I tried to use critical reflection as a strategy during our weekly meetings,
incorporating dialogues to identify and confront hegemonic power structures, as well as both
implicit and explicit assumptions, and explore their implications on my participants. This
strategy was intended to encourage my participants to understand and recognize alternative
viewpoints and ideas as well as to engage in various activities to overthrow established systems
and epistemologies (Brookfield, 2010, 2017) in the critical reflection dialogues. Although we
did not achieve critical reflection, I still believe it is an essential component of adult learning and
thus remains in my conceptual framework.
Critical reflection dialogue, as I believe, is a collaborative process where communities
can evaluate and reflect on the construction and communication of information, events, or
content to foster deeper learning and enhance future interactions. Critical reflection dialogues
according to research are known to encourage work habits like opposing groupthink, expressing
(critical) opinions, being honest about mistakes, soliciting and providing feedback,
experimenting, and doing research (de Groot et al., 2014). We did not achieve critical reflection
dialogue.
I engaged in self-(critical) reflections to assess how well I was supporting my
participants, to confront my assumptions, and to hold myself accountable in our (critical)
reflection dialogues and interactions. I engaged in self-(critical) reflection to examine my
interactions with my participants, evaluate the andragogical strategies I enacted, and challenge
my own assumptions and biases. These self-(critical) reflections helped me to examine my
hegemonic speculations that influenced my action throughout our (critical) reflection dialogues
and interactions (Brookfield, 2017). These (self-critical) reflections were intended to evaluate my

29
ability to objectively observe my participants, our collective efforts, and our goals. Additionally,
they were meant to allow me to assess whether I was effectively applying the adaptive leadership
strategies discussed earlier to support my participants throughout their transformative learning
journey. The goal of my self-(critical) reflections was for me to examine myself and my
participants, reconsider my viewpoint, and hold myself accountable for my positionality and
epistemology in the context of the area where power was being exercised. The type of critical
reflection questions that I used include: How does being a Latina woman seem to be influencing
how I act regarding my participants? Am I being vulnerable with my participants? Furthermore, I
had to not be afraid to bring up the uncomfortable topics by “naming the elephants in the room”
(Heifetz, 2009), that need to be discussed. So, I continued to ask myself: Was I speaking up on
the appropriate issues or topics? Were my issues or topics being discussed in relation to power?
Was I attempting to silence or promote opposition? What connection did this have to my
cisgender identification, and being in the audio-video (AV) industry? What were my participants
perceptions of me being educated, independent, experienced and a representative of a woman
minority and being in this male dominating career? How did my participants perceive my
communication and writing style?
At the start of my study, I grappled with slowing down and being fully present, balancing
the urgency for change with the need to prioritize my participants’ psychological safety and
avoid overwhelming them. I recognize that part of this challenge stemmed from my Caribbean
cultural background, where speaking over someone is not viewed as disrespectful, as it often is
in American culture, but rather as a form of active engagement. I found myself filling the silence
by talking more than my participants. However, through my self-(critical)l reflections and
guidance from my chair, I integrated the Rodgers Reflective Cycle. This helped me to slow

30
down, become more present, and develop a deeper attentiveness to my participants within the
holding environment. This shift allowed me to approach my work with greater mindfulness and
intentionality, strengthening my connection with my participants and enhancing my facilitation
experience. My participants’ openness and willingness to engage also challenged me to
continuously examine my own assumptions and biases, which enriched my understanding of
their experiences and perspectives.
While I acknowledge that I did not fully achieve the stage of critical reflection, this
process reaffirmed my belief that critical reflection is an essential component of personal and
professional growth. It is a vital tool for fostering transformative learning and addressing
complex challenges. Moving forward, I am committed to continuing this self-critical reflective
practice, deepening my understanding, and integrating it into future efforts to create meaningful
and lasting change. These insights will inform my facilitation practices, ensuring that
psychological safety and cultural nuances remain central to my approach. Ultimately, this
experience has strengthened my resolve to amplify marginalized voices and challenge systemic
silencing within organizational structures, contributing to a more equitable and inclusive future.
Research Methods
As described previously, it was a dream come true for me to join the ITS LE department
in October 2019 as a Latina, minority woman, from Central America. Within the first month at
SCU, I was already questioning whether I had made the right choice in leaving the classroom to
work at this prestigious university, as I encountered the reality of White supremacy,
microaggression, and discrimination against women and other marginalized voices in the
workplace. I had no prior knowledge of this behavior outside of what I had learned through the
news or from friends who had some form of experience in a comparable circumstance. Since

31
starting this doctoral program, I have developed a deeper understanding of this nation and its
history. This newfound knowledge motivated me to explore further, enriching my own
experiences and broadening my perspective on those of others.
My motivation to conduct this action research study arose from my resolve to maintain a
positive attitude during challenging workplace experiences. This action research study allowed
me to address some of those historical imbalances, creating a space for critical reflection
dialogues on topics such as race, identity, and inequality, while providing an opportunity for
practical, leadership-based learning (Elmore, 2002), as outlined in my conceptual framework. As
Maxwell (2013) noted, practical goals are focused on accomplishing something—meeting a
need, changing a situation, or achieving an objective. Through this study, I gained a deeper
understanding of my responsibilities in transforming oppressive workplace behavior and
improving workplace relationships by recognizing how to address the systemic silencing of
marginalized voices. My goal was to empower my participants to recognize, address, and
transform the oppressive structures that limited their participation in decision-making. I worked
to implement strategies that fostered awareness and acknowledged the reproduction of
marginalization of voices in decision-making by understanding who I was as a leader and how I
defined my epistemology and positionality.
During my research study I engaged in qualitative action research. It was the best
approach to answer my research question because qualitative research focuses on the why and
how behind human behavior as well as the factors that govern such behavior, extending beyond
the what, where, and when of quantitative analysis (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). According to
Lochmiller and Lester (2017), qualitative research frequently tries to explain social behaviors
like our interaction, observation, understanding, or capacity to make sense of the world in which

32
we live. It also focuses on how the human experience manifests itself in civil society. This is the
reason why I chose it to conduct my research study and to address my action research question:
How do I promote understanding with marginalized colleagues within marginalized communities
in recognizing and addressing systemic silencing of their voices, empowering them to challenge
and transform oppressive structures that limit their voices in decision-making?
For my action research study, I could not just borrow a logical strategy in advance and
then faithfully implement it, as Maxwell (2013) established. The fact that I had to extensively
develop and reconstruct my research design to support my participants served as a major
rationale for my revised conceptual framework in Figure 2. When “designed to improve existing
practice, initiatives, or policies,” qualitative research is “do-it-yourself” rather than “off-theshelf” (Maxwell, 2013, pp. 3, 32). My long-term goal was for transformative learning to
transpire that would foster deep awareness and understanding for my participants. This included
helping them recognize how marginalization was reproduced within marginalized communities
and empowering them to confront the systemic silencing of voices. My intention was to equip
my participants with the tools to challenge and dismantle oppressive structures, inspiring active
engagement in inclusive, participatory decision-making processes. The intention was for this to
amplify marginalized perspectives and contribute to sustainable social change.
Participants and Setting
Through my qualitative action research, I aimed to understand a phenomenon—a
significant experience or concept that individuals interpret and find meaning in within their lived
experiences (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). This approach, central to qualitative research, focuses on
exploring the depth of these interpretations rather than measuring numerical data. I utilized a
purposeful sampling strategy, as recommended by Lochmiller and Lester (2017), to select

33
participants based on the occurrence of the event and a convenient location for data collection,
making it the most effective approach for my study. Purposeful sampling enabled me to obtain
more data by selecting a smaller, intentional sample size that offered rich data about what I was
seeking understand. Other sampling strategies would have made my results more disbursed
(Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). For this reason, my participants were chosen according to established
standards (Lochmiller & Lester, 2017, p. 141). Unfortunately, the senior leadership team in the
ITS LE department, with whom I had worked—four members for 3 years, one for 2 years, and
another for 10 months—was unable to participate in my research study. Although I had
established interpersonal trust with the senior leadership team, unexpected challenges required a
last-minute change in my recruitment process, resulting in a deviation from my original pool of
participants. This shift led me to change my research question away from bringing senior
leadership to understand their role in the reproduction of the marginalization of voices in the
decision-making process of staff from marginalized communities to the question addressed in my
study. Thus, I extended the invitation to the broader SCU community, successfully recruiting two
participants from the ITS organization and one from the SCU Public Safety department. To
protect my participants’ privacy, I used pseudonyms to identify them in the section below.
Unfortunately, by the start of Cycle 2, one participant had to withdraw due to a family
emergency and health challenges, so I focused my data analysis on the remaining two
participants. I am also a participant in my own action research project.
According to Reimer (1977), qualitative researchers should concentrate their research on
known circumstances (as cited in Coughlan, 2019). The setting in which I conducted our sessions
were on Sunday and Thursday evenings over Zoom. I will discuss in more detail my targeted

34
participants, myself, my actions, and the study’s settings within the action research cycles in the
next sections.
Participants
At the start of the study, I identified as a socializing knower, prioritizing others’ needs
and seeking acknowledgment and support. Drawing on Drago-Severson and Blum’s (2017)
DeStefano’s ways of knowing typology, I realized my focus on external validation often limited
my ability to engage critically with my values and beliefs. Over the course of this study, I
developed a deeper awareness that there is no singular "right" way to live, learn, lead, or teach.
I have grown in my capacity to balance my own needs, wants, and desires with a broader
consideration of others' feelings and viewpoints. Reflecting on the beliefs, morals, and values
shaped by my colonial background, I recognized challenges in fostering a brave space. To
address this, I worked to be more intentional in my communication style, ensuring transparency
and vulnerability while maintaining mindfulness of the holding environment. This awareness
offered opportunities to question my assumptions, acknowledge my mistakes, and practice
vulnerability during critical reflection dialogues with participants.
Through this action research study, I critically examined my values, ideas, and beliefs
about social justice and leadership (Drago-Severson & Blum-DeStefano, 2017). While I have
made significant progress toward self-authorship—demonstrating self-reflection, aligning actions
with my core values, and questioning external expectations—I recognize that I have not yet fully
transitioned. According to Drago-Severson and Blum (2017), achieving self-authorship involves
cultivating internal values, critically evaluating external influences, and embracing personal
accountability. I continue to develop in these areas, acknowledging my reliance on external
validation as an ongoing part of my journey.

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Next, I will provide some background knowledge of my participants to set the stage as
recommended by Merriam and Tisdell (2016).
Evan was a Latino, cisgender Catholic male who was not married and in his early 30s. He
was born and resided in Los Angeles, California. Evan was a Community Services Officer I and
Field Training Officer within the SCU Department of Public Safety, which he had been a part of
for 7 years. He was attending California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) as an
undergraduate during this study working towards obtaining his bachelor’s degree in psychology.
He remained in his current role at SCU while continuing his education, with plans to transfer to
SCU to pursue a master’s degree in social work.
Patty worked as a desktop support analyst in the ITS Desktop Support Department during
the timeframe of this research study. She had been employed at SCU ITS for 5 years. Patty was a
cisgender Latina woman in her 30s, married, and the mother of an 8-month-old child. Originally
from Los Angeles, she identifies as Mexican. Patty highly valued a growth mindset and was
continuously seeking opportunities for self-improvement. In August 2024, she earned her
master’s degree in project management from SCU, which led to her promotion to a Project
Analyst role in the ITS Enterprise Project Management Office.
Tanya was a cisgender African American woman in her 30s. During the timeframe of this
research study, she worked as a Customer Support Analyst within the ITS Customer Service
Experience Department with over a decade of experience. Tanya held a bachelor’s degree. Since
the study, she was promoted and became a Support Analyst within the ITS Learning
Environment. Tanya, however, was only able to participate in Cycle 1 of the research due to a
family emergency and health challenges, limiting my ability to assess her ways of knowing
beyond the instrumental stage.

36
Settings of Actions
The study was conducted Sunday afternoons at 3 pm and Thursday evenings at 6 pm over
Zoom, and included Patty, Tanya, Evan, and me. I choose the setting and times based on my
participants’ availability. During the meetings, I attempted to involve my participants in (critical)
reflection dialogues. Since 100% of my participants were marginalized individuals, I believed
that in this setting, they would be free to discuss their positionalities and epistemologies.
However, in Cycle 2, I had to modify the setting to 1:1 sessions to strengthen the holding
environment and build trust and rapport with my participants. Following that cycle, we moved
back to group sessions as originally planned.
Actions
Consistent with my conceptual framework, I understood that promoting understanding
with marginalized colleagues within marginalized communities to recognize and address
systemic silencing of their voices, empowering them to challenge and transform oppressive
structures that limited their voices in decision-making required critical reflection dialogues. To
facilitate these dialogues, I had to practice andragogical moves and adaptive leadership to
cultivate a strong holding environment for my participants. This environment was necessary for
my participants to have mutual trust and vulnerability which was intended to encourage open
expression, risk-taking, and voicing concerns without fear of judgment. Additionally, I sought to
support my participants with their movement through the Rodgers Reflective Cycle by engaging
in forms of assistance. As a result, I created the action research in three phases:
1. Fostering presence, identity and development of a common analytical language
2. Cultivating a stronger holding environment by building trust and rapport
3. REFLECT and normalize our problem of practice

37
As the teacher educator and facilitator, I supported my participants by cultivating a
holding environment to build trust and rapport to help my marginalized colleagues within
marginalized communities to recognize and address systemic silencing of their voices,
empowering them to challenge and transform oppressive structures that limit their voices in
decision-making through engaging in the Rodgers Reflective Cycle activities and enacting forms
of assistance. Table 1 outlines the interactions I had with my participants and the data I collected
for each cycle of the study.
Table 1
Teacher Educator-Leadership Actions Before Study and Cycle 1
Cycle 1: Fostering presence, identity and development of a common analytical language.
Action researcher Teacher educator Setting Data collected
Cycle 1:
Session 1
Communicate the
purpose and
objective of the
study, the
learner’s role in
the study.
Explain the
study’s
organizational
framework.
Discussion
ground rules,
dialogue norms,
and agreements.
Watch Diversity
Video
Development of
Common
Analytical
Language
Zoom
Session
1 agenda
1 slide deck
1 jotting
1 field note
1 recording
&
transcript

38
Action researcher Teacher educator Setting Data collected
Cycle 1:
Session 2
My participants
will begin to
practice being
present “see” per
Rodgers (2002)
My participants
revisited
ground rules,
dialogue norms,
and agreements.
Continue to
develop
Analytical
Language
Be Present “See”
(Rogers, 2002).
I Am From
(Klein, 2019)
Define & Explain:
Diversity
Marginalization
Positionality
Zoom
Session
1 agenda
1 slide deck
1 jotting
1 field note
1 recording
&
transcript
Cycle 1:
Session 3
My participants
engaged in
critical reflection
dialogue around
their individual “I
am” storytelling
and being present
in the experience,
developing the
ability to
recognize what is
happening,
differentiating it,
and giving it
meaning, as well
as responding
wisely to
questions.
Rodgers (2002)
Structured
Routine
5 minutes
Meditation
Mood Check
Be Present “See”
(Rogers, 2002).
I Am/I Am From
(Tatum, 2003;
Klein, 2019)
Zoom
Session
1 agenda
1 slide deck
1 jotting
1 field note
1 recording
&
transcript
“I am…”
Worksheet
Out of Field Analysis and Critical Reflection: Using self-critical
reflection to understand my participants, I got on the balcony to better
understand team dynamics, any beneficial disorientations, and the
progress of the cycle to figure out my next course of action. Was my
initial vulnerability modeling useful? Does the “I AM” activity
effectively allow all students to participate? Have I cultivated a strong
holding environment and a brave space? Are emotional reactions helpful
or destructive? What power imbalances are visible? Are we effective
utilizing phase one of the Rodgers’s (2002) reflective cycle to be present
and “see”? Do I see conflicting narratives? How does my positionality
1 critical
reflection
1 analytical
memo

39
Action researcher Teacher educator Setting Data collected
and epistemology impact my interactions with my participants? Did I
present myself and the research goals to my participants clearly?
Table 2
Teacher Educator-Leadership Actions Before Study and Cycle 2
Cycle 2: Cultivating a stronger holding environment by building trust and rapport
Action researcher Teacher educator Setting Data collected
Cycle 2:
Session 1
My participants
will begin to
practice describe
and differentiate
per Rodgers
(2002) and asking
questions.
Structured
Routine
5 minutes
Meditation
Mood Check
Description of
experience
(Rogers, 2002)
conversational
routine.
Questions
initially posed
using
Brookfield’s
(2019)
Chalk Talk
Zoom
Session
1 slide deck
1 jotting
1 field note
1 recording &
transcript
Cycle 2:
Session 2
My participants
will engage in
critical reflection
dialogue around
an “experience”
brought by
themselves or a
colleague
(Rodgers, 2002).
1:1 sessions
to build trust
and rapport
Patty
Structured
Routine
5 minutes
Meditation
Mood Check
Description of
experience
“A Sunday on
La Grande Jatte”
(Seurat,1884)
Zoom
Session
1 slide deck
1 jotting
1 field note
1 recording &
transcript

40
Action researcher Teacher educator Setting Data collected
Evan Reflection-onaction (Rogers,
2002)
Out of Field Analysis and Critical Reflection: Through informal analysis
of these next cycle two, I should be better able to evaluate my
participants ZPDs (Tharp & Gallimore, 1989) and place them along the
Drago-Severson and Blum-DeStefano (2017) typology. I will stay on the
balcony to fully understand team dynamics, any helpful result of the
process, and the development of the study to determine my next action to
take. Was my original vulnerability modeling useful? Did the describe
activity effectively allow participation from all participates? Do I have a
brave space and healthy holding environment? Are emotional reactions
helpful or destructive? What power relations are present? Is the describe
and differentiate phase as per Rodgers (2002) reflective cycle being well
implemented? How can I guide my participants away from concepts that
support discriminatory practices or White supremacy? Can I hear the
voices of those who disagree? Are my participants describing and
differentiating? What is the discourse’s level of quality considering
Mezirow (2000)? What effect does my positionality have on the way I
engage with my participants? Did the strategies I employ advance the
growth of foster critical reflection and including marginalized voices in
decision-making with priority and high expectations?
1 critical
reflection
1 analytical
memo
Table 3
Teacher Educator-Leadership Actions Before Study and Cycle 3
Cycle 3: REFLECT and normal our problem of practice
Action researcher Teacher leader Setting Data collected
Cycle 3:
Session 1
My participants
will engage in
(critical) reflection
dialogue around a
“moment” brought
by themselves and
share using the
“REFLECT” tool
(Lawrence-Wilkes,
2014)
Structured
Routine
5 minutes
Meditation
Mood Check
.
“REFLECT”
Critical Reflection
Dialogue
Zoom
Session
1 slide deck
1 jotting
1 field note
1 recording &
transcript
“REFLECT”
tool

41
(Rogers, 2002)
questions initially
posed by
(Lawrence-Wilkes,
2014)
Cycle 3:
Session 2
My participants
will engage in a
critical reflection
on action process
My participants
will reflect on any
changes in their
perspective
Structured
Routine
5 minutes
Meditation
Mood Check
Activity: Group
reflection Analyze
from multiple
perspectives and
explanations
(Rogers, 2002)
Zoom
Session
1 slide deck
1 jotting
1 field note
1 recording &
transcript
Out of Field Analysis and Critical reflection: How have my participants selfassessed their growth? Do they appear to have demonstrated growth on
Drago-Severson and Blum-DeStefano’s (2017) typology? Did I successfully
create intentional constructive disorientations through my understanding of
the Rodgers Reflective Cycle? Did I create a stronger holding environment?
Were emotional responses paralyzing or productive? Mezirow (2000), what
is the quality of the discourse? How did my positionality impact my
interactions with my participants? Did the strategies I use promote progress
towards the development of asset-based mindsets and high expectations? Are
my participants analyzing from multiple perspectives?
1 critical
reflection
1 analytical
memo
Data Collection
Data collection in research involves systematically gathering information through
methods like interviews and observations to answer research questions while ensuring ethical
standards and capturing participants’ experiences (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). As outlined in my
conceptual framework, the action research study was designed to evaluate both the actions of my
participants and my level of involvement with them. I collected data from observations during
our weekly Zoom meetings, informal conversations with participants, artifacts produced in

42
meetings, and self-critical reflections. I took notes (jotting in a notebook) throughout our
meetings and recorded them for later use as a reference. Observational data was gathered to
assess the effectiveness of my efforts to help my participants to recognize and address systemic
silencing of their voices, empowering them to challenge and transform oppressive structures that
limit their voices in decision-making. Additionally, I solicited feedback from my dissertation
chair to identify any undetected underlying assumptions. My data collection consisted of eight
Zoom recordings, five meeting field notes, seven critical reflections, six analytic memos, and a
Google Slide deck. While I intended for my reflections to be critical, they ended up being more
descriptive, which I will explain further in my findings. These sources together formed the
evidence I used to assess my development as a leader.
Documents and Artifacts
I utilized a variety of documents and artifacts to collect my data, including both preexisting materials and ones I created, such as a Google Slide deck. The Google Slide Deck
guided our Zoom sessions by outlining the learning goals, study purpose, and structured
activities. I also shared my “I AM” statement to model vulnerability and positionality, and the
REFLECT tool to support my participants in critical reflection dialogue.
Observations
As the primary research instrument for my study, I conducted insider action research,
meaning I was both a participant in my Zoom sessions and an observer of the interactions taking
place (Herr & Anderson, 2015). Observations occurred during our Thursday and Sunday evening
meetings, with a total of eight sessions, each lasting 60 minutes. During these observations, I
took jottings in a notebook, which I later expanded into detailed field notes and (critical) selfreflections.

43
Jottings. Jotting is a quick method for capturing key observations and thoughts during or
after an event, forming the basis for detailed field notes and deeper analysis (Coghlan, 2019).
During each session, I used a spiral notebook to jot down observations, including details about
the setting, time, verbatim language, body language, tone, non-verbal cues, specific events or
activities involving participants, and my own behavior (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007). These jottings
helped me recall details accurately when creating comprehensive field notes
Fieldnotes. Field notes are written records of observations, interactions, and reflections
during fieldwork, serving as a foundation for analysis and interpretation (Merriam & Tisdell,
2016). After each session, I used my jottings to create detailed field notes. I also referred to the
Zoom transcript to ensure I accurately captured my participants’ actions and words. My
fieldnotes included components such as the setting, participants, activities, interactions
(including non-verbal cues), discussions, and my own actions, reflections, interaction, and
insights (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). It was challenging to balance my roles as both teacher
educator and note-taker, as a novice researcher, while trying to remain fully present and engaged
with my participants. The jottings, field notes, and Zoom transcripts were essential for reviewing
our sessions and provided a foundation for critical self-reflection and post-session analysis.
Critical Reflection. As stated in my conceptual framework, I defined critical reflection
as the process of deconstructing the fundamental principles and norms governing behavior,
integrating theory and practice by challenging oneself to think deeply and outside the box.
Drawing on Brookfield (2017), critical reflection involves questioning unexamined assumptions,
exploring multiple perspectives, and recognizing personal biases. It requires creating a
supportive environment to examine ideas, actions, and power dynamics, fostering self-awareness
and social responsibility.

44
My self-(critical) reflections allowed me to question my assumptions, biases and
perspectives, and to examine how the power I held influenced my work with participants. I
reflected on questions such as: How did I validate and utilize my participants experiences during
the session? What andragogical moves did I need to enact to facilitate learning? I (critically)
reflected after each session to inform my subsequent actions and ensure I centered my
participants’ progress. Examining my role in helping my participants recognize and address the
systemic silencing of their voices, while also empowering them to challenge and transform
oppressive structures, was more challenging than I anticipated. To support this process, I wrote
or recorded six (critical) reflections, one at the end of each session.
Data Analysis
Data analysis is the process of organizing and interpreting collected data to identify
patterns and themes that help answer research questions (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
Additionally, Bogdan and Biklen (2007) define it as an ongoing process where researchers
identify meaningful categories and connections to develop a deeper understanding of the topic.
Data analysis occurred throughout my study and continued after I finished data
collection. The study lasted 8 weeks, which were divided into three cycles. In cycle 1, we had
three sessions with a day off at the end of the cycle. For example, we met on Thursday, Sunday,
and Thursday again, with the following Sunday being the day off. On days off, I reflected on my
actions and analyzed them to prepare for the next cycle. I also met with my chair for debriefing
and wrote analytic memos to capture detailed observations and recommendations. According to
Bogdan and Biklen (2007), analytic memos are written records that capture researchers’
thoughts, interpretations, and reflections during the analysis process. These memos helped me
identify patterns, organize ideas, and track the development of insights. For example, after Cycle

45
1, I realized that I had not adequately addressed the psychological safety of my participants and
needed to be more focused on this aspect moving forward.
Data analysis also guided my actions during the study and helped me begin the coding
process. After data collection, I conducted a more intensive analysis that involved cycles of
coding, planning, acting, observing, and reflecting (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). With support
from my chair, I created a codebook to assist with this process. Initially, I found this challenging,
especially as a novice researcher, but after several meetings with my chair, I was able to
understand the process and begin grouping codes. I utilized both a priori codes, such as
andragogical moves, holding environment, and marginalization, as well as emergent (in vivo)
codes, including emotional safety and vulnerability (Ravitch & Carl, 2021).
For example, when coding, I recognized a priori codes related to the concepts of “holding
environment” and “psychological safety.” This connection led me to incorporate these ideas into
my framework, where I see them as essential for creating a space where participants can tackle
difficult issues while feeling safe enough to engage in critical reflection (Northouse, 2019).
Additionally, my codebook helped me track emerging themes and make informed decisions
about my actions. Weekly meetings with my chair reminded me to approach the data inductively,
allowing it to guide my analysis. Although I struggled initially, my experience with analytical
tools improved through continuous meetings and support from my chair.
Limitations and Delimitations
Limitations in research design include things that I, as the researcher, cannot control,
such as my participant getting ill and missing a meeting. Delimitations, such as the decisions I
made to consciously restrict the breadth of my study, however, also contributed to the narrowing
of research. For instance, by choosing to base my research on certain theories, I left out many

46
more that might have been relevant for discussions to foster critical reflection with my
participants to combat marginalized voices in decision-making.
Limitations
One limitation of the study was that the ITS LE Leadership team could not participate
due to an ongoing human resources investigation. This unexpected development led to changes
in my research question and then a shift in the recruitment process and participant population,
causing delays. However, after consulting with my chair, I extended the invitation to the broader
SCU community and successfully recruited three participants (two from the ITS organization and
one from the Department of Public Safety). Unfortunately, one participant withdrew after the
first cycle due to a family emergency and health challenges. I am not entirely certain whether my
participants who remained in the study were fully honest in their responses or if they feared
potential consequences for being completely transparent. I also had to consider how my
positionality, as both the researcher and a teacher educator, may have influenced their responses.
Additionally, I could not control the fact that I was a novice researcher, as well as a novice in
applying andragogical moves, adaptive leadership, and the Rodgers’s reflective cycle.
Delimitations
Being a novice researcher was a primary delimitation in my study. My inexperience
influenced some decisions that impacted the progress with my participants. For example, in
Cycle 1, I was so focused on completing the study and its content that I did not prioritize
cultivating a strong holding environment or ensuring the psychological safety of my participants.
This oversight affected the dynamics of the critical reflection dialogues, limiting my ability to
engage more deeply with my participants’ contributions. My limited experience also made it

47
difficult to observe my own decisions and actions in real time, which affected the quality of the
(critical) reflection dialogue I could foster.
Another delimitation arose from changes in my participant recruitment process. The shift,
which resulted in recruiting participants from a broader pool, affected my ability to support my
participants and critically examine my own practices. Additionally, I chose to conduct sessions
twice a week for 60 minutes over 2 months. This time frame and frequency restricted the depth
and potential of our critical reflection dialogues, limiting what we could achieve in the available
time.
My choice of participants also created a delimitation. I believed that the participants I
selected contributed meaningfully to the research study, but there may have been others who
would have been more engaged or better suited to the research process, which could have
enhanced the study’s outcomes for my recruitment process was not altered.
Overall, these delimitations shaped what I was able to accomplish and learn from the
study, influencing both my process and my findings.
Credibility and Trustworthiness
To enhance the credibility of my study, I employed triangulation, prolonged fieldwork,
rich data collection, and self-reflection to mitigate biases and accurately represent participants’
experiences. Regular feedback from my chair further validated the research process (Merriam &
Tisdell, 2016). I acknowledged that my biases about the topic, setting, and participants could
influence how I interpreted findings, potentially aligning data with my expectations (Salkind,
2017). While a larger sample size could increase generalizability, I prioritized preserving the
richness of the narrative. I was transparent about how my design choices, shaped by biases,
affected the authenticity of my findings. To address these limitations, I engaged in thorough

48
triangulation, prolonged fieldwork, and collecting rich data, which included copious field notes,
verbatim transcripts, and mechanical recordings. To discipline my subjectivity, I practiced self-
(critical) reflection and embraced researcher reflexivity, as recommended by Merriam and
Tisdell (2017). My self-(critical) reflections helped me understand how my attitudes and views
influenced the findings, enhancing the credibility of my research. These reflections, along with
my data analysis after each cycle, allowed me to consider my insider knowledge, which I
balanced with an acknowledgment that I did not know everything and that I needed to challenge
what I did know (Coughlan, 2009). I also participated in weekly meetings with my chair, Dr.
Slayton, to gain further input and support in triangulating my data. By working with my chair, I
believed I could uncover any underlying assumptions, power dynamics, or instructional practices
that might not align with the needs of adult my participants. Finally, I referred to research and
evidence-based strategies to support or challenge my andragogical and adaptive leadership
decisions.
Ethics
As a novice qualitative researcher, I focused on meaning and understanding to answer my
research questions (Merriam, 2009). To have been able to do this, it was important for me to
have made some ethical choices while conducting this research study because my data collection
entailed conversations. Informed consent forms were provided to all my participants at the
commencement of the study. According to Glesne (2011), informed consent was necessary to
ensure my participants were aware that their participation was voluntary, all the discussions
would be kept confidential, and they could withdraw at any point without penalty.
To ensure the safety of my participants, I submitted my study to the University of
Southern California Institutional Review Board (IRB) and followed their rules and guidelines

49
regarding the protection of the rights and welfare of my participants in the study. All my
participants signed consent forms, and I reminded them that the study was voluntary, and their
identity would be kept confidential. Due to the legal status of my participants, confidentiality
was extremely important for my study, and I respected my participants’ wishes if at any time
they decided to withdraw from the study.
Prior to the critical reflection dialogues, I requested permission from my participants to
video and audio record each session and offered to provide them with a copy if they wished, so
they could verify that I had not altered their words. I reminded my participants that I would not
provide any incentives so as not to coerce them, however at the conclusion of the study, I sent
them a thank-you card with a small monetary gift card as a token of my appreciation for
participating in the study. This lack of incentive minimized the possibility that my participants
would feel coerced to participate, while a thank-you gift that they would not anticipate when
agreeing to participate served to thank my participants for their time and for sharing their
experiences.
I also ensured that participants had the opportunity to ask any questions regarding the
study and that they understood their role and the expectations before they agreed to participate. I
made it clear that they could ask for clarification at any point during the research process and
that their decision to participate or withdraw would have no impact on their relationship with me
or the institution.
Findings
In my conceptual framework, I contend that a strong holding environment is essential for
enabling people to engage in discourse that may generate distress, as Heifetz et al. (2009) have
identified. This kind of environment is rooted in the intertwined principles of mutual trust and

50
vulnerability. A strong holding environment has clear expectations as to how individuals openly
express themselves, voice their concerns, and take risks without fear of retribution or judgment,
showcasing the mutual trust that exists between them. This creates an atmosphere that is both
open and supportive.
As I have argued, vulnerability and mutual trust are intertwined and linked. Echoing
Brown (2017), vulnerability is described as the courageous act of fully embracing one’s
authentic self, which involves taking risks, facing uncertainties, and being emotionally exposed.
Within the nurturing confines of a strong holding environment, trust acts as the catalyst, fostering
a sense of safety that encourages individuals to demonstrate vulnerability by openly embracing
and publicly sharing their true selves. Consequently, mutual trust and vulnerability strengthens
the ties that bind us together (Heifetz et al., 2009).
Over an 8-week period, I facilitated a series of activities to transform the holding
environment from one characterized by minimal trust and vulnerability to moderate mutual trust
and vulnerability. Recognizing the need for a strong holding environment, I focused on raising
the temperature of our conversations and engaging my participants in critically reflective
dialogue. This was intended to help them recognize and actively address instances of systemic
silencing of marginalized voices in decision-making processes, and to empower them to
challenge and overturn oppressive structures that restricted their involvement in the workplace.
Therefore, fostering a stronger holding environment was essential to create a climate where my
participants could openly express themselves, voice their concerns, and take risks without fear of
retribution or judgment, thereby enhancing mutual trust and vulnerability.
Initially, our interactions were characterized as mutual distancing (Heifetz et al., 2009).
Mutual distancing refers to the process by which leaders and followers create psychological

51
distance between themselves to handle the pressures and realities of confronting challenging
issues. However, through deliberate and structured activities, we began moving towards each
other, breaking down these barriers and fostering a holding environment of moderate trust and
vulnerability. One of the activities involved establishing ground rules, dialogue norms, and
agreements. Aligned with my conceptual framework, these ground rules, dialogue norms, and
agreements were used as a foundational step, as advocated by Aaro and Clemens (2013), to
increase mutual trust and vulnerability for my participants to freely express themselves, voice
concerns, and take risks without fear of retribution or judgment.
The initial session of the first cycle was conducted via Zoom with three participants. I
shared my screen with the group members and spent the first 15 minutes of the meeting
presenting a Google slide deck that included my research question, the study’s purpose, and the
IRB information sheet. Following that, I shifted our focus to a slide outlining the ground rules,
dialogue norms, and agreements. This slide also provided a link to a separate Google doc, which
detailed two non-negotiable ground rules, dialogue norms, and agreements, as well as two
negotiable ones. I started the discussion by explaining the process of how we would manage the
holding environment with the ground rules, dialogue norms, and agreements. The excerpt below
illustrates how I initiated the study with the goal of increasing mutual trust and vulnerability.
A: All right, so of course in this community we will have our ground rules, dialogue
norms, and agreements. And so, at this point, we will actually go through them
together. For this section, we have two non-negotiables. I want to make the screen
bigger so everyone can see this screen. [enlarges screen] There we go. Could you
guys see it clearly? Is that okay?

52
P: Yes, it’s fine. (Patty nods her head up and down while speaking) Evan and Tanya
have their cameras off.
A: Okay. All right, so we have two non-negotiable. Controversy with civility
basically, what this means is according to Astin and Astin in the 1996 is a value
whereby different views are expected and honored with a group agreement
committed to understand the source of this agreement and to work together in
other words towards common solutions, right? So, controversy with civility is
place as a non-negotiable because as a team working together, we have to respect
each other because of the topic or the purpose of this study is for us to be able to
learn, right? How to do this and by using the famous phrase that we could agree to
disagree.
P: Mmhmm.
A: Does anyone have an example or does anyone want further explanation around
this? Is it clear? Are you good with it?
P: You’re good.
E: Good. (camera off)
T: That’s clear. (camera off)
A: Awesome. Thank you. And then the second non-negotiable, own your intention
and your impact. So, there is an old proverb that I like to use. And it says the road
to hell is paved with good intentions. Meaning that while intentions might be
good intentions, your impact might be very bad or still bad on the other end. So
back to the first rule, right? Controversy with civility, just being more cautious
and mindful, which is a space that we’re trying to cultivate a safe holding

53
environment where we can be open and vulnerable and able to freely speak. As
you know, it’s all confidential within our group.
A: What is said here stays here between us. Okay. Any question on owning your
intention and your impact. We’re good. Okay, and then we have two negotiable
ground rules, and I feel like these two ground rules are very important for us to
discuss and for you as a team, us as a group to define what this looks like, cause
in every culture, every department, everywhere we go, respect and no attacks are
looked at differently. But this is our environment. This is our space that we will
be in. So, we want to ensure that we’re clear on what respect looks like and no
attacks. So, let’s start. Let’s start with respect and feel free and I will make notes.
If you just want to throw out some ideas and then we could all just put it together.
And yeah, we go from there. I’ll give you a few minutes to think about it if you
would like. And you could drop it in the chat if you want. So, give you a few
minutes to think about them. And we go from there. Feel free to mute and if you
like you can turn off your camera if it makes you focus better, that’s okay.
E: I have one right off the bat. I think, just allowing, uninterrupted time to speak,
especially in the Zoom Meeting. I know that’s one thing that a lot of people
sometimes have trouble with is they get so passionate about what they’re hearing,
and they want to rebuttal before the other person has even stopped speaking but
just allowing them to finish without trying to step on top of their time to speak.
It’s a good example of respect.
A: Okay, thank you. Anyone else would like to share. Remember you could drop it
in the chat if that’s better for you.

54
P: Sorry, I can’t think of anything at the moment.
A: And that’s okay. You could bring it along at the next class or you could actually
send it to me. We’re just brainstorming. I could put it all together, you know, if
you think of anything. And we could, yeah, finalize it in another.
T: Kind of stumped, but the only thing I was really but came to me is just listening.
You know, fully and taking in what everyone says.
A: Thank you. It’s a good one. Thank you. I am, I will add a few to it. And see what
you guys think about it and then we could remove whatever we could finalize it at
a later time. Good.
A: How about no attack? How would you guys define no attack and for us to avoid
during these sessions. And I could give you a little bit more around attack. It
would be for us to be able to cultivate this brave space that we’re trying to
cultivate where people can freely speak. We want to make sure that we are
respecting their opinion and their experience, right? Their thoughts, their actions.
So, Webster Dictionary defines attack as to assail with unfriendly or bitter words.
And so that is an example, right? That we would like to avoid. And then, if we go
to the literature Aero and Clemens, 2013 defines attack as a form of extreme
disrespect, a view we agree with and connect directly to, how our rejection of any
form of violence. So basically, just the way how we interpret, and I think two of
the previous respect that have been placed here kind of aligns with that right
because if we are able to allow you the space, allow you the time to complete
your thought, your conversation, your contribution to the discussion, and we’re all
listening fully and being present and listening to hear and not listening to respond.

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It would helpful when we’re ready to share out, “No attack". What do you guys
think about that?
P: In terms of no attack, what comes to my mind is just pretty much respecting your
peers’ ideas. I don’t have anything else.
A: Good, that’s very good. That’s a good way to summarize it. Okay. I’ll come up
with some and you all can just bring some ideas, you know, if you’re sitting and
think that would be good, bring it, I think this would be good, bring it and we
could discuss it and go through it later. Is that okay?
E: But it’s more just along the lines of having a consensus that we’re not, we may
not agree on everything. Well, I do have one little thing for attack. I don’t know
how you guys feel about it. But even though we may not agree on a certain topic
or a certain shared idea. As long as it’s not dangerous or and that’s very can be
subjected, but as long as it’s not something like a call to arms to harm anybody or
physically harm anybody. We can agree to disagree. So, for an example would be,
I wouldn’t imagine that anybody would, but say, you know, we need to physically
abuse any particular group. That would not be acceptable. But if we have
somebody just sharing their viewpoint on a certain topic. Again, we can just agree
to disagree.
A: Got it. How do you ladies feel about that?
P: I like that idea.
T: That’s a good idea.
Implied in my words when I started the session, “so of course in this community, we will have
our ground rules or dialogue norms and agreements” (emphasis added), was my assumption that

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it would be obvious to all of us (“of course”) that “in this community,” the four of us, we would
interact based on established “ground rules, norms, and agreements,” tools that would bound our
interactions in ways that would provide certainty to each other. My language, “we will have our
ground rules, norms, and agreements” telegraphed that we would be able to trust each other to
engage in ways that were productive and avoid words or actions that would do harm. We would
reduce the likelihood that we would judge each other or engage in any form of punishment
(retribution) for what we exposed of ourselves to each other. When I said, “And so, at this point,
we will actually go through them together,” I was explaining how we would engage with each
other on the specific ground rules, norms, and agreements that would determine our interactions
as a group. My words, “For this section, we have two non-negotiables,” indicated that, although
we were going to “go through them together,” my participants were going to have no choice but
to adopt two specific ground rules for our interactions. The non-negotiables-imposed certainty
and conditions intended to make it safe for them to share. In this statement, “could you guys see
it clearly? Is that okay?” I was extending an invitation for my participants to contribute without
fear of retribution or judgment.
Patty’s statement, “Yes, it’s fine,” her action of nodding her head up and down, and the
fact that she had her camera on, unlike the other two participants who were silent, demonstrated
that she had a level of trust that I would not diminish or dismiss her. On the other hand, Evan and
Tanya showed mutual distancing by having their cameras off and by remaining silent in response
to my invitation. When I said, “Okay. All right, so we have two non-negotiables. Controversy
with civility…is a value whereby different views are expected and honored with a group
agreement committed to understand the source of this agreement,” I was directing their attention
to my expectation that we would welcome each other’s perspectives (civility), including when

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we differed from each other (controversy), and we would seek to understand why (“the source”)
we disagreed. My statement that we would “work together…towards common solutions” offered
them the opportunity to see that they would not be judged because of their differences and
instead, that we would seek common understanding. By pointing to the expectation that “we
have to respect each other,” I was indicating that they should feel safe expressing themselves
without fear of retribution or judgment from me or each other.
Patty’s response, “Mmhmm” indicated some level of acceptance of my request that we
establish expectations that would promote trust in the group. The statement “Does anyone have
an example or does anyone need further explanation on this?” invited my participants to express
their understanding of the agreement, and in doing so, their level of trust in the group. This was
followed by “Is it clear?” a direct question inviting their current level of understanding and
comfort with the information. My question “Are you good with it?” created the opportunity for
my participants to demonstrate their level of trust in me and each other by sharing how they were
making sense of this first non-negotiable. Patty’s response of “You’re good,” Evan’s “Good,”
and Tanya’s “It’s clear” all demonstrated a fundamental level of trust. They felt comfortable
enough to express themselves when I asked, “Are you good with it?” Notably, two of the three
responded with their cameras off, yet they were more engaged than when they chose not to
respond at all. This slight shift indicated an increase in their willingness to communicate and a
reduction in their distancing behavior.
By saying, “Awesome,” I conveyed that I was not judging the adequacy of their
responses and instead, that they were sufficient. Following up with “thank you” expressed my
appreciation and that I valued their contributions. When I said, “And then the second nonnegotiable, own your intention and your impact,” I communicated that I was inviting them to

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discuss the second non-negotiable and its implications for the way we worked together. When I
said,
So, there is an old proverb that I like to use. And it says the road to hell is paved with
good intentions. Meaning that while intentions might be good intentions, your impact
might be very bad or still bad on the other end,
I was offering the risks associated with voicing concerns without considering the consequences
of our language and actions on those on the receiving end of our concerns. Implied in what I said
was the balance I wanted us to strike between freely expressing ourselves and trusting that we
would not inadvertently harm each other in the process. I continued with,
So back to the first rule, right? Controversy with civility, just being more cautious and
mindful, which is a space that we’re trying to cultivate a brave holding environment
where we can be open and vulnerable and able to freely speak.
Here I emphasized that we should be civil, respectful of each other’s contributions, and more
cautious and mindful to generate trust amongst the group. When I said, “As you know, it’s all
confidential within our group. What is said here stays here between us,” I was reinforcing that
this was a place where we could speak openly, voice our concerns, and take risks without fear of
retribution or judgment because what we said would not be shared beyond the confines of the
group. I continued with,
Okay, and then we have two negotiable ground rules, and I feel like these two ground
rules are very important for us to discuss and for you as a team, us as a group to define
what this looks like, cause in every culture, every department, everywhere we go, respect
and no attacks are looked at differently,

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inviting them to trust me and the other participants within the holding environment, assuring
them that we would listen to each other without judgment on how they define these ideas.
Additionally, the statement that there were differences in culture highlighted that we needed to
clarify within the group the definition of respect and no attacks, as they might not be universal.
By saying, “Let’s start with respect and feel free and I will make notes. If you just want
to throw out some ideas and then we could all just put it together” I was inviting them to express
their thinking (“feel free”) and that I would listen, not judge, and that they could trust me. Evan’s
rapid response of,
I have one right off the bat. I think, just allowing, uninterrupted time to speak, especially
in the Zoom Meeting. I know that’s one thing that a lot of people sometimes have trouble
with is they get so passionate about what they’re hearing, and they want to rebuttal before
the other person has even stopped speaking but just allowing them to finish without
trying to step on top of their time to speak. It’s a good example of respect,
was signaling a level of trust by demonstrating that he was not afraid to join the conversation. He
openly expressed himself with “I have one right off the bat. I think, just allowing, uninterrupted
time to speak, especially in the Zoom Meeting.” He continued with “I know that’s one thing that
a lot of people sometimes have trouble with is they get so passionate about what they’re hearing,
and they want to rebuttal,” voicing a concern that was not a personal experience demonstrating
some mutual distancing. Evan’s immediate response and sharing his concerns was him taking a
risk without fear of retribution or judgment within the holding environment. I responded with,
“Okay, thank you,” reiterating that I accepted Evan’s response without judgement and
appreciation for his openness to express himself and voice his concerns. I continued, “Anyone
else would like to share. Feel free to drop it in the chat if that’s easier for you,” inviting others to

60
share. Offering the chat as an alternative channel allowed my participants to engage without
drawing attention to themselves, giving them the freedom to decide how they would like to
participate and fostering a sense of safety.
With that invitation, Patty responded, “Sorry, I can’t think of anything at the moment.”
Her verbal response showed that she felt safe enough to indicate she did not have a contribution.
Her use of “sorry” implied she did not want to be judged by the group for not having a
contribution to make. I continued, “And that’s okay. You could bring it along at the next class or
you could actually send it to me. We’re just brainstorming,” reinforcing that there I was not
going to judge her or them, and I would continue to invite them to trust me by offering
alternative ways of sharing their perspectives. I was reiterating that this was a place where we
could speak openly, voice our concerns, and take risks without fear of retribution or judgment.
Then Tanya responded, “Kind of stumped, but the only thing I was really … but what came to
me is just listening. You know, fully and taking in what everyone says.” Being “kind of
stumped” indicated that even in her uncertainty she was still open to express and voice her
concern. When she said, “but what came to me is just listening. You know, fully and taking in
what everyone says.” Tanya indicated that she was stepping more into the holding environment
and being vulnerable by sharing her input. This is the first time that Tanya had contributed to
detail, exhibiting an increase in trust with the group. I continued with, “Thank you. It’s a good
one” expressing that I was not judging her contribution.
Transitioning to “how about no attack?”, I was inviting my participants to now define
and clarify their definition of no attack. To prepare them, I gave a definition of attack as an
example of what we wanted to avoid within the holding environment. I continued with,

61
So basically, just the way how we interpret, and I think two of the previous respect that
have been placed here kind of aligns with that right because if we are able to allow you
the space, allow you the time to complete your thought, your conversation, your
contribution to the discussion, and we’re all listening fully and being present, and
listening to hear and not listening to respond,
restating what was previously discussed for respect. By doing this, I invited them to have trust in
me and each other within the holding environment because I was using their contributions to
develop the ground rules, dialogue norms, and agreements. I was paraphrasing Evan’s
contribution by saying, “if we are able to allow you the space, allow you the time to complete
your thought, your conversation, your contribution to the discussion.” Paraphrasing Tanya, I
shared “we’re all listening fully and being present and listening to hear and not listening to
respond,” demonstrating that I was promoting trust by listening to the group and supporting their
ability to openly express themselves, voice concerns, and take risks without fear of retribution or
judgment. I followed up with, “What do you guys think about that?” as an open-ended question,
inviting feedback and opinions from the group. I was promoting both an open and supportive
atmosphere thus, increasing trust. Patty, the most active participant so far, quickly responded, “In
terms of no attack, what comes to my mind is just pretty much respecting your peers’ ideas.” Her
statement of “respecting your peers’ ideas” reinforced that our holding environment should allow
them to openly express themselves, voice their concerns, and take risks without fear of
retribution or judgments. Continuing with “I don’t have anything else,” Patty’s response
indicated that she did not feel inhibited in her ability to share her thoughts, concerns, and ideas
with the group. Acknowledging her statement, I said, “Good, that’s very good. That’s a good
way to summarize it,” validating her interpretation and contribution to the discussion as valuable.

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I proceeded with “…we could discuss it and go through it later,” promoting collaboration by
suggesting working together and inviting feedback. The use of “we could” and “later” conveyed
flexibility, indicating a willingness to accommodate different timeframes and possibly to gather
more information or prepare better for the discussion. I wanted them to trust that I was their
partner, ensuring they could have confidence in me to respect everyone’s voice and allow them
to revisit previous topics during our meeting times. Adding “Is that okay?”, I was seeking
consent and ensuring that the flow of the conversation was acceptable to everyone. This showed
respect for others’ opinions and schedules, demonstrating a proactive approach to increasing
trust. Evan responded with,
But it’s more just along the lines of having a consensus that we’re not, we may not agree
on everything. Well, I do have one little thing for attack. I don’t know how you guys feel
about it. But even though we may not agree on a certain topic or a certain shared idea as
long as it’s not dangerous or and that’s very can be subjective, but as long as it’s not
something like a call to arms to harm anybody or physically harm anybody. We can agree
to disagree. So, for an example would be, I wouldn’t imagine that anybody would, but
say, you know, we need to physically abuse any particular group that would not be
acceptable. But if we have somebody just sharing their viewpoint on a certain topic again,
we can just agree to disagree.
Evan acknowledged that consensus didn’t imply common agreement, stating, “But it’s more just
along the lines of having a consensus that we’re not, we may not agree on everything.” His use
of “but” indicated a level of confidence that he could offer a thought or perspective that
contradicted others’ opinions. His continuation that he had “one little thing for attack” and that
he didn’t “know how you guys feel about it...” suggested he was cautiously pushing on the

63
quality of trust that existed, recognizing that others in the room might take issue and at the same
time would not judge him for his choice to express an alternative perspective. He continued with,
“But even though we may not agree on a certain topic or a certain shared idea as long as it’s not
dangerous…,” he was demonstrating trust within the group whereby diverse viewpoints could be
freely expressed themselves, voice their concerns, and take risks without fear of retribution or
judgment. Continuing with the phrase “we can agree to disagree,” he suggested that while the
group may have differing viewpoints, it was important to maintain respect for each other, thus
promoting a holding environment conducive to healthy dialogue and mutual respect. Evan shared
a hypothetical example, “So, for an example would be, I wouldn’t imagine that anybody would,
but say, you know, we need to physically abuse any particular group that would not be
acceptable.” He was clarifying what he meant by unacceptable behavior, inviting the other
participants to understand his statement and contributing to the ground rules, dialogue norms,
and agreements being discussed. And finalizing his contribution with “But if we have somebody
just sharing their viewpoint on a certain topic again, we can just agree to disagree,” his statement
indicates his willingness to accept and acknowledge differing viewpoints without necessarily
reaching a consensus. His phrase “agree to disagree” promoted a holding environment where
diverse opinions were valued and acknowledged his trust within the group to openly express
himself, voice his concerns, and take risks without fear of retribution or judgment.
I responded with “Got it,” acknowledging that I heard him and understood his
contribution. Continuing with “How do you ladies feel about that?”, I was inviting the other
participants to offer their input encouraging open communication by seeking feedback and
promoting a reciprocal conversation. Patty’s rapid response, “I like that idea,” demonstrated her
trust in the group and signaled her approval of Evan’s contribution. Quickly after Patty’s

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response, Tanya contributed with “That’s a good idea,” as an expression of approval. The
positive feedback from Patty and Tanya was signaling that Evan’s contribution was valued,
promoting a collaborative and supportive holding environment.
In the first session we were able to establish a basic level of trust and vulnerability,
signaling weak ties that bound us together and a weak holding environment. Over the next
several weeks, the quality of participation between me and the three participants did not evolve
significantly, with the most frequent participant being Evan. After the fourth session, I met with
my chair, Dr. Julie Slayton, for a check-in, and we discussed the quality of the holding
environment. I mentioned that I had concerns about the quality of the holding environment for
the two women in the group. After our meeting, I wrote an analytic memo in which I said,
In conversation with my chair, Dr. Julie Slayton, regarding the psychological safety of
my female participants—and Patty in particular—she recommended starting individual
sessions with them to build rapport and foster trust. This recommendation was made
during our Zoom meeting on June 23, 2023, at 9:30 a.m.
When I wrote, “regarding the psychological safety of my female participants—and Patty in
particular” I was referencing my observation that the female participants were distancing
themselves and were not stepping into the holding environment. Patty became the focus (“Patty
in particular”) because Tanya had discontinued the research study at the end of Cycle 1 due to
some family and health challenges. Continuing with, “she recommended starting individual
sessions with them to build rapport and foster trust,” I was reporting Dr. Slayton’s
recommendations to restructure my original plan to increase trust within the holding environment
by meeting individually with my participants. After meeting with my chair, I restructured my
methods to include 1:1 sessions for Cycle 2.

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Beginning Cycle 2, I enacted multiple structured activities to promote trust and
vulnerability with two participants in these new holding environments. My first 1:1 session was
with Patty. Prior to the planned structured activities, I did an impromptu check-in with Patty to
ensure that she was okay to continue with the study because she had not been feeling well, and
she shared in a personal text message that she was feeling overwhelmed due to working more
hours than normal. The following excerpt from Patty’s first 1:1 session is the impromptu checkin activity.
A: Hi, Patty. How are you doing today? How are you feeling? I know you haven’t
been feeling well. So how is that going?
P: No. I’m doing better. Last week I was in COVID, I was sick. And then 2 weeks
prior to that I was sick. So, it’s definitely stress.
A: I’m sorry.
P: Oh, no, that’s fine.
When I said “Hi, Patty. How are you doing today? How are you feeling?” I was inviting Patty to
share her well-being at that moment, signaling that she could trust me to care about her as a
person and not just as a participant in my research study. I was also promoting vulnerability by
giving her the space to authentically share how she was really doing. When I said, “I know you
haven’t been feeling well. So how is that going?” I showed attentiveness and genuine concern for
Patty’s well-being, inviting her to trust me by referencing our past conversations and
demonstrating empathy and giving her space to voice her concerns and take risks without fear of
retribution or judgment. Patty responded with, “No. I’m doing better,” stepping into the holding
environment. She elaborated further by saying, “Last week I was in COVID. I was sick. And
then 2 weeks prior to that I was sick. So, it’s definitely stress.” Her response represented the first

66
time she had offered any insight into how she was feeling, demonstrating her lack of fear of
retribution or judgment and increased trust with me. When I said, “I’m sorry” I was
acknowledging and validating Patty’s experience, showing interest in her well-being. Patty’s
response of “Oh, no, that’s fine” demonstrated her willingness to engage with me in the holding
environment, acknowledged my concern, and indicated that she was okay to move on.
At this point, I transitioned into a structured mood check-in activity to cultivate greater
safety and trust within the holding environment. The consistency of the mood check-in activity
showed that it was a routine activity in each session that my participants could depend on.
During the mood check-in activity, I would present a Google slide which displayed six
categories (angry, anxious, sad, confident, happy, and content) with nine different moods or
feelings in each category for them to choose from. The excerpt below is from Patty’s mood
check-in structured activity.
A: I felt I needed to do check-ins and my chair, even my chair said, why don’t you
have 1:1 sessions with them even though it wasn’t in your program or in your
research, you could add it in. I think it’s good to build that safety and that trust but
at the same time checking with them. It’s more about activity but at the same time
you get to share with just me. And then we go from there and wherever you feel
for us to stop, we stop.
P: Sounds good.
A: So, we’re going to actually start off with a mood check! I know you guys enjoyed
this the last time. If you want it to be more than one, it could be one, it could be
many. Where do you feel you’re at in this moment?

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P: I think right now I feel. Let’s see. I do feel valued. You made me feel valued so
that was very nice of you. Let’s see here, I feel connected. I have a lot of feelings.
Definitely joyful. I feel like now the sun came out I feel a lot better. I feel like it’s
summer and I’m actually enjoying summer. So, I’m definitely joyful and a lot of
our projects are wrapping up so I’m starting to see the light at the end of the
tunnel. So, I feel much better. Like I could see the finish line now. So, I’m just
good. That’s what it is. I am feeling strong.
When I said, “I felt I needed to do check-ins and my chair, even my chair said, why don’t you
have 1:1 sessions with them even though it wasn’t in your program or in your research, you
could add it in,” I was indicating that even as the teacher educator, I needed guidance because I
had concerns about the quality of the holding environment specifically for my relationship with
my female participants. By narrowing the holding environment down to 1:1 sessions, I was
showing my commitment to prioritizing relationship-building to promote a supportive and
trusting holding environment. Continuing with, “I think it’s good to build that safety and that
trust but at the same time checking with them,” I was communicating my belief in the
importance of promoting a holding environment where Patty could openly express herself, voice
her concerns, and take risks without fear of retribution or judgment. At the same time, I was
checking in with her that she believed that we were okay, and I was not assuming that there was
safety and trust between us. By saying, “It’s more about the activity but at the same time you get
to share with just me,” I was stating that the activity was about us being together, building our
relationship, and that I was there to listen to her because I didn’t want to assume that we had trust
and safety. I continued with, “And then we go from there and wherever you feel for us to stop,
we stop,” giving Patty the power to decide when we should stop the activity. Patty responded

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with “Sounds good” which was a minimal response, showing her approval of the statement.
Transitioning to the next structured activity I said, “So, we’re going to actually start off with a
mood check!” This activity emphasized emotional awareness with the intention to promote a
supportive atmosphere, ensuring my participant felt acknowledged and prepared. When I stated,
“I know you guys enjoyed this the last time,” I was pointing to the consistency of the structure,
showing it is a routine activity that she could depend on. The consistency of the structured
activity signaled that I was reliable and that she could trust me to let her openly express herself,
voice her concerns, and take risks without fear of retribution or judgment. By saying, “If you
want it to be more than one, it could be one, it could be many,” I was empowering Patty to
decide how forthcoming she want to be and how much connectivity she wanted with me. I was
showing respect for her ability to make choices that suit her preferences or needs. When I asked,
“Where do you feel you’re at in this moment?” I was inviting her into the conversation to share
how she was feeling. Patty immediately responded, “I think right now I feel. Let’s see…,”
indicated she was focusing on the mood check Google slide before making her selection.
Continuing with “I do feel valued” she signaled a sense of validation and acknowledgment that
her efforts or presence were meaningful and important to me. Patty went on to say, “You made
me feel valued so that was very nice of you.” With this statement, she further engaged in the
holding environment, expressing gratitude for the emotional support and validation she received
from the impromptu check-in I enacted prior to this structured activity. Continuing with,
Let’s see here, I feel connected. I have a lot of feelings. Definitely joyful. I feel like now
the sun came out I feel a lot better. I feel like it’s summer and I’m actually enjoying
summer. So, I’m definitely joyful and a lot of our projects are wrapping up so I’m

69
starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. So, I feel much better. Like I could see
the finish line now. So, I’m just good. That’s what it is. I am feeling strong,
Patty was stepping further into the holding environment showing an increase in trust and
demonstrating her openness to express herself. By stating, “I feel connected” Patty highlighted a
sense of belonging and trust with me in the holding environment. She continued by describing
and expressing such emotions as “Definitely joyful” and “I feel a lot better” indicating that she
trusted the holding environment to be a safe place for her to experience and share her feelings.
Patty’s phrase “I’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. So, I feel much better. Like I
could see the finish line now. So, I’m just good” conveyed her hope and optimism in her work
life. Patty’s acknowledgment of her work progress, positive outlook (“starting to see the light at
the end of the tunnel”), improvement in well-being (“I feel much better … I’m just good”), and
sense of clarity (“I could see the finish line now”) all reflected an increase of trust in the holding
environment because she had not previously revealed this level of vulnerability or insight into
her experiences. By ending with “I am feeling strong,” Patty signaled confidence and
empowerment within the holding environment, suggesting she felt supported, and that she could
trust me.
On the other hand, based on my observation and interaction with Evan in the group
setting (Cycle 1 and the first session in Cycle 2), I concluded that our relationship was already
fine. He had exhibited trust in me and the holding environment seemed strong for him.
Therefore, when we switched to our 1:1 session in Cyle 2, I continued to use the same structured
activity (routines) with Evan to maintain the holding environment. The following excerpt
demonstrates my use of the routine structured activity, his trust, and the strength of the holding
environment.

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A: So, we’re going to do a mood check-in. I observed from the previous one that you
guys enjoyed this activity. And I wanted to see if you could choose one or as
many as you want and just tell me in the moment, how are you feeling?
E: Right now, right now or like?
A: What’s your mood like? Right now, right now.
E: Where is sore? (Signaling he was looking on the mood chart for the word sore.
The word was not on the chart) I guess it would be tired, strong, energy and safe
(all words that were on the chart). And yes. Yeah, that’d be it.
When I started with the structured activity by saying,
So, we’re going to do a mood check-in. I observed from the previous one that you guys
enjoyed this activity. And I wanted to see if you could choose one or as many as you
want and just tell me in the moment, how are you feeling?
I demonstrated my confidence in the holding environment because I jumped right into the same
routine (“So, we’re going to do a mood check-in”) that we had in place when the whole group
was together. I believed that Evan trusted me and felt safe in the holding environment, so I did
not offer him any time to think or alternative ways to respond (“just tell me in the moment, how
are you feeling”) such as placing his answer in the chat as in previous sessions. I felt confident
that he would not hesitate to respond. He responded with “Right now, right now or like?”
signaling that he was not afraid to ask for clarification. I clarified with, “What’s your mood like?
Right now, right now,” indicating that I thought he would feel safe enough to respond
immediately without needing time to get comfortable sharing. Evan responded with, “Where is
sore? I guess it would be tired, strong, energy, safe. And yes. Yeah, that’d be it,” demonstrating
his trust in me and his willingness to be communicative and transparent without needing any

71
time to think. His quick response indicated that he felt safe with me and was not worried about
being judged. This was evidence of the quality of the holding environment and his consistent
trust in me from previous sessions.
After one session with each of my participants (second session in Cycle 2), there was a
noticeable increase in the level of trust for Patty, moving from minimal to moderate. I wrote in
an analytic memo the following,
Patty seemed to have a relatively positive and inclusive experience, indicating a moderate
level of psychological safety compared to the previous cycle. She openly expressed
feelings of grief and stress, indicating a level of comfort in expressing emotions within
the group. Her willingness to share such emotions indicates a moderate level of
psychological safety within the space. She also shared “everything’s going well. I do
enjoy the group sessions, but the one to one this was helpful as well, but I do enjoy group
sessions.” This indicated an increase in Patty’s trust and psychological safety within the
holding environment, showing she was ready to rejoin the group.
When I wrote, “she openly expressed feelings of grief and stress” I was saying that she
demonstrated an increase in trust by sharing personal and vulnerable feelings like grief and
stress. This showed that Patty felt safer in the holding environment to openly express herself and
take risks without fear of retribution or judgment. This increase in her psychological safety,
along with her positive statement about group sessions (“I do enjoy the group sessions”)
influenced my decision to bring the group back together. Evan’s trust level remained consistent
throughout. Therefore, I decided to bring us back together for the final cycle, as demonstrated in
the following excerpt from my analytic memo: “Upon reflection, the session’s success
highlighted the value of activities that promote introspection, critical thinking, and the inclusion

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of diverse perspectives in discussions. These elements supported our progress and indicating that
we could reconvene as a group.” I reached out to my participants through the group chat that I
had established with them using iMessage to let them know about reconvening as a group. Each
participant independently wrote me back with a “Yes,” indicating their willingness to return to
the group.
In cycle 3, we reconvened as a group due to a more stable holding environment, indicated
by Patty’s increased trust and Evan’s maintained trust. I continued to facilitate structured
activities to foster a strong holding environment where participants could openly express
themselves, voice their concerns, and take risks without fear of retribution or judgment. At the
beginning of the second session of Cycle 3, while waiting for Evan to join, Patty and I had an
impromptu conversation that demonstrated her increase in trust (see excerpt).
A: Hello.
P: Hello. I love your top. It’s so cute.
A: Thank you. How are you?
P: Good. How are you?
A: I am doing well. Excited to be here with you all! It’s a bittersweet moment.
P: I know. I’ll share something funny with you. Um, so on Sunday when we were
having our session, it was the first time that my husband overheard our
conversation. And he’s like, are you doing therapy? It’s just like a, like a therapy
session, because he thought it was like really like informative and like that it was
a pretty good session. Yeah.
A: Oh, thank you so much for sharing that means so much.

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P: Yeah, I’m like no it’s not he’s like are you like secretly taking therapy I’m like no
it wasn’t therapy at all because I guess I was sharing like how helpful it’s been
and everything. And so, I guess he gathered that I’m like going to therapy to get
these tools to be like a better like person, right? Because I’ve been telling him I
want to take therapy, but I like I want to start but I haven’t. I mean, I did in
college, but I haven’t since. So, I guess he thought this was me starting therapy.
A: Oh, wow. That’s impressive. Wow. I am impressed. And I’m excited at the same
time. Oh, my goodness. Thank you for sharing that.
I welcomed Patty to the beginning of the session by saying “Hello,” and she seized the moment
by responding, “Hello. I love your top. It’s so cute.” She did not hesitate to respond, not only
with a “hello” but revealing something about herself (“I love your top”) showing that she was not
afraid and was less inhibited. Patty was expressing herself freely, without hesitation or fear of
retribution or judgment from me, indicating a strengthened bond between us. After our initial
greeting, Patty excitedly jumped into the holding environment with,
I’ll share something funny with you. Um, so on Sunday when we were having our
session, it was the first time that my husband overheard our conversation. And he’s like,
are you doing therapy? It’s just like a, like a therapy session, because he thought it was
like really like informative and like that it was a pretty good session. Yeah,
demonstrating an increase in her trust with me by openly sharing. When Patty stated, “I’ll share
something funny with you,” she was creating a condition for me to decide and have opinion if
what she was going share was funny. By doing so, she stepped into the holding environment on
her own initiative for the first time, communicating she is not worried about being judged. Patty
was also demonstrating increase trust in me and her vulnerability by sharing her conversation

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with her husband (“And he’s like, are you doing therapy”). By discussing a potentially
stigmatized topic, she showed she was not afraid to be vulnerable with me. Her personal
disclosure was fostering an increase bond between us. When she said, “It’s just like a, like a
therapy session, because he thought it was like really like informative and like that it was a pretty
good session” Patty was sharing her husband’s positive reaction to our session. I responded with,
“Oh, thank you so much for sharing that means so much,” demonstrating my appreciation and
increased confidence due to the positive feedback (“it was like really like informative”) about
our sessions. She even took a deeper dive into the holding environment continuing,
Yeah, I’m like no it’s not he’s like are you like secretly taking therapy I’m like no it
wasn’t therapy at all because I guess I was sharing like how helpful it’s been and
everything. And so, I guess he gathered that I’m like going to therapy to get these tools to
be like a better like person, right? Because I’ve been telling him I want to take therapy,
but I like I want to start but I haven’t. I mean, I did in college, but I haven’t since. So, I
guess he thought this was me starting therapy.
Patty’s detailed explanation of the conversation with her husband showed transparency and an
increase in trusting me by sharing a personal and somewhat vulnerable story about her husband’s
perception and her own thoughts on therapy. Patty’s statement, “Because I’ve been telling him I
want to take therapy, but I haven’t started yet. I mean, I did in college, but I haven’t since...”
showed increased trust and vulnerability, indicating she felt safe enough to share personal
information with me. By revealing her intention to start therapy and discussing her past
experiences, Patty was signaling that our relationship had strengthened and that she trusted me.
Concluding with “So, I guess he thought this was me starting therapy” Patty was reflecting her
openness and self-awareness about how her husband perceived her actions. By addressing and

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clarifying his assumptions, she demonstrated vulnerability and trust in our relationship. This is
evident of a major shift in the holding environment between us. I responded with, “Oh, wow.
That’s impressive. Wow. I am impressed…” validating Patty’s feelings and positively
reinforcing that her experiences were valued and appreciated, promoting a sense of trust between
us. I followed up with, “And I’m excited at the same time. Oh, my goodness. Thank you for
sharing that,” conveying genuine enthusiasm for the increase in trust between us and reinforcing
that her contributions were significant and worthy of recognition. We continued our conversation
as we waited for Evan, and when he joined, we moved into our structured mood check-in
activity.
In this mood check-in activity, there was evidence of Patty’s continuing to bring
increased trust and vulnerability into the holding environment, while Evan maintained his own
trust and vulnerability, as shown in the excerpt below.
A: Let’s do our regular mood check-in.…I really want you guys to take a minute and
look at this chart that we have here, and you can pick from different zones you
know.
P: I think my word for today or my feelings, my feeling for today is ready. I feel
like I’m ready to end our chapter here, but I’m also ready to like, end all our
summer projects at work. So that’s my word, ready.
A: Nice.
P: And excited. Though it’s a lot of work, a lot of projects, it’s still exciting to be
part of it.
E: For me, it’s ready, happy, calm, and tired.
P: Oh yeah, tired is a good one.

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I invited my participants into the mood check-in activity by saying, “Let’s do our regular mood
check-in. … I really want you guys to take a minute and look at this chart that we have here, and
you can pick from different zones you know” demonstrating the consistency of our repeated
structured activity. Patty was the first to respond, saying, “I think my word for today or my
feelings, my feeling for today is ready. I feel like I’m ready to end our chapter here,” showcasing
her increase in trust within the holding environment. By stating, “I think my word for today or
my feelings, my feeling for today is ready,” Patty was expressing her feelings and continuing to
trust us without fear of retribution or judgment. She elaborated with, “I feel like I’m ready to end
our chapter here,” suggesting a level of transparency and trust that we would understand and
support without judgement. She was openly expressing her readiness to end this significant
chapter, trusting the holding environment. I acknowledged her with, “Nice” demonstrating
appreciation for her contribution. Patty continued with, “And excited. Though it’s a lot of work,
a lot of projects, it’s still exciting to be part of it.” This was an example of Patty carrying over
her increased trust and vulnerability into the holding environment with the group. Despite
acknowledging the significant workload and numerous projects, she openly expressed her
excitement about being a part of the study and maintained a positive attitude. She focused on the
excitement and fulfillment that came from her involvement in the research study, highlighting
her enthusiasm. Evan stepped into the conversation with, “For me, it’s ready, happy, calm, and
tired” expressing how he was feeling maintaining his own trust and vulnerability within the
holding environment. Patty was quick to respond with, “Oh yeah, tired is a good one,”
contributing to a sense of mutual respect and understanding by empathizing with Evan.

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Form of Assistance: Questioning
In the context of this increased trust and the stronger holding environment, I guided my
participants through a focused, ongoing process that encouraged them to (critically) examine
their assumptions (Brookfield, 2017) about their experiences and address the systemic silencing
of marginalized voices in decision-making (Heifetz et al., 2009). Over the three cycles, my
participants progressed from a minimal to a moderate understanding of their identity and their
role in a system that marginalized certain voices in decision-making. Initially, they had limited
awareness of how factors such as identity, race, ethnicity, power, and gender affected their
ability to be heard and the receptiveness of others to their perspectives.
As indicated in my conceptual framework, I used the Rodgers reflective cycle to help my
participants recognize that their experiences were not isolated but shared by others with similar
identities, all stemming from systems of oppression, and to empower them to find their voice to
push at the systems that prevented their contributions. According to Rodgers (2002), group work
in the reflective cycle enriches the learning process by bringing diverse perspectives together.
The Rodgers reflective cycle consists of four phases: presence, describe and differentiate,
analysis, and experimentation (Rodgers, 2002). I enacted three of the four the phases: presence,
describe and differentiate, and analysis. The first phase, presence (“to see”), involves being fully
engaged in the experience, recognizing what is happening, distinguishing its elements, and
giving it meaning, while responding thoughtfully in each moment. The second phase, describe
and differentiate, focuses on understanding an experience by distinguishing between description
(which is what one sees) and interpretation (which is what one gives meaning to). The third
phase, analysis, involves analyzing and explaining experiences from many perspectives.
Building on Rodgers’s concept of collaborative reflection, I intended for my participants to

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recognize that their experiences were not isolated but shared by others with similar identities, all
stemming from systems of oppression. My goal was to empower them to find their voices and
challenge the systems that hindered their contributions.
I used questioning as a form of assistance to push my participants to engage in the three
stages of the Rodgers reflective cycle in each session, as outlined in my conceptual framework.
Forms of assistance help my participants move through their ZPD by bridging the gap between
what they could achieve independently and what they could achieve with support (Tharp &
Gallimore, 1989). I adopted two primary types of questioning: (1) probing questions, which seek
clarification, justification, or explanation (Sahin & Kulm, 2008) and (2) guiding questions, which
enable the application of strategies and concepts to address challenges (Kawanaka & Stigler,
1999).
In Cycle 1, I enacted the first phase of Rodgers’s reflective cycle: presence, or to see.
This phase required my participants to be fully present, slowing down their thought processes to
observe, distinguish, and assign meaning to a moment of practice. To support this act of slowing
down, I did an activity serving as a “moment of practice” with my participants to focus on a
common analytical language. According to Rodgers (2002), using a common analytical language
improves the process of seeing, describing, and analyzing by providing a clear context for
understanding and discussing concepts. To support my participants in articulating their
experiences more precisely and engaging more deeply in the analytical process, I enacted this
strategy during our activity. The activity was centered on three key concepts: diversity,
marginalization, and positionality. To facilitate their reflection, I used a manually animated
Google Slides presentation where the key terms appeared one by one as I pressed enter. Each
time a term appeared, I asked my participants to share their own definitions and understanding of

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the key terms. After they shared their definitions of all three key terms, I presented the formal
definitions and asked guiding questions to encourage them to pause, reflect on their
understanding, and contribute their thoughts to create a common analytical language.
The following excerpt demonstrates my use of guiding questions to help my participants
slow down and engage in the presence phase of the Rodgers reflective cycle.
A: When you hear or see this word, diversity. What comes to mind? Anyone?
P: Having different types of people in a group or just different types of people,
different cultures, ethnicity, background, gender, gender as well.
A: Awesome. Anyone else would like to share? (No one else shares) How about this
word? When we see the word marginalization, what do we hear, see, think about,
observe, or how do we define it?
E: That’s more of like singling out a particular group. And giving them less I want to
say power, power or opportunity to share or put input into a collective goal. (his
camera was off)
A: Awesome. Thank you. Anyone else would like to share?
The question, “When you hear or see the word diversity, what comes to mind?” guided my
participants to slow down (“When you hear or see”) to consider their thought process (“what
comes to mind?”), the strategy of the reflective cycle, to consider what the word diversity evoked
for them, or they imagined it looks like in real life. I inadvertently disrupted their ability to slow
down by quickly following up with, “Anyone?” which didn’t give them enough time to think.
This limited my participants’ opportunity for reflection. Despite my not providing wait time,
Patty responded with, “Having different types of people in a group or just different types of
people, different cultures, ethnicity, background, gender, gender as well,” signifying that she was

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present and listening to my guiding questions. She offered what she saw by saying, “different
types of people in a group …,” which indicated my guiding questions were helping her to see
and/or apply the strategy. When I said, “Awesome…,” I reinforced her contribution but missed
the opportunity to ask her to elaborate further. By not asking a probing question, I inadvertently
hindered her further application of the strategy as she was not afforded the opportunity to see in
greater detail. Instead, I immediately asked, “...Anyone else would like to share?” In this
question, I invited additional contributions, but my quick response showed I wasn’t fully present,
and I could have asked a follow-up question instead of moving on immediately. The next
question, “When we see the word marginalization, what do we hear, see, think about, observe, or
how do we define it?” guided my participants to slow down (“what do we hear, see, think about,
observe”) and reflect on their thought process by considering auditory, visual, cognitive, and
observational aspects. This strategy repeated the reflective cycle, helping them be fully present
when defining the term (“how do we define it?”). Regardless of my not providing wait time,
Evan immediately responded, “That’s more of like singling out a particular group. And giving
them less I want to say power, power or opportunity to share or put input into a collective goal,”
signifying that he was present, and listening to my guiding questions. Evan shared his thoughts
on marginalization, showing that my guiding questions helped him apply the reflective strategy.
By carefully considering the term and describing its dynamics, he slowed down to observe and
reflect, a key part of phase one in the Rodgers reflective cycle. I responded with, “Awesome.
Thank you,” acknowledging Evan’s contribution, but I didn’t slow down. Instead, I quickly
moved on by asking, “Anyone else would like to share?” inviting Tanya and Patty to join the
conversation, without giving enough wait time. Again, as I stated earlier, my quick response
indicated that I was not slowing down and being fully present in this section of the session as we

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established our common analytical language. I continued our session by sharing the final key
term: positionality and asked guiding questions to help my participants slow down, be fully
present, and move us closer to a common analytical language. This activity demonstrated my
participants’ existing ability to slow down, see and/or apply the strategy of the first phase of the
reflective cycle, and develop a common analytical language, despite missed opportunities for
deeper probing and reflection.
In Cycle 3, I enacted the third phase of the Rodgers Reflective Cycle: analysis. This
phase required my participants to analyze and explain their experiences from many perspectives.
I introduced the Lawrence-Wilkes ‘REFLECT’ model (2014) as a questioning tool and as a form
of assistance to guide my participants in analyzing their reflections, discussing their past actions,
thoughts, and emotions. Forms of assistance are tools that reside outside of the learner and are
meant to be internalized over time (Tharp & Gallimore, 1989). This questioning tool served as a
form of assistance in the place of my asking questions. The model offered prompts—some
guiding, others probing—intended to help my participants independently progress through the
Rodgers reflective cycle and engage in deeper thinking. I chose to provide them with this model
because I believed it could do a better job than I could in supporting my participants in their
ZPD. I presented the ‘REFLECT’ model via Google Slides and explained each section. To model
the process, I shared a personal experience by answering the prompts from the tool. This was
consistent with the type of personal experience that my participants were being asked to share,
focusing on my personal experience in my workplace involving my director. Evan volunteered to
share a moment of his own experience using the questioning tool. He described an incident
involving a group of football players riding scooters inside the library, which violated the rules.
He stated that he asked them to stop, but they ignored him, and one even tried to intimidate him

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by staring him down. Evan expressed being frustrated because he was just doing his job and
enforcing the university’s policies. He clarified that in his opinion football players often acted
entitled, feeling above the rules due to their elevated status. By engaging with the questioning
tool, Evan realized that their behavior wasn’t personal but a result of their privileged treatment
within the university. This insight demonstrated that the form of assistance enabled him to step
back and engage in analysis of the experience, consistent with the Rodgers reflective cycle. He
believed the Athletics Department needed to enforce discipline and remind players that they
weren’t exempt from following rules, despite their role in generating revenue for the school.
Evan was unable to get to a place where he could see from multiple perspectives, and he ended
his reflection expressing what he thought should happen instead of having a new interpretation of
the experience that would allow him to experiment (as intended in the Rodgers reflective cycle).
After Evan shared, I followed up with my own set of probing questions, asking him to consider
how the experience made him feel, as illustrated in the following excerpt.
A: How does it make you feel, knowing that you’re trying to do your best complying,
doing your job but then there are these people on campus that’s in your opinion
they have this privilege over you despite that this is your job. Where do you go
from here?
E: It’s frustrating it’s discouraging, because like you kind of see the classism and
elitism, which, like, I don’t know how to explain it, it’s just very frustrating. But
at the same time, um, no, they’re not the only ones that do it. Every beginning of
the school year we get this, but athletics students have always just felt they’re
above the rules, which I don't think it should be. But, I mean, just roll with the
punches, I guess. I don’t try to take it personal that has helped me in the past.

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Like, trying to force rules on everyone is pretty controlling. So, I just don’t take it
personal or to heart. I think this one got me a little more frustrated because of like
the stare downs, which like you know, you’re insinuating physical confrontation.
And, you know, me being overweight, I think that they think, okay, we punk
around. But what’s always been funny to me is that SCU students will treat staff
horribly, like just horribly. But they don’t do that out on the street because they
know. Pardon my French, but somebody could physically harm them. So why not,
I don’t want to say introspect, but why not extend us that courtesy where, you
know we’re trying to work and give you the experience that you’re paying for,
whether it be by cleaning up after you or throwing out the trash or, you know,
enforcing policies or being a TA or whatever have you, you know, it’s, I think
that some students think the only people that deserve respect are the professors.
A: Well, thank you Evan for sharing. If you’d like to share more, Evan, or if not,
then we could move on, right, to Patty. (Evan indicated no by shaking his head)
But thank you for sharing your experience.
The question, “How does it make you feel, knowing that you’re trying to do your best
complying, doing your job…?” probed Evan to dive deeper into the emotional impact of the
situation, challenging him to reflect on the power dynamics and how they affected his view of
the way he was being treated as an employee of the university, directly by the students and
implicitly by the university (“knowing that you’re trying to do your best complying, doing your
job”). I continued by saying, “…but then there are these people on campus that’s in your opinion
they have this privilege over you despite that this is your job.” I was attempting to connect this to
my research question, although not as clearly or directly as I should have. On some level, I was

84
aware that I wanted to help him link the concept of privilege to how the football players were
part of a system that empowered some while marginalizing others. I continued with, “Where do
you go from here?” intending for Evan to use the experimental phase by finding his voice in a
system that marginalized him. Again, I was connecting back to my research question, however,
my intention fell short as I didn’t ask it with intention or follow up on it. He responded with,
“It’s frustrating it’s discouraging, because like you kind of see the classism and elitism, which
like, I don’t know how to explain it, it’s just very frustrating.” Evan restated his initial feelings
(“It’s frustrating it’s discouraging,”) about the issue with football players in his work
environment, specifically classism and elitism (“because like you kind of see the classism and
elitism”). Neither of us directly addressed the systemic nature of the “problem” that the
university empowered football players to behave this way. He continued with, “I don’t know
how to explain it” indicating that he had difficulty in articulating the experience. When Evan
said, “I don’t try to take it personal, that has helped me in the past,” he focused on his feelings
rather than analyzing the experience from multiple perspectives. He added, “Like, trying to force
rules on everyone is pretty controlling,” acknowledging some aspects of his role within the
environment. However, he didn’t take responsibility for what he could do differently or consider
how he might be part of the problem, rather than blaming the students and the Athletics
department. Evan continued to reflect on his experience by stating, “I think this one got me a
little more frustrated because of like the stare downs, which like you know, you’re insinuating
physical confrontation.” He was explaining the reasons behind his frustration (“I think this one
got me a little more frustrated”), hinting at a deeper unease caused by the perceived threat of a
potential physical altercation affecting both his personal and professional space. Evan continued
to share his experience with,

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we’re trying to work and give you the experience that you’re paying for, whether it be by
cleaning up after you or throwing out the trash or, you know, enforcing policies or being
a TA or whatever have you, you know, it’s, I think that some students think the only
people that deserve respect are the professors.
Evan was recognizing that there was an imbalance in how students distributed respect, favoring
professors (“I think that some students think the only people that deserve respect are the
professors “) and overlooking others who performed essential duties. His statement suggested
that he recognized his experiences at the university were not unique but shared by others.
However, the questioning tool proved inadequate as the form assistance in providing the
necessary support for Evan, and I lacked the necessary skillset to probe him further beyond
where the questioning tool left off. This limitation prevented Evan from critically examining his
assumptions (Brookfield, 2017) about his experience or addressing the systemic silencing of
marginalized voices in decision-making. This type of critical reflection is exactly what the
analysis phase of the Rodgers reflective cycle aims to foster. As a result, Evan concluded the
process without gaining new perspectives, remaining in the same position as when he started this
phase of the Rodgers reflective cycle.
I acknowledged Evan’s ‘REFLECT’ experience by saying, “Well, thank you Evan for
sharing.” Notably, I didn’t probe him to take any ownership or recognize how the system is
reproducing the silencing of marginalized voices in decision-making (Heifetz et al., 2009), which
limited his progress within his ZPD, despite my intention to push him further. Although it was
my best effort, it ultimately fell short. I followed up with, “If you’d like to share more, Evan, or
if not, then we could move on, right, to Patty,” allowing space in the event he wanted to

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continue. We then transitioned to Patty to share a moment of her own experience, while Evan,
through nonverbal indication (shaking his head from left to right) indicated he was finished.
Using the questioning tool, Patty described an experience at her previous job where her
director frequently made inappropriate comments about women’s appearance during meetings.
While Patty herself was not directly targeted, she expressed that she felt uncomfortable as a
woman witnessing such remarks, especially as her male coworkers would join in when in the
presence of the director. She struggled to speak up, feeling outnumbered and inexperienced, but
looking back, she wished she had addressed the issue or reported it to HR. Ultimately, she chose
to leave the company rather than confront the toxic environment. Patty’s experience with the
‘REFLECT’ model demonstrated how the questioning tool facilitated her engagement with the
analysis phase of the Rodgers reflective cycle. The questioning tool assisted Patty to critically
evaluate her actions and consider alternative actions she could have taken. After Patty shared, I
followed up with my own set of probing questions asking her to consider how the experience
made her feel, as illustrated in the following excerpt.
A: How does it make you feel now? Looking back?
P: I just regret not saying anything. I truly do regret it. I don’t know why I didn’t. I
guess I never said anything also because I feel like, oh, it didn’t happen all the
time. It just happened occasionally, and it always will catch me off guard when it
would happen.
A: All right, good. Well, thank you for sharing that experience
The question, “How does it make you feel now?” probed Patty to dive deeper into the emotional
impact of the situation. I followed up with, “Looking back?” inviting her to review or reconsider

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her experience as part of the analysis phase of the Rodgers reflective cycle. Patty responded
with,
I just regret not saying anything. I truly do regret it. I don’t know why I didn’t. I guess I
never said anything also because I feel like, oh, it didn’t happen all the time. It just
happened occasionally, and it always will catch me off guard when it would happen.
Patty was analyzing her past actions, expressing regret about not saying anything (“I just regret
not saying anything”). Her statement, “I truly do regret it,” conveyed a strong emotional
response, likely stemming from feelings of missed opportunity. As Patty continued questioning
herself, saying, “I don’t know why I didn’t,” she was engaging in self-reflection, practicing a
form of assistance on herself. Through this analysis, she was attempting to make sense of her
past inactions and gain new insights into the factors that influenced her behavior—precisely the
goal of the analysis phase in the Rodgers reflective cycle. The use of the questioning tool
enabled Patty to view the experience from different perspectives, allowing her to examine the
root causes of her regret and gain a deeper understanding of her actions. Her statement, “I guess I
never said anything also because I feel like, oh, it didn’t happen all the time,” suggested that
Patty was rationalizing her silence by downplaying the frequency of the event. However, her
words also implied that the experience left a lingering effect, contributing to feelings of
powerlessness and oppression. Patty’s statement, “it always will catch me off guard when it
would happen” conveyed that the experience was destabilizing, creating a sense of
unpredictability and surprise each time it occurred. This inconsistency left her unprepared,
contributing to her hesitation and feelings of oppression. Through the questioning tool, Patty
gained new perspectives that allowed her to analyze her behavior and consider changes for the
future, ultimately fostering greater self-awareness and addressing the systemic silencing of

88
marginalized voices in decision-making. By utilizing the questioning tool, Patty made noticeable
progress, recognizing what she could have done differently and gaining new perspectives.
However, despite my intention to encourage critical reflection, I failed to fully challenge Patty to
confront the underlying power dynamics—specifically how the system reproduces the silencing
of marginalized voices in decision-making (Heifetz et al., 2009). My lack of the necessary
skillset to probe her further inadvertently reinforced the existing power dynamic, limiting her
development and falling short of fostering a deeper critical awareness of the systemic forces at
work.
To conclude the research study, I invited my participants to reflect on our 2 1/2 months
together, focusing on if they were able to recognize that their experiences were not isolated but
shared by others with similar identities, all stemming from systems of oppression, and to
empower them to find their voice to push at the systems that prevented their contributions. I
provided a set of reflective questions aiming to help them clarify where they landed by the end of
the study. The questions I provided were:
• What have you learned?
• What have you learned about yourself?
• What are you currently applying, or plan to apply, in your professional or personal
life?
• Are there any other insights or takeaways you’d like to share?
• Based on what you’ve learned and experienced in this community, what are your next
steps?
However, these questions somewhat limited my participants’ reflections, as I didn’t ask them to
explicitly identify critical consciousness. As a result, their final reflections revealed growth in

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self-awareness and positionality for Evan and Patty, though they struggled to fully develop a
critical awareness of systemic forces or to assert their voices against these barriers.
Evan shared first, reflecting on the dual roles he and Patty played within the SCU
community, noting a tension between their roles as workers and their commitment to serving the
community. He also acknowledged the oversight dynamics Patty encountered with her superiors,
which influenced her experience. The following excerpt illustrates Evan’s final reflection of our
2 1/2 months together.
E: For me, it’s the positionality just kind of reflecting on, um, like the role, like both
of me and Patty’s stories, um, kind of have like this whole positionality where
we’re kind of in the worker slash, um, I want to say servant, but like serving,
serving the SCU community. And then like Patty has a superior, which is in a, in
a positionality of oversight.
Evan demonstrated engaging in phase one of the Rodgers reflective cycle by slowing down and
fully immersing himself in his experience of over the 2 1/2 months, reflecting on positionality
(“For me, it’s the positionality just kind of reflecting on”). This practice of slowing down
allowed him to start connecting his identity with his roles within the SCU community, as well as
with Patty’s similar experiences (“like both of me and Patty’s stories”). While reflecting, Evan
identified both his and Patty’s roles as “worker” or “serving” roles, highlighting a shared identity
rooted in service to the SCU community. By considering his role as “serving” rather than
“servant,” he was implying power dynamics with the words servant and serving, but he tried to
slightly reframe it in a positive manner. Evan was pointing to his role in a hierarchical power
dynamic (“kind of have like this whole positionality where we’re kind of in the worker slash,
um, I want to say servant, but like serving”). By Evan reflecting and choosing his language

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intentionally, he demonstrated a shift in his awareness of positionality. Initially, he demonstrated
lack awareness of how his experiences connected to broader systemic issues. By the conclusion
of the research study, his reflection indicated a newfound insight into these connections, marking
a considerable shift in his understanding.
In her final reflection, Patty agreed with Evan, highlighting positionality as her main
takeaway and noting how their roles shaped their perspectives and relationships. Additionally,
Patty share that she appreciated the mindfulness techniques introduced during the study,
particularly the meditation videos and mood check-ins. The following excerpt illustrates Patty’s
final reflection of our 2 1/2 months together.
P: And mine is positionality, uh, kind of like a prized student asset, if that makes
sense. Also, my biggest takeaway is just the meditation videos. I like those. I’m
going to be doing those on my own. And I think that’s it. Well said, Evan. So, I
agree with Evan. My biggest takeaway is also positionality. It’s a hard word for
me to pronounce. Um, I do sometimes feel that based on our position, we do also
view the world and, um, it’s the type of relationships we build with our colleagues
as well. My takeaways are very similar to I really did like the meditation, which I
think I mentioned to Adaline that I started implementing that. Um, it’s been great.
It’s been working just fine. But another one that, um, another, another thing that I
really liked about our session was like checking in how you’re feeling. Cause I
don’t think I ever really take the time to be like, how am I feeling today? Well,
and I feel like learning and learning about how I’m feeling will help me like set
my day like what is like if I’m having a bad day maybe be a little be nicer to
myself because sometimes, I tend to be too harsh if I’m not meeting deadlines but

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knowing like how I’m feeling and how that’s impacting my deadlines and that
might help me so I could think of right now.
Patty responded to the question what have you learned? with “And mine is positionality, uh,
kind of like a prized student asset, if that makes sense.” Her statement revealed her growing
awareness of positionality, as she acknowledged her role as a “prized student asset.” This
reflected her understanding of her value within the community and the specific lens through
which she was perceived. Patty continued by repeating, “…My biggest takeaway is also
positionality. It’s a hard word for me to pronounce.” She revealed both an intellectual and a
personal challenge. Identifying positionality as her main takeaway indicated a significant shift in
her understanding of how her role and social identity influenced her perspectives and
relationships. She continued with, “Um, I do sometimes feel that based on our position, we do
also view the world and, um, it’s the type of relationships we build with our colleagues as well,”
articulating her growing awareness of how positionality impacted both her personal interactions
and professional relationships. Additionally, she shared, “Also, my biggest takeaway is just the
meditation videos,” emphasizing the impact of meditative practices and the self-check-ins (“I
really liked about our session was like checking in how you’re feeling”) on her well-being. She
mentioned her commitment to continuing the meditation videos (“I started implementing that”),
which suggested she found value in routines that encourage mindfulness and presence. This
practice helped her slow down, connect with her emotions, and become more self-aware. She
specifically noted that taking time to check in on her feelings allowed her to better manage her
day stating, “another thing that I really liked about our session was like checking in how you’re
feeling.” Patty was acknowledging awareness of being present and through the practice of

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slowing herself down she could approach her day with more self-compassion rather than selfcriticism.
In conclusion, this research study revealed that my participants progressed from a
minimal to a moderate understanding of their identity and their role within a system that
marginalizes certain voices in decision-making. My goal was for them to recognize that their
experiences were not isolated but shared by others with similar identities, all rooted in systems of
oppression. I aimed to empower them to find their voices and challenge the systems that
prevented their contributions. However, my lack of the necessary skill set to probe further
limited their understanding of these broader systems and the empowerment needed to challenge
limiting structures. As a result, I inadvertently reinforced the existing power dynamic, which
restricted their growth and hindered the development of a deeper critical awareness of the
systemic forces at play.
My Growth Reflections: My Experience as a Teacher Educator and Facilitator
Drawing on over two decades of experience as an educational technology professional,
including my role as a faculty support analyst and training facilitator at SCU’s ITS Learning
Environments, I approached my action research study with confidence in my ability to facilitate
effective training. My research question began to take shape during my EDUC 703: Power,
Diversity, and Equity course, where I encountered a “disorienting dilemma” (Wergin, 2020)
while preparing my final synthesis of a problem of practice literature review: Facing the
Intolerance Reality of White Supremacy and the Discrimination of Women in the Workplace.
According to Wergin (2020), a disorienting dilemma is an event or experience that challenges an
individual’s existing assumptions, beliefs, or worldview, causing them to critically examine these
perspectives. This process sparked an “aha” moment for me, deeply resonating with my personal

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experiences and motivating me to explore the topic further. While developing my conceptual
framework and preparing to enter the field to conduct this study, I assumed that my expertise in
educational technology and instructional design would serve as a strong foundation for creating
engaging and impactful learning experiences. However, my preservice teacher experience made
it challenging for me to enact the “new” instructional moves as I set out to accomplish in my
conceptual framework. Instead, I reverted to the practices I had used before my Doctor of
Education in Educational Leadership program. While writing my analytic memo at the end of
Cycle 1, I realized I had not been fully present for my participants, which hindered my ability to
create a strong holding environment—a space where they felt safe to openly express themselves,
voice concerns, and take risks without fear of retribution or judgement. Heifetz et al. (2009)
emphasize that such environments are vital for psychological safety and require intentional effort
to build trust and encourage open dialogue. Instead of fostering a supportive holding
environment, I exhibited an urgency to move through the process, as though on autopilot. This
urgency undermined my ability to slow down and create the space needed for genuine
engagement. Over the course of my action study research, I grew in my ability to be present and
attentive, shifting from a curriculum-focused approach in Cycle 1 to a more present and
supportive approach in Cycle 2. The following excerpt demonstrates how I initially introduced
the topic we would be discussing, explained the importance of establishing ground rules,
dialogue norms, and agreements, and invited my participants to actively engage in the process.
However, this excerpt also demonstrates my failure to slow down and adequately attend to my
participants’ psychological safety within the holding environment, highlighting a critical area for
growth in my facilitation practice.

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A: All right, so of course in this community we will have our ground rules, dialogue
norms, and agreements. And so, at this point, we will actually go through them
together. For this section, we have two non-negotiables. I want to make the screen
bigger so everyone can see this screen. [enlarges screen] There we go. Could you
guys see it clearly? Is that okay?
P: Yes, it’s fine. (Patty nods her head up and down while speaking) Evan and Tanya
have their cameras off.
A: Okay. All right, so we have two non-negotiable. Controversy with civility
basically, what this means is according to Astin and Astin in the 1996 is a value
whereby different views are expected and honored with a group agreement
committed to understand the source of this agreement and to work together in
other words towards common solutions, right? So, controversy with civility is
place as a non-negotiable because as a team working together, we have to respect
each other because of the topic or the purpose of this study is for us to be able to
learn, right? How to do this and by using the famous phrase that we could agree to
disagree.
P: Mmhmm.
A: Does anyone have an example or does anyone want further explanation around
this? Is it clear? Are you good with it?
P: You’re good.
E: Good. (camera off)
T: That’s clear. (camera off)

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A: Awesome. Thank you. And then the second non-negotiable, own your intention
and your impact. So, there is an old proverb that I like to use. And it says the road
to hell is paved with good intentions. Meaning that while intentions might be
good intentions, your impact might be very bad or still bad on the other end. So
back to the first rule, right? Controversy with civility, just being more cautious
and mindful, which is a space that we’re trying to cultivate a safe holding
environment where we can be open and vulnerable and able to freely speak. As
you know, it’s all confidential within our group.
…
When I said, “All right, so of course in this community we will have our ground rules, dialogue
norms, and agreements. And so, at this point, we will actually go through them together. For this
section, we have two non-negotiables,” I was more focused on delivering content rather than
fostering active participation and cultivating a strong holding environment. By immediately
transitioning from introducing ground rules, dialogue norms, and agreements to enlarging the
screen without pausing, I inadvertently silenced my participants and missed the opportunity to
engage them in co-constructing the norms of our community. This behavior demonstrates how I
prioritized efficiency over relationship building, treating the process as a task to complete rather
than a community to foster. However, I had some awareness about the importance of the
visibility of the screen by saying, “I want to make the screen bigger so everyone can see this
screen. [enlarges screen] There we go. Could you guys see it clearly? Is that okay?” While I was
ensuring technical clarity which was essential for the study, I did not allow space for my
participants to process or respond to what I had introduced, nor did I invite their voices into the
conversation. As the facilitator, I failed to cultivate a psychologically safe holding environment

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where my participants felt empowered to contribute and shape our ground rules, dialogue norms,
and agreements norms that would govern our shared learning experience. Patty’s response, “Yes,
it’s fine,” accompanied by her nodding, confirmed that she acknowledged my question about
screen visibility. However, because I was not fully present to the holding environment, I missed
the opportunity to take the initiative and invite Evan and Tanya, who had their cameras off, to
join the conversation to discuss our ground rules, dialogue norms, and agreements. Instead, I was
focused on progressing through the process and ensuring logistical clarity, such as making sure
the screen was visible rather than being fully present with my participants and attentive to the
holding environment. The data also suggested that my participants were constrained, as
evidenced by their short responses, Patty: “Mmhmm,” “You’re good,” Evan: “Good” and Tanya:
“That’s clear.” Additionally, Evan and Tanya had their cameras off, which I didn’t see as a
problem in the moment. I overlooked the importance of incorporating time into my agenda for
participants to gather their thoughts and reflect. I found myself uncomfortable with moments of
silence, being more accustomed to a fast-paced instructional style. This discomfort pushed me to
fill those quiet moments with my own comments, as shown in me doing the majority of the
talking in the excerpt. This ultimately led to a rushed process which disrupted the quality of the
holding environment as illustrated in this excerpt of my Cycle 1 final analytical memo,
I did not set clear expectations for how we should spend our time or engage in
conversation for my participants to succeed during the initial session of establishing our
ground rules, dialogue norms, and agreements after watching the video clip on
“Diversity” nor did I revisit them. I recognize that I should have revisited them and had
posed guiding and probing questions related to the video to encourage self-reflection on
diversity and help participants apply their prior knowledge when contributing to the

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activity. By not being fully present and doing most of the talking, I missed opportunities
to ask probing and guiding questions for my participants to develop and articulate their
thoughts, fostering learning and reaching their prospective ZPD stage in establishing our
ground rules, dialogue norms, and agreements.
By stating, “I did not set clear expectations for how we should spend our time or engage in
conversation for my participants to succeed …” I was demonstrating my awareness of not being
fully present to my participants which implied that it affected the learning environment. By
continuing with, “I recognize that I should have revisited them and had posed guiding and
probing questions related to the video …” this demonstrated that I had this recognition that I
should have posed follow-up questions to help my participants, and I was not fully present (“by
not being fully present and doing most of the talking, I missed opportunities…”). I consulted
with my chair, Dr. Slayton following this analytical memo to discuss my observations and newly
gained awareness. During our conversation, we discussed the psychological safety of my female
participants and how the holding environment was being affected. Dr. Slayton recommended that
I hold individual (1:1) sessions to build rapport and foster trust, which I implemented as
illustrated in the following excerpt.
In conversation with my chair, Dr. Julie Slayton, regarding the psychological safety of
my female participants—and Patty in particular—she recommended starting individual
sessions with them to build rapport and foster trust. This recommendation was made
during our Zoom meeting on June 23, 2023, at 9:30 a.m.
Following her advice, I implemented this strategy by aligning my session with phase one:
presence of the Rodgers reflective cycle. I was able to slow down, become more present, and
develop a deeper attentiveness toward my participants within the holding environment. This shift

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enabled me to be more mindful and intentional, ultimately strengthening my connection with my
participants and elevating my facilitation experience. The following excerpt illustrates how I
slowed down and cultivated greater attentiveness within the holding environment starting with
Patty.
A: Hi, Patty. How are you doing today? How are you feeling? I know you haven’t
been feeling well. So how is that going?
P: No. I’m doing better. Last week I was in COVID, I was sick. And then 2 weeks
prior to that I was sick. So, it’s definitely stress.
A: I’m sorry.
P: Oh, no, that’s fine.
…
A: So, we’re going to actually start off with a mood check! I know you guys enjoyed
this the last time. If you want it to be more than one, it could be one, it could be
many. Where do you feel you’re at in this moment?
P: I think right now I feel. Let’s see. I do feel valued. You made me feel valued so
that was very nice of you. Let’s see here, I feel connected. I have a lot of feelings.
Definitely joyful (laughing)…
From the very beginning of Cycle 2, I shifted to being fully present and supporting the
psychological safety of my participant by greeting and asking Patty about her emotional state
(“Hi, Patty. How are you doing today? How are you feeling? I know you haven’t been feeling
well. So how is that going?”). This was an invitation for her to share how she was feeling and
signaling that she could trust me to care about her as a person and not just as a participant in my
research study. Patty stated, “No. I’m doing better. Last week I was in COVID, I was sick. And

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then 2 weeks prior to that I was sick. So, it’s definitely stress.” I responded with, “I’m sorry,”
leaving space for her to continue, unlike in past sessions where I tended to talk and move on
quickly. This time, I slowed down, stayed present, and gave her the opportunity to share at her
own pace. By not calling attention to the time, Patty became more communicative compared to
previous sessions, openly sharing her discomfort and personal reflections, which ultimately
strengthened the holding environment. I found it easier to slow down and build rapport within
the holding environment, as it was just the two of us. Rather than pushing ahead with the planned
agenda, I made a conscious effort to slow down and address my participants’ concerns,
demonstrating empathy and understanding. I enacted this strategy by using the concept of
“getting on the balcony,” according to Heifetz and Linsky (2002) and stepping back to reflect on
the dynamics of the holding environment. I practiced “getting on the balcony” with Patty by
saying,
So, we’re going to actually start off with a mood check! I know you guys enjoyed this the
last time. If you want it to be more than one, it could be one, it could be many. Where do
you feel you’re at in this moment.
During the mood check (“So, we’re going to actually start off with a mood check!”), I
consciously slowed my pace and took a step back to fully observe and understand my
participant’s interactions (“I know you guys enjoyed this the last time. If you want it to be more
than one, it could be one, it could be many”). This strategy allowed me to engage with her
perspectives more thoughtfully and respond with greater intentionality. For example, I dedicated
additional time to listening without interrupting, ensured my responses were reflective of her
contributions, deliberately avoided rushing through the process and demonstrating my
commitment to fostering a space for meaningful dialogue and deeper connection. I noticed that

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my participant began to show a deeper willingness to share, engage in [critical] reflection, and
challenge her own assumptions (“I think right now I feel. Let’s see. I do feel valued. You made
me feel valued so that was very nice of you. Let’s see here, I feel connected. I have a lot of
feelings…”). Patty became more engaged by having her camera on, speaking more, and
expressing nonverbal cues (…“Let’s see here, I feel connected. I have a lot of feelings.
Definitely joyful (laughing)"). This demonstrated that my efforts to slow down, be present, and
adjust the holding environment fostered mutual trust, enabling her to express herself openly,
voice concerns, and take risks without fear of judgment. When we came back together in Cycle
3, I continued to slow down, be fully present, and allow space for my participants to engage
within the holding environment as demonstrated in the following excerpt.
A: Let’s do our regular mood check-in. How do you guys feel about us doing, uh,
what zone are you in Mood Check-in tonight. I really want you guys to take a
minute. And look at this chart that we have here, and you can pick from different
zones you know.
P: I think my word for today or my feelings, my feeling for today is ready. I feel
like I’m ready to end our chapter here, but I'm also ready to like, end all our
summer projects at work. So that’s my word, ready.
A: Nice.
P: And excited. Though it’s a lot of work, a lot of projects, it's still exciting to be
part of it.
E: For me, it’s ready, happy, calm, and tired.
P: Oh yeah, tired is a good one.
A: Do you want to elaborate on any of those, Evan?

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E: Uh, tired is just from the gym, so it’s physically tired, ready, uh, ready to get this,
um, started, happy, uh, just happy to be on my days off.
I started by explaining the process of the routine activity (“Let’s do our regular mood check-in”)
and offering time to think for my participants (“I really want you guys to take a minute”). I was
enacting slowing down and being fully present by offering them more time to think and look at
the chart (“And look at this chart that we have here …”). Patty engaged immediately by
responding with, “I think my word for today or my feelings, my feeling for today is ready. I feel
like I’m ready to end our chapter here ...” demonstrating that the psychological safety that we
built in our 1:1 sessions transferred over when our group reconvened. I acknowledged her
contribution with, “Nice,” keeping my response concise and allowing my participants the space
to speak. Patty jumped right back into the conversation (“And excited. Though it’s a lot of work,
a lot of projects, it's still exciting to be part of it”), continuing to showcase she was more engaged
and felt safe to share. Evan joined the conversation by stating, “For me, it’s ready, happy, calm,
and tired”. Patty reinforced Evan’s contribution by saying, “Oh yeah, tired is a good one,”
demonstrating more engagement between the two of them without me intervening. I followed up
with, “Do you want to elaborate on any of those, Evan?” being mindful and present to Evan’s
contribution and offering him more space to elaborate if he felt the need. He embraced the
invitation with, “Uh, tired is just from the gym, so it’s physically tired, ready, uh, ready to get
this, um, started, happy, uh, just happy to be on my days off.” This excerpt demonstrates that by
slowing down, being fully present, offering them space, and limiting my contribution my
participants’ engagement and psychological safety increased.
By the conclusion of Cycle 3 and this research study, I had developed a clearer sense of
purpose, and a deeper understanding of how reflective practices can foster a culture of awareness

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and consciousness. This research study also deepened my understanding of how slowing down
and being fully present fosters trust and vulnerability for oneself and others. As I noted in my
Cycle 3 analytic memo, “By slowing down, I allowed my participants more time to process their
thoughts and emotions, which helped build trust and gave them space to engage more deeply.”
This intentional shift in pacing allowed my participants to feel supported and safe, creating a
more open and collaborative holding environment. It also enhanced my engagement with them
by providing the necessary space for reflection and critical dialogue, free from the pressure to
move quickly. As reflected and indicated in that same analytic memo, “I wanted to provide my
participants more time to process and engage with these ideas, without rushing through the
session.” This statement highlights the importance of me slowing down to ensure my participants
felt heard, ultimately fostering meaningful and reflective conversations.
Through my own self-reflection process, particularly in crafting analytical memos, I
became increasingly self-aware of the importance of slowing down and being fully present. This
intentionality illuminated how systemic issues, such as the marginalization of voices—including
my own—can hinder meaningful engagement. My findings, grounded in Rodgers’s (2002)
reflective cycle and Mezirow’s (2000) transformative learning theory, emphasize that reflective
practices are pivotal for individual empowerment and systemic transformation. These practices
involve examining assumptions, sharing insights, and acting through individual and collective
reflection, highlighting the critical role of proactive, reflective leadership in tackling universal
challenges.
Afterword
In this concluding section, I will reflect on my evolution as an adult learning facilitator
and adaptive leader, highlighting the key insights gained from conducting my action research

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study and how these findings continue to shape my transformative journey. I describe how the
process of analyzing and writing about my research has deepened my understanding and
profoundly influenced my personal and professional growth, particularly in my current practice.
Additionally, I will outline my path forward, focusing on my commitment to further developing
inclusive leadership and fostering equity at UCLA in my role as the AVIT Training Coordinator.
Evolving as an Adult Learning Facilitator and Adaptive Leader
This action research study has significantly strengthened my practice as both an adult
learning facilitator and an adaptive leader. It emphasized the importance of intentional critical
self-reflection and transformative learning practices, which I now actively integrate into my
facilitation and adaptive leadership strategies. However, I was not able to fully embrace my role
as an adult learning facilitator throughout the action research study. Certain insights emerged
only after conducting my data analysis and completing my writing process. These retrospective
takeaways have deepened my understanding of the critical need to slow down, be fully present,
and engage in deeper self-reflection.
In my out-of-the-field analysis, I gained a deeper understanding of how to use probing
questions and recognized missed opportunities that could have helped my participants explore
their assumptions, perspectives, and reflections more thoroughly. While this realization is still
something I am grappling with, it has strengthened my understanding that effective facilitation
goes beyond content delivery, fancy PowerPoint presentation, and great communication skills. It
involves creating a psychologically safe environment where all participants feel supported and
valued. Reflecting on my previous sessions, I recognized that ensuring the psychological safety
of all participants is essential to fostering a trusting, open space for meaningful dialogue.
Although I intended to encourage critical reflection, I realized that I had not fully engaged with

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the complexities of my participants’ experiences. This highlighted the need to strengthen my
own capacity for critical self-reflection. While incorporating mindfulness practices and mood
check-ins created some space for reflection and growth, it was not fully effective. Though I have
not entirely answered my research question, I have established a foundation of trust and
vulnerability, enriching our collective journey toward increased awareness and consciousness.
The goal of this study was to engage SCU personnel in critical reflection and dialogue,
examining their experiences of marginalization and exploring ways to support marginalized
voices in decision-making. Ultimately, I aimed to help participants become more aware and
conscious, leading to more informed and equitable decisions. However, through the data analysis
and writing process, I realized that my [critical] self-reflections lacked the depth required for true
critical reflection, remaining mostly descriptive. My focus on goal setting prioritized outcomes
over process, which initially hindered my ability to be fully present with my participants and
respond to their needs. Combined with my novice experience in critical reflection, andragogy,
and adaptive leadership, this made it challenging to step back and “get on the balcony” (Heifetz
et al., 2007). As a result, I struggled to address the importance of psychological safety and create
a strong holding environment, which led to mutual distancing and me doing most of the talking.
Current Status in Practice
Since completing my action research and data analysis, I transitioned from my role as a
Faculty Support Analyst at SCU to AVIT Training Coordinator at UCLA. The insights I gained
during this process have significantly influenced this milestone. I have refined my strategies for
facilitating training sessions, leading meetings, engaging in conversations with colleagues,
collaborating on leadership initiatives, and enhancing overall training practices.

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At SCU, while conducting my research study, I served as the first point of contact for
faculty and frequently engaged with my colleagues and student workers in informal
conversations about my topic. Although I was not offered a seat at the senior leadership table
during my 4 years and 7 months there, I viewed this limitation as an opportunity to grow. I
proactively took the initiative to implement practices informed by my research study. My
intention was to foster awareness and cultivate a supportive working environment where my
colleagues and student workers could recognize and address the potential for inadvertently
reproducing marginalization. By becoming more vigilant, they would be better equipped to
disrupt or interrupt such instances, contributing to a more inclusive and equitable environment.
This experience led to an opportunity for me to apply for and accept a new role at UCLA under
the leadership of someone who had guided me in the past. I saw this transition as a chance to
have my voice included in decision-making processes and to contribute meaningfully at a higher
level.
Through my efforts, I developed a strong rapport with both my colleagues and student
workers, which became an invaluable foundation for meaningful interactions. During my
analysis and writing process, many of them sought my advice, not only about the progress of my
dissertation but also about challenges they faced that aligned with the themes of my research
study. As their supervisor, I used these opportunities to provide guidance and support,
embedding principles of equity and inclusion into everyday conversations and decision-making.
These experiences reinforced the importance of critical reflection, a concept I embraced
through my insights from the Rodgers’s reflective cycle (Rodgers, 2002). By continuously
reflecting on these interactions, I adapted my approach to better address their needs with the
intention to create a culture of psychological safety and empower them to challenge systemic

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inequities. While I may not have held a formal leadership title at the senior level, I discovered
that leadership is most impactful when it prioritizes empathy, inclusion, and action at all levels of
an organization.
While at SCU, I shared my perspectives on identity, diversity, gender equality, and the
importance of amplifying marginalized voices in decision-making during numerous 1:1 meetings
with my then-director, who now serves as my executive director at UCLA. Over the past six
months in my new role at UCLA, my position has evolved from Faculty Support Analyst to
AVIT Training Coordinator, providing significant opportunities for growth and inclusion. It has
been incredibly rewarding to see the values I championed driving positive changes within our
department and institution. These changes reflect the qualities I believe are essential for a leader
to cultivate a diverse, gender-equitable, and high-performing team.
However, at UCLA, I’ve witnessed a transformative approach where my concerns have
not only been acknowledged but have also driven changes in our digital spaces and leadership
dynamics. I’m now part of our leadership team that is relatively diverse and balanced in terms of
gender representation. My new leadership team at UCLA Digital Spaces Services consists of 11
members, including:
• 1 Executive Director (White male)
• 2 Directors (African American male and Hispanic male)
• 3 Managers (White female, Taiwanese male, and White male)
• 3 Supervisors (White female, White male, and Hispanic male)
• 1 Lead (White male)
• Me, the Coordinator (Latina female)

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This inclusive environment demonstrates a commitment to diversity and collaboration, which
fosters innovation and equitable decision-making within our team.
At UCLA, I continue to build on these newly gained insights, fostering critical awareness,
consciousness, and inclusivity within our teams and across the department during our
conversations and meetings. I am committed to creating spaces where colleagues can reflect,
learn, and take meaningful action to address unconscious biases and prevent the unintentional
reproduction of marginalization. By incorporating reflective practices daily, I have gained a
broader perspective on how factors like identity, race, ethnicity, power, and gender shape
decision-making and influence whether marginalized voices are amplified or silenced.
Beyond the Study: Cultivating Inclusive Leadership and Equity at UCLA
As I transition beyond this action research study and continue my professional journey at
UCLA as the AVIT Training Coordinator, my focus remains on fostering environments rooted in
trust, vulnerability, and inclusivity. A critical component of this effort is cultivating strong
holding environments—safe spaces where individuals feel empowered to express themselves
openly, voice concerns, and take risks without fear of retribution. These principles are vital for
building mutual respect and psychological safety, especially in the AVIT industry, where
collaboration and innovation are key. In the short term, as I continue to build and refine my
skillset as a researcher, I aim to apply what I have learned while deepening my knowledge and
expertise in the areas of adult learning theory and because of my action research. Additionally, I
will strive to ensure that those around me benefit from this growth through relationship building.
In the long term, I would like to propose a comprehensive series to my executive director
focused on having our team within the Digital Space Department actively engage in critical
reflection and dialogue. This series would be offered both virtually and in-person, I would share

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findings from this research study as a foundation for sparking discussions around equity,
inclusion, and leadership roles in fostering these values. I hope for the series to include
interactive workshops, case studies, and reflective exercises designed to challenge assumptions
and deepen understanding of systemic inequities. By engaging our team in these conversations,
we can collectively explore strategies to amplify marginalized voices and embed equity into
decision-making processes. This effort aims to cultivate a culture of accountability, inclusivity,
and conscious leadership, ensuring equity remains a core institutional priority at UCLA.
Commitment to Change
By implementing these strategies, I aim to advance equitable decision-making, amplify
marginalized voices, and cultivate a culture of lifelong learning and inclusivity at UCLA. This
work reflects my core values as a teacher educator and facilitator, underscoring my commitment
to driving meaningful change within leadership and departmental structures. Through critical
reflection, intentional actions, collaborative efforts, and a collective dedication to equity, we can
build a more inclusive and equitable future for all members of our institution.

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Appendix A:
Klein (2019) I am from…
If our identity shapes our agency, how do we give voice to our being to inspire our doing?
I am from (geography)
I am from (gender)
I am from (class)
I am from (ethnicity/race/nationality)
I am from (sexual orientation)
I am from (ability/disability)
I am from (religion/spirituality)
I am from (politics)
I am from (family)
I am from (education)
I am from (travel)
I am from (heroes/role models)
I am from (social movement)
I am from (dominant culture)
I am from (outsider status)
I am from ( )

115
Appendix B:
Lawrence-Wilkes (2014) REFLECT tool

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This study examines my leadership as the Faculty Support Analyst at Southern Crest University, focusing on empowering marginalized individuals within marginalized communities to recognize and confront the systemic silencing of their voices in decision-making processes. Drawing on my personal experiences as a Latina in higher education, where I faced microaggressions and systemic barriers related to my identity, race, ethnicity, gender, age, and power, this research examines how I navigated these challenges and used my position to foster change. I created a holding environment and applied adaptive leadership strategies, combined with andragogical moves, to help my participants (critically) reflect on their own positionalities and epistemologies. By challenging power dynamics perpetuating marginalization, I aimed to equip participants with the tools to disrupt oppressive structures in their work environments. Through this action research, I facilitated critical reflection dialogues that allowed participants to explore their experiences with systemic silencing. As a result, I was able to make progress in the direction of critical reflection, helping my participants develop a deeper understanding of how to recognize and address the systemic silencing of their voices. The study highlighted the transformative potential of these strategies in empowering marginalized individuals to amplify their voices and drive meaningful change.

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Creator Tatum, Adaline Melissa (author)

Core Title Fostering awareness and action: empowering marginalized colleagues to recognize and address systemic silencing in workplace decision-making processes: a qualitative action research study

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Educational Leadership

Degree Conferral Date 2025-05

Publication Date 01/30/2025

Defense Date 01/27/2025

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