Share a peer-reviewed article not included in the reading list that helped you untangle reflexivity from reflection.
The article I have chosen was written by Professor Paul Hibbert, University of St. Andrews, School of Management, St. Andrews, Scotland. The article is titled, Approaching Reflexivity Through Reflection: Issues for Critical Management Education.
Dr. Hibbert’s paper seeks to develop insights for teaching reflexivity in undergraduate management classes by developing critical reflection processes. The introduction of the paper identified how reflexivity is often associated with research and teaching. Going one step farther, reflexivity in education has been described as the sine qua non (an essential condition or element) of critical management studies (Fulop, 2002). Hibbert (2013) supports this belief by stating, “reflexivity is intrinsic to the emancipation of thinking and the overcoming (or at least recognition) of the most deeply hidden influences and constraints: those hidden within our own assumptions” (p. 3).
Although Dr. Hibbert’s work career mainly was in industry management, my career was in law enforcement (government) management but supporting similar concerns and disappointments. We both reflected on our careers and experiences, leaving us with some uncomfortable realizations. The style of work, pressures, and toxic work environment were neither necessary nor beneficial to our health or the organization’s success. We were keen on exploring ways in which we could help others avoid the same mistakes.
This led Dr. Hibbert to engage with the topic of reflexivity. To find the answers, he had to examine and question his assumptions concerning his problems at hand and undermine the socialized constraints that guide, inform, and shape such assumptions (Hibbert, 2013). If our foundational assumptions change as a result of the process of reflexivity, then the process of thinking is also changed. As stated by Hibbert (2013), “reflexivity is reflection.”
Understanding ourselves and promoting critical self-awareness requires the study of reflexivity and considering how it might relate to our academic lives and teaching practices. The important objective for teaching reflexivity is to nurture an inquiry attitude and turn it both outwards and inwards. “The reflective gaze should be turned outwards in the beginning to see the social systems that affect and enable individual possibilities and inwards, in the beginning, to see the hand of these systems at work in oneself” (Hibbert, 2013, p. 19). The desired attitude of reflexive enquiry should lead to a loosening of commitment to all particular ideological worldviews. However, acknowledging ideologies are “inevitable, all-pervasive and ever-present.” (Watson, 1982, p. 274).
Through reflection and reflexivity, the critical point is that learners can see their world views and see what new interpretations and understandings may be surfaced through entertaining such radically new perspectives.
References
Fulop, L. (2002). Practising what you preach: Critical management studies and its teaching. Organization, 9, p. 428-436.
Hibbert, P. (2013). Approaching reflexivity through critical reflection: Issues for critical management education. Journal of Management Education, 37:6, p. 803-827. Research Gate.
Watson, T. (1982). Group ideologies and organizational change. Journal of Management Studies, 19, p. 259-275.
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