Inclusive Classrooms: A Confessional Tale on a Metissage

This article is written as a confessional tale of the authors' experience of conducting a metissage research process on inclusive classrooms within a course as part of a graduate program. Amanda, the lead author, is a queer elementary school teacher, researching the 2SLGBTQIA+ community within local classrooms and schools, and the Tim is their instructor in a research methods course. Together, we worked to explore the metissage methodology through a confessional tale to unpack the process and to frame the performance piece shared as an anonymously read metissage based on three participants' voices: (a) a teacher and parent of a child with a disability, (b) an Indigenous teacher and (c) the lead author's voice as a queer teacher. As Kluge (2001) explained, confessional tales represent the researcher's personal account through the reflexive process that they experienced in the beginning, during, and at the end of the research process. Confessional tale is the postscript that follows the research progression in a highly personal diary-like format (Van Maanen, 1988). A metissage is an arts-based research methodology where a series of narrative writings by single authors are woven together to create a larger, thematic text, with the intent of "transformation from the inside out" (Worley, 2006, p. 518). In this article, therefore, we offer insights from Amanda's reflective comments, with their critical friend Tim (course instructor), on both the metissage process and their commitment to use research to create safer spaces for all through promoting participatory lived experience insights on inclusivity.