Nermin Vehabovic, assistant professor of education, was invited by University of New Mexico scholar Aijuan Cun to engage graduate students in exploring humanizing approaches to qualitative research, data analysis and the ethical representation of participants’ experiences.
Nermin Vehabovic, assistant professor of education in Elon University’s Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education, was invited to serve as a guest lecturer at the University of New Mexico (UNM) on Nov. 10, 2026. The invitation came from Aijuan Cun, associate professor of literacy and language arts in UNM’s Department of Language, Literacy and Sociocultural Studies.
Vehabovic joined doctoral students in Cun’s Introduction to Qualitative Research seminar to explore humanizing research and its implications for analyzing qualitative data, developing meaningful interpretations and communicating research findings.
Cun’s scholarship focuses on the family literacy practices of immigrant and refugee-background families, heritage languages, multimodality, digital literacy and classroom discourse. Her invitation provided an opportunity for doctoral students to engage with Vehabovic’s scholarship and experiences conducting community-engaged qualitative research with children, youth and families from refugee backgrounds, as well as their educators.
Grounded in principles of humanizing research, Vehabovic’s session encouraged students to consider how researchers can move beyond treating participants as sources of data and instead recognize their humanity, agency, knowledge and lived experiences throughout the research process.
“Humanizing research requires us to think critically about not only how we collect and analyze data, but also how we represent the people who have entrusted us with their stories,” Vehabovic said. “Our interpretations and the stories we choose to tell through our research carry ethical responsibilities, particularly when working alongside communities whose experiences have historically been marginalized and misrepresented.”
Building on students’ previous experiences with qualitative coding, Vehabovic focused on the interpretive work that follows initial data analysis. He discussed how researchers identify relationships across codes, develop broader themes and construct meaningful findings that respond to their research questions while remaining attentive to the complexities of participants’ experiences.
The session also addressed the process of writing qualitative research findings for scholarly publication, including developing thematic claims, selecting illustrative excerpts and connecting interpretations to theoretical frameworks. Throughout the discussion, Vehabovic emphasized the importance of reflexivity, relational accountability and ethical representation in qualitative inquiry.
Drawing on his community-engaged scholarship and experiences writing for peer-reviewed publication, Vehabovic invited students to consider how research can honor participants’ voices without reducing their experiences to predetermined categories or deficit-oriented narratives.
His discussion also connected to Welcome New Neighbor, the community-engaged initiative he founded through the Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education at Elon. The initiative brings teacher candidates and families from refugee backgrounds together through home-based picturebook reading experiences that recognize families’ languages, cultures, histories and ways of knowing as valuable educational resources. Through this work, Vehabovic examines how relationships, storytelling, multilingual practices and everyday literacies can inform more humanizing approaches to education and research.
The invitation highlights Vehabovic’s contributions to scholarship on humanizing research, qualitative inquiry and literacy education, while extending opportunities for interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration across institutions. His engagement with UNM doctoral students underscores the relevance of his community-engaged scholarship to preparing emerging researchers to conduct ethically responsible and relationally grounded qualitative inquiry.