Participatory action research in culturally complex societies: opportunities and challenges

One of the aims of participatory action research (PAR) is to bring realities of lives closer together through dialogue and ‘conscientization’, raising critical awareness among participants from all backgrounds. Promoting participation often assumes a power shift from the decision-makers to the majority of society, who can be the end-receivers of decisions made. Once some kind of awareness is achieved, the participants should be able to challenge the causes of their perceived oppression, or resolve the suffering that is endured, if that is what they hope to achieve. However, the situation is more complex in many contemporary societies, in which there are not only differing cultural beliefs related to religion, but different ontologies about being and living in the world. There is much contemporary debate about the possibilities of critique that take on board divergent sociomaterial realities within the same classroom. Practical and structural differences can pose challenges to conducting PAR research. In this article, we address the distinctive nature of PAR in relation to a culturally diverse group of participants. We argue that research using a PAR framework can result in subtle ethical challenges, which also provide insights for opportunities and strategies. Drawing from the authors’ experiences in multicultural education and working with culturally diverse youth and postgraduate students, opportunities and challenges of applying a PAR approach are discussed. We conclude with the suggestion that PAR remains consistent with its original transformative goals, but also remain open to further explorations of activism that address pressing contemporary concerns within culturally complex societies.     

Relationality as a response to challenges of participatory action research in indigenous contexts: reflections from the field

ABSTRACT

Three researchers share their reflections on the challenges and goodness of fit of using participatory action research (PAR) in studies with indigenous peoples in the United States and Canada. Three central challenges of participatory methodologies are identified: (1) defining what constitutes participation; (2) the extended time required for a PAR study; and (3) researcher positionality. The authors discuss tensions inherent in the western academy when shifting final decision-making authority over research processes away from the academic institution to the indigenous community. A model situating the principles of PAR alongside perspectives and values congruent with the indigenous concept of relationality is presented as a means of mitigating these challenges. This approach aligns PAR principles within culturally-congruent definitions of relationship and encourages researchers to re-imagine participation as a form of relationship, allowing them to engage more deeply and genuinely with indigenous participants.     

Searching the literature on teaching strategies and approaches for pupils with special educational needs: knowledge production and synthesis

This paper considers the problems that were encountered in searching and using the literature (about practice) to answer questions about future directions for policy in teaching learners with special educational needs (SEN). It draws upon a recently completed scoping study on the effectiveness of different approaches and strategies used to teach pupils with a range of special educational needs ( Davis & Florian, 2004 ) which foregrounded issues of search strategy, knowledge organisation and synthesis. The paper argues that a literature review is historically, culturally and socially produced knowledge and is an important but limited piece of evidence. Guidance for undertaking a review of literature on teaching practice is offered.     

Evaluation of a Multi-case Participatory Action Research Project: The Case of SOLINSA

Abstract

Purpose: Scholars agree that evaluation of participatory action research is inherently valuable; however there have been few attempts at evaluating across methods and across interventions because the perceived success of a method is affected by context, researcher skills and the aims of the participants. This paper describes the systematic evaluation of participatory action research with 17 European networks (LINSA) as part of a research project titled SOLINSA: Support of Learning and Innovation Networks for Sustainable Agriculture.

Methodology: Participatory action research was carried out over three years in collaboration with the 17 LINSA using a learning-oriented evaluation that was adapted to SOLINSA. The collaboration was evaluated using a structured evaluation instrument that was developed in the project.

Findings: The primary achievements of the interactions were based around enabling LINSA to reflect on their state and their practices. Joint reflection; facilitated by a member of the research team and in collaboration with the LINSA, stimulated internal engagement, enabled rethinking of the network's positioning, contributed to strategy development, and enabled creation of concrete outputs. Participation in the reflection process served to encourage commitment to the LINSA by individuals while improving relationships within the LINSA. Researchers and participants expressed that collaborative action research can be considered successful when both parties give and gain benefits, such as new knowledge or improved practical solutions.

Practical implications: Comparison of self-evaluation of different networks using a single tool enabled the identification of common factors that contribute to successful collaboration. Included in these common factors was the need to identify and build a working relationship with key partners based on mutual trust and commitment, and to gain a balance between guidance and listening, interactions and freedom, and positive and critical reflection: a fragile equilibrium that is difficult and time consuming to establish.

Originality: The adaptation of learning-oriented evaluation, by including a structure to allow comparison between the wide range of contexts, provides a useful instrument for evaluating participatory action research processes.     

Re-visioning Action: Participatory Action Research and Indigenous Theories of Change

This article observes that participatory action research (PAR), by nature of being collaborative, necessitates making explicit theories of change that may have otherwise gone unseen or unexamined. The article explores the limits of the reform/revolution paradox on actions and theories of change in PAR. Citing examples from two recent youth PAR projects on educational issues, the author submits that when met with such a paradox, one can only move to a new vantage point. Four alternative vantage points, drawn from Indigenous epistemologies, are illustrated; they are sovereignty, contention, balance, and relationship.

Science education textbook research trends: a systematic literature review

The number of science education research papers has been rapidly rising in recent years. This number has been particularly influenced by researchers from non-English speaking countries who contribute to the field. With this number of papers, literature reviews gain in importance as they help researchers more easily orient themselves in problem areas. The authors of this study present a literature review on science textbook research. The importance of textbooks in education is indisputable, yet research in this field is surprisingly unbalanced between particular regions or states. In this paper, a review of 183 papers published between 2000 and 2018, indexed to the Web of Science database, is introduced. The results show that researchers in Europe and the USA focus on textbook research more than researchers elsewhere in the world. The textbooks most frequently researched on are science books for secondary schools. Textbook research consists mostly of analysing learning concepts and how concepts are integrated, non-textual elements in textbooks, visual representations, learning content or learning text analysis.     

行动研究在我国的发展:回顾与反思

我国早期的行动研究具有实证主义的倾向,认为行动研究的目的是探究普遍的教育规律,以教育实验的方式进行,强调实验过程对条件的控制,只有极少数教师参与行动研究;从20世纪90年代开始,我国的行动研究一方面仍遵循实证主义的"假设—验证"模式,另一方面也具备了解释主义的精神,即在教育教学的实际情境中去发现问题和解决问题,由此理解情境化的教育实践;进入21世纪,我国的行动研究更是坚持解释主义的立场,并出现"草根化"的趋势。行动研究不再被认为是单纯的解决问题的工具,而是教师将他人理论转化为个人理论,再转化为教学行为,从而促进学生学习和教师专业发展的过程。     

Teachers as evaluators: Results from a systematic literature review

Teacher professional standards globally now include a stronger emphasis on teacher research and evaluation skills. Yet, little is known about how to build these capacities through teacher education. This paper reports on a systematic literature review conducted to synthesize the literature about approaches to improving research and evaluative skills and attitudes in teachers. A total of 19 studies were included. The field is largely dominated by small qualitative studies that focus on teacher action research as a facilitator of professional development. There is a substantial and highly problematic gap in the research specifically in relation to building evaluation skills in teachers. Recommendations include a stronger investment in teacher education focussed on evaluation and evaluative thinking, which holds significant potential to positively impact the professional practice of teachers and student learning outcomes.     

Participatory Action Research and Critical Race Theory: Fueling Spaces for Nos-otras to Research

Drawing on the intersections of a justice oriented participatory action research and critical race theory, this essay explores the possibilities for research embedded in the theoretical, ethical and methodological overlaps between the two. Using the Echoes project as a case study, a participatory collective of intentionally diverse youth from New York and New Jersey brought together in the long shadow of Brown, to document and perform educational injustice in their schools, the essay asks social scientists what it means to engage research that takes seriously the idea of mutual implication, or what Anzaldúa (Borderlands/La Frontera, The New Mestiza, 1999) calls nos-otras—whereby research is designed to seek knowledge at the nexus of everyday lived experience and intricate social systems; to ask questions that allow individuals to hold multiple, even opposing, identities; to provoke analyses that requires historical re-memory; to destabilize naturalized power hierarchies. Research that calls for socially engaged questions that demand to be answered collectively through research and action.

PAR is a way of life: Participatory action research as core re-training for fugitive research praxis

Abstract

In this article, we present participatory action research (PAR) as a radical act of humanity: a direct response to real dehumanization of vulnerable communities. We argue, as an enactment of critical social theories, that PAR privileges relationships and shared knowledge creations as strategies for transforming everyday worlds. We draw on interviews conducted with nine participants of a 2013 Krueger-Henney, P. (2013). Co-researching school spaces of dispossession: A story of survival. The Association of Mexican American Educators Journal, 7(3), 42–53. [Google Scholar] PAR Institute, which aimed to explore and document the ways in which PAR is taken up in the lives, bodies, and thinking of PAR activists and students. Interviews reveal PAR is not an act of imagination, but rather an act of reclaiming and disrupting realities. As a result, PAR fractures an ongoing dystopia/utopia dialectic, and positions horror and hope side-by-side in the material world. It is through and with participant interview narratives that we frame PAR as a site for re-training one’s epistemic core away from Western, Eurocentric standardized and normalized human conduct rooted in historical and ongoing violence towards a fugitive praxis. We conclude that PAR is a radical commitment to guiding social science researchers towards epistemological fugitivity: a moving with and through current, though historically rooted, devastating social realities, as a possibility for a way to be with each other – indeed with the other – in this world. We find that PAR is a way of resisting and rejecting the nastiness of the world, while not waiting for utopia: It is a way of being in this world, a way of life.     

国内外二语写作元认知研究述评--元认知与二语写作教学系列研究之二

文章分析总结了近年来国内外二语写作元认知研究的特点及涉及的方面，归纳了学者们的研究成果及存在的不足，并提出了有待进一步讨论的问题。     

旅游目的地风险管理研究综述

文章简述了旅游目的地风险管理研究的意义,对近30年国内外旅游风险研究的内容进行了概述和梳理,指出了目前目的地旅游风险研究的趋势与不足。研究表明,应该加强对旅游风险基础理论和风险评价方法的研究;关注针对特定主体,如欠发达地区、生态脆弱地区、文化敏感地区的研究,以提高旅游风险研究成果的针对性和应用价值。     

Participatory action research: Collective reflections on gender,culture, and language

The focus of this article is the experiences of three undergraduate students who engaged in a participatory action research (PAR) project with a group of preadolescent Latina girls attending a public school in Boston, MA, USA. The aim of the 2-year project was to explore how the girls constructed knowledge about girlhood and other gender-related issues.     

Advantages and challenges associated with augmented reality for education: A systematic review of the literature

This study presents a systematic review of the literature on augmented reality (AR) used in educational settings. We consider factors such as publication year, learner type (e.g., K-12, higher education, and adult), technologies in AR, and the advantages and challenges of using AR in educational settings. The full range of SSCI journals was surveyed and a total of 68 research articles were selected for analysis. The findings reveal an increase in the number of AR studies during the last four years. The most reported advantage of AR is that it promotes enhanced learning achievement. Some noted challenges imposed by AR are usability issues and frequent technical problems. We found several other challenges and numerous advantages of AR usage, which are discussed in detail. In addition, current gaps in AR research and needs in the field are identified, and suggestions are offered for future research.     

教育行动研究中的合作:为何与何为

中小学教师是教育行动研究的主体,中小学教师与理论工作者的合作是中小学教师参与教育行动研究的必然选择。然而,现实中这一合作或者演变为"人大于人"的合作,或者"走样"为理论工作者与中小学校领导的合作,甚至成为理论工作者的"独舞"。本文根据大学-中小学合作研究的实践以及来自美国大学与小学合作研究的个案,认为权利的均衡、信任关系的建立以及交流与沟通,是教育行动研究中的合作有效开展的三个关键要素。     

教师行动研究的专业伦理及其建构

教师开展行动研究面临专业伦理缺位的问题。应基于行动研究的伦理关系,确立教师专业伦理规范：在师生关系上,以尊重、理解和保护学生为道德基准,以学生发展为本;在与学校管理者关系上,坚持平等合作、民主参与和专业判断的行为准则;在自我探究与实践反思中,保持改进、敢于创新的自觉性和责任感;在与同行及专业研究者合作中,秉持民主开放、信任合作和专业自主的专业精神。教师行动研究的专业伦理,是在必要的制度规约下,教师主体不断的道德认同、承诺与践履,实现制度伦理与德性伦理的整合与同构,生成道德实践智慧的建构过程。     

First-, second- and third-person values-based ethics in educational action research: personal resonance,mutual regard and social responsibility

Generalisation is inescapable. We all generalise. It is part of our cognitive apparatus and it is fundamental to the way we live. Our understanding of the world has to go beyond our own unique and limited experiences if we are to interact, empathise, understand and communicate with others in our social milieu. Without generalisation we could not interact with our world in a meaningful and coherent way – that is to say, we would need continual repetition of the same mental procedures for each new experience.     

Transformative change in higher education through participatory action research: a capabilities analysis

As a methodological approach, participatory action research (PAR), and its variant of critical action research in education, aims to further social justice and generate transformative change. Although this understanding of PAR is well rehearsed, there is still a gap in detailed explorations of the transformative impact of PAR projects in higher education settings beyond the classroom: how do we then know whether transformative change through PAR has taken place, in which ways, through which processes, and for whom. This article aims to address these questions through proposing the use of a participatory action research cube (PARC) as a human capabilities evaluative framework for personal and structural transformative change enabled by PAR projects. Evaluating transformative change from this perspective rests on both the normative nature of the capabilities approach in its justice concerns, as well as consideration for individual well-being, understood as the expansion of freedoms people have to live the lives they value. Evaluating change both includes personal well-being as well as broader social or structural impact in the direction of more social justice. To demonstrate this empirically, we report on an eight-month PAR project on one rural South African university campus, where 13 undergraduate students were involved in researching gender inequalities on their campus. The PARC analysis highlights the development of capabilities and agency through axes of participation, knowledge development, and public deliberation, as well as identifying the developmental impact of these axes on transformative change for the participants, as well as the university.     

Participation in health through the construction of encounters: a micropolitical approach

We assume that the construction of encounters that produce care is a participative practice in health. Drawing on different research that has explored care production from a micropolitical approach, we present a view of participation as embedded in everyday life and based on the construction of encounters and relationships. Our goal is to provide reflections for debate on participatory practice within different frames of action. Based on the analysis of different cartographic narratives generated by research on a reproductive health policy, we discuss some core elements for the construction of encounters that produce care. On the same lines as models of professional development based on professionals’ day-to-day experiences, we propose experimentation during the encounters and discussion about what happens in them, as both a reflective practices and forms of collective and participative knowledge production.