Constructing Meaning About Violence,School, and Community: Participatory Action Research with Urban Youth

In this paper, I describe how a group of young adolescents negotiate their daily lives within the seeming permanence of a toxic environment, limited social services, poverty, crime, drugs, and inadequate educational resources. The world that the young people described in this paper inhabit is a world of despair and hope, chaos and silence, violence and peace, struggle and possibility—a world in which they spend a good deal of time surviving violence while negotiating the psychosocial, economic, raced, gendered, classed, and sociocultural borders that inform and influence their lives.Through the use of participatory action research and community photography, we are problematizing those borders and creating spaces for young urban youth to engage in processes that position them as agents of inquiry and as experts about their own lives. As the data reveal, by listening to young people's stories, by giving them the opportunity to speak about their lives, and by collaborating with them in designing plans of action to address their concerns, we can more effectively frame research questions and teaching pedagogies around their understandings of violence and urban life. As important, by examining their lives via participatory action research, young people are provided with opportunities to take deliberate action to enhance community well-being.     

行动研究在高校学生会建设中的应用

行动研究是一种日益受到人们关注的融教育理论与实践于一体的教育研究方法,本文介绍了行动研究的基本概念及应用步骤,探计了行动研究在高校学生会建设中的具体应用,阐明了它对于高校学生套建设的实际意义.     

Shared Power,Risk-taking,and Innovation: Participatory Action Research in Jewish Education

ABSTRACT

In this article, the authors describe and discuss applications of the Group-Level Assessment/Understanding (GLA/GLU) process, an innovative participatory action research methodology. The authors first describe the GLA/GLU application in the Mandel Teacher Educator Institute (MTEI) and the creation of an MTEI interpretive community to deeply analyze the collected data. The authors then describe adaptations of the process in their home communities to address community-identified dilemmas, tensions, and problems. The article concludes with reflections on common themes that emerged in the GLA/GLU applications–shared power, risk-taking, and methodological innovation.     

Activating student voice through Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR): policy-making that strengthens urban education reform

Abstract

CC Vision – an urban education reform effort launched to strengthen the cradle-to-career education pipeline in Central City – provides the impetus for our use of youth participatory action research (YPAR) to gather and activate student voice in the fight for education justice. Student voice can significantly enhance the quality of policy designed to expand access to education opportunity for poor and/or youth of color attending urban schools. Fifteen youth from seven different high schools in the Central City metropolitan area spent 18 weeks participating in the Central City Youth Co-Researcher Project as co-researchers. We aim to demonstrate the tensions of facilitating YPAR projects with diverse youth, and the benefits of YPAR as a student voice initiative intended to bolster justice-oriented education research. The influence of their scholarship vis-à-vis YPAR on wide-scale education policy-making, and education reform, in Central City is discussed.     

Environmental Action as Context for Youth Development

This study explored the practices of teachers, nonformal science educators, community organizers, youth program managers, and other educators facilitating youth participation in local environmental action, as well as the experiences of some of the youth involved. We conducted narrative interviews with 33 educators facilitating youth environmental action in communities throughout the United States and group interviews with 46 youth participating in nine environmental action programs in New York State. Through interpretation of educators' stories and youths' reflections, we discovered strong parallels with theory and empirical research in the youth development literature suggesting environmental action is a valuable context for positive youth development.     

From voicing your opinion to politicised voice: a youth-led social justice class at an urban continuation high school

This article examines the work of three urban youths as they designed and taught a social justice class at an urban continuation high school in California, USA. Drawing from a two-year ethnographic study of the project, it shows that youth participants constructed a set of imagined binaries to frame teachers, schoolwork and coercion in opposition to students, voice and liberation. The article examines how the youths distinguished ordinary coercive teaching from their own liberatory teaching, creating a coercive/liberatory binary that served as metaphor for a series of binaries shaping their approach to social justice education: teacher/student, adult/youth and schoolwork/voice. It concludes that although the social justice class accomplished many important aims, the reconstruction of and reliance on a coercive/liberatory binary within the project ultimately limited its effectiveness as a social justice education effort.     

Cultural Curriculum and Marginalized Youth: An Analysis of Conflict at a School for Juvenile Parolees

In this article I analyze marginalized juvenile parolees' schooling experiences at an alternative community school in a large southwestern city. My analysis is based on a year of field research at the school. The analysis draws heavily from the critical pedagogy literature and focuses on how the school's cultural curriculum (rules, assignments, and discourses) conflicted with students' locally based identities. I illustrate how the conflict between the school's cultural curriculum and students' locally based identities hindered the learning process at the school and helped create student resistance against the school. The analysis reveals that the youths, who strongly valued their locally based identities, often resisted and rejected the school's attempted transmission of dominant cultural identities (e.g., nongang member) and capital (e.g., formal school knowledge). Teachers' generally sincere attempts to help students' transition to a better life played a significant role in students' school failure.     

When soda is a social justice issue: design and documentation of a participatory action research project with youth

Schools are increasingly seen as having a promising role to play in reducing adverse health and wellness outcomes among young people. This paper uses a collaborative action research approach to examine the effects of one school’s efforts to change its students’ eating habits by implementing a ‘junk-food free campus.’ By engaging school administrators and students in a six-month process of joint research design and analysis, the author found that students understood but did not necessarily support the policy. Despite students’ uneven support of the policy, however, there was some evidence that some students were developing healthier eating habits. Moreover, student researchers reported developing greater perspective and respect for the policy as a result of studying it.     

高职课程行动研究的实践思考

课程行动研究是作为课程实践主体的教师在自然的教育情境中直接参与的一种探究活动。高职院校教师应从多维度对教学过程进行反思、评价,通过研究教学文本、创建课堂教学对话、开展多元化的教学评价等方式来改进教学品质,提高课程品质。     

Ethical dilemmas of youth participatory action research in a democratic setting

ABSTRACT

This article discusses ethical issues involved in facilitating the research of young people on controversial issues. This article considers the potential ethical dilemmas of teachers facilitating a particular form of activism – youth participatory action research (YPAR). We consider how teachers foster school-wide conversations on difficult issues and support students who wish to take a critical stand on issues of race, class and gender. The article also discusses how to scaffold the exploration of topics that require emotional maturity and might lead to shifts in beliefs that run counter to the values of one’s family.     

论远程教育教师的行动研究

本文采用勒温提出的行动研究的螺旋循环模式,从计划、行动、观察与反思四个环节说明了行动研究的过程。     

高中英语课堂词汇有效教学的行动研究

该文以行动研究的方法去解决高中英语课堂词汇教学的共性问题,旨在提高词汇教学的有效性。这对高中英语教学质量的大面积提高有着重要的现实意义。     

行动研究与大学英语分级教学教师专业发展

大学英语教师科研能力相对薄弱,分级教学改革对大学英语教师提出更高专业要求。在K．Lewin行动研究理论基础上,阐述了对教师专业发展概念的新理解,探讨大学英语教师在从事教学实践的同时提高科研能力、获得专业发展的具体办法,为从事大学英语分级教学的教师专业发展提供一定参考。     

Teaching Inquiry to High School Teachers Through the Use of Mathematics Action Research Projects

Abstract

This paper describes the use of Mathematics Action Research Projects (ARPs) as a capstone experience in lieu of a Master’s Thesis in a Master’s program for in-service secondary teachers. The ARPs include two primary components: (i) each teacher participant conducts mathematical research that is new to them on a topic that is connected in some way to the material they teach in one of their classes; and (ii) each teacher participant also creates an in-class innovation related to the mathematical research they have been doing, and implements it in their own classroom. Ten teacher participants have completed such ARPs with the author over the last 3 years. In completing their ARPs, teacher participants not only learn how to conduct mathematical inquiry themselves, but also most often choose to implement some kind of inquiry-based classroom innovation that allows them to share some of this experience with their own students. This course structure has had the effect of encouraging teachers to decide to try more inquiry-based teaching methods, and at the same time, has given them the knowledge and tools to be successful in doing so.     

教育的行动研究:看见脉络中的人与教育问题

教育的行动研究将人与教育问题置于人与历史性政经/文化/体制化社会结构交互作用的脉络来理解、解释与改进.对《我亲爱的甜橙树》的儿童观假设的探究、信息查找作业与家校合作策略的拟定,以及阅读的行动研究均显示:辨识与看见脉络,是重新框定问题的条件,是探究问题产生的原因的理论视角,也是转化与改进的契机.教育的行动研究,是研究者与参与者在伙伴关系中结成生命的同盟,是将人和教育问题置于人与历史性社会结构互动的脉络中加以理解、解释,致力于创建一个更公正健全的社会,研究者、参与者以及研究问题均得到改进的研究.     

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.     

Our School at Blair Grocery: A Case Study in Promoting Environmental Action Through Critical Environmental Education

Despite wide agreement on the goals of environmental education (EE), the promotion of action is still considered contentious. Critical environmental education (critical EE) teaches students to combine critical reflection with the ability to engage in local action to address social/environmental problems. This article examines a critical urban farming school in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward for how student action is addressed. Results found that critical learning within an egalitarian, youth-centered community located in a disadvantaged area produces students who are more enlightened and empowered to create change. However, concerns regarding funding and safety led staff to not adhere to maintaining an egalitarian ethic, undermining the individualism and unpredictability that critical EE thrives upon and producing “disconnects” in students’ education.     

课程行动研究：方法论视角的探讨

课程行动研究是伴随着教师即研究者运动重新兴起的一种研究方式，在实践中有多种表现形式。它有着与实证主义不同的方法论基础，深受现象学、解释学、批判理论等哲学思潮的影响，注重场地研究和实际问题的解决。这一研究方式对课程变革、教师专业能力的提升有重要意义。     

数学教育中的行动研究

自20世纪80年代，在美国数学教师协会的数学标准影响下，数学教育研究的重点转向了实际课堂教学。这种转变提供了教师们利用自己课堂做研究的体会。行动研究的理论基础由批评性理论、后现代主义及建构主义组成。它的目的是促进教师们知道什么是有效的教学，从而提高教师解决问题的能力及学生的学习水平。在行动研究中，教师既能发挥研究者的作用，又能通过研究使自己成为不断学生新知识的终生学习者。     

Action Research in Education,in the Era of Liquid Modernity[1]

In the post-Franco context of the 1960s in Spain, we asked ourselves what type of changes were necessary for the teaching profession to respond to the demands of a democratic society. This article reflects the discourse developed over many years within the personal experience of one of those young people who received John Elliott's seminal work back at that time and their intellectual influence in the years since. It is concerned to see to what extent action research makes sense in education, within the context of the cultural change we are immersed in today. The debate about who rules the change can be reformulated today again within the socio-political and cultural context of the present moment of modernity. But the paradox of the change dilemmas cannot be resolved, but constitute the essence of action research; they are its justification. It is argued that a central feature of this new state of modernity is the recognition of uncertainty and deliberation is seen as a basic means to face it. While the structure of the systems tends to reproduce through different means the conventional model of dual systems and professional models based on technical rationality, educational discourse very often emphasises the discourse which emerged in the new age of liquid modernity. This contradiction leads to three possible scenarios, each with important practical consequences on curricular development, on teaching professionalism and on the type of research required. Each of these is considered.