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.     

Graphing in Physics: Processes and Sources of Error in Tertiary Entrance Examinations in Western Australia

Interpretation and construction of graphs are central to the study of physics and to performance in physics. In this paper, I explore the interpretation and construction processes called upon in questions with a graphical component, in Western Australian Physics Tertiary Entrance Examinations. In addition, I list errors made by students as reported by examiners and offer explanations for the errors. Outcomes of the inquiry are the identification of sources of challenge in the graphing questions, including requirements to calculate gradient and analyse experimental data. I also identify question structures that could be barriers to students' understanding the examination questions. The micro-analysis of graphing in one jurisdiction can inform assessment of high-school physics in general.     

Presenting technical information: A survey of research findings

This paper reviews research investigations into various aspects of the presentation of technical information. It considers the objectives of different readers who may be consulting the information as a reference work or who may need to assimilate the information in its entirety. Ways of using headings, summaries and questions to achieve these differing objectives are discussed. The review also considers the usefulness of alternatives to prose, such as flow charts, tabulation schemes and graphic presentations. It is concluded that although there is no single best presentation format, and although the research literature is in many places incomplete, nevertheless there are a number of studies demonstrating the advantages of particular presentation formats in specific circumstances. The results of these studies need to be given due weighting where decisions are taken about the appropriate way of presenting any technical information.     

Approaches to Collaboration: Experiences of the Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships

ABSTRACT

This study examined how partnerships between early care and education providers were developed and how they worked together to deliver comprehensive, high-quality services to infants and toddlers from low-income families. Survey data were collected from 220 Early Head Start (EHS) program directors and 386 child care center directors and family child care providers participating in EHS-child care partnerships. Research Findings: Nearly half of EHS programs chose partners with whom they had prior relationships, and most engaged them early (often before receiving the grant). Both EHS programs and child care providers described their relationships as mutually respectful and focused on similar goals. Through the partnerships, child care providers had access to professional development opportunities and offered children and families comprehensive services, such as health screenings. Practice or Policy: This study provided a nationally representative picture of EHS-child care partnerships. The findings suggest that strong relationships are foundational to the implementation of early care and education collaborations aimed at expanding access to high-quality care for infants and toddlers from low-income families. Collaborations are a potentially important policy lever that can help support the expansion of high-quality early care and education.     

Affective education for “at-risk” students: The view of urban principals

A sample of principals (N=116) was drawn from a large, urban school district to determine their viewpoints on the academic needs of high-risk students. Principals participated in focus groups designed to establish a common set of definitions and educational objectives for students with chronic achievement problems. Survey data were subsequently gathered for the sample to identify areas where educational delivery systems could be supplemented or enhanced. Factor analysis of the data revealed five critical areas for improving educational outcomes for at-risk students, including academic transitions, affective interventions, content-oriented programs, alternative structures, and social-needs programs. The common theme identified in the responses of these principals was a belief that more attention should be given to the affective resources, including counseling personnel, transitional programs, and alternative classroom structures.     

A Multidimensional Investigation of Deep-level and Surface-level Processing

This study examines the moderating effects of a situational factor (i.e., text type) and an individual factor (i.e., subject-matter knowledge) on the relation between depth of processing and performance. One-hundred and fifty-one undergraduates completed measures of subject-matter knowledge, read either an expository or persuasive text about the existence of extraterrestrials while thinking aloud, and then completed a passage recall task and an open-ended task. Results indicated that the relation between depth of processing and the open-ended tasks was moderated by the type of text participants read (i.e., expository or persuasive). Moreover, there was a significant interaction between the passage recall measure and open-ended task for depth of processing and type of text.