COLLABORATING WITH PEOPLE TO STUDY "THE POPULAR": IMPLEMENTING PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH STRATEGIES IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

This article seeks to describe the theoretical foundation upon which the author has pursued research into questions of how religious educators could and should interact with popular culture. The methodology employed is most often labelled "participatory action research," and is used in an attempt to bring together the various disciplines of theology, psychology, media studies, and religious education into one conversation that sheds light on the dilemmas facing religious educators in a mass-mediated context. In many ways the choice of which methodology to use to pursue these questions has its roots in the situatedness of the author's own educational journey. Locating herself in a particular context leads into a discussion of the distinctions between "method," "methodology," and "epistemology"; and from there into a very brief consideration of "standpoint" epistemology and its utility in the convergence of feminist practice and religious educational practice. From there her understanding of participatory action research, and how that methodology has worked to structure a collaboration with other religious educators around the use of media literacy within religious education is explicitly described.