Participatory Design?
I've been reading Charaway and Brydon-Miller about Participatory Action? Research.
Participatory Action Reserach integrates psychology and critical theory into is methodology and it seems to fit everything that I have been thinking about and that I want to integrate into my project and later into my dissertation.
What I am worried about is the parts wherer it DOESN'T fit and how much I can deviate to what others have defined as basic tenets of PAR or PD and still be considered PAR/PD.
In PAR "the researcher is pursuing social justice and human liberation through a process of critical praxis"
The basic tenets according to Brydon-Miller who cites Hall (1981)articulates "a basic set of methodological tenets":
1. PAR focuses on communities and populations that have traditionally been exploited or oppressed
This criterion has been met. I think students can be seen as "oppressed" since they usually are silent in the educational design process.
PAR works to address both specific concerns of the community and the fundamental causes of the oppression with the goal of achieving positive social change
In this case, I'm not so sure. The second part is certainly applicable. I do want to look at the causes of the oppression (which is mostly that students don't know what they need to know and teachers do). This thought is held not only by teachers but by students themselves. We can see this when students want to be told what to do since the teacher is the one who has all the answers. We can also think of this in terms of culture since we have the authority figure telling the subordinate what needs to be done. The positive social change would be to empower the students to contribute to their own knowledge (not only by being critical thinkers by completing their assignments and following the guidelines/design of the teacher) but by demanding that their voices be heard in how curriculum is designed.
What I am worried about is the "specific concerns of the community." At this point, I am not sure that students as a "community" exists. They certainly are a community in the classroom but they are not coalesced around an issue. Each one is there individually and because it is a requirement to complete the academic core. Each one has the goal of making their lives better, that is the one thing that they have in common.
We can say that teachers are part of the community and that teachers also have the same goal as the students but they also have more specific objectives for the course which need to be met.
What I am concerned about these preset objectives. Since the community really cannot decide "what" they will learn. They can help to decide "HOW" they will learn it. The goals in this case are already set and there is an expectation of certain broader goals.
So how can the participants really articulate what thier concerns are?
PAR is a process of research, education, and action to which all participants contribute their unique skills and knowledge and through which all participants learn and are transformed.
This project will certainly meet this criterion since students will use their own skills, experiences and expectations of future need to help with the design of the course.
Methods include:
questionnaires
interviews
popular theater
political action
group discussion
community seminars
educational camps
intercultural exchange programs
video production
storytelling
The "fundamental difference between this approach and traditional research is that in PAR members of the community themselves, drawing on the expertise of the researcher, determine what questions to ask and which methods to use. TOGETHER they develop or adapt the research instruments, carry out the research, and take part in analyzing the research." The participants or community own the research results and determine how that new knowledge will be used.
When the community is not organized around an issue, the researcher can initiate discussion but eventually the control must be shifted away from the researcher to empower rather than coopt. "Understanding insider versus outsider status and its implications is critical to effective PAR."
Shared reflection and consolidation of the learning taking place is very important.
PAR--Psychology--Empowerment
Empowerment is a process one must do for oneself.
Brydon-Miller, Mary. (2001). "Education, Reserach, and Action: Theory and Methods of Participatory Action Research." Of Interpretive and Participatory Methods. Eds. Deborah L. Tolman and Mary Brydon Miller. NYUP: 2001.