This study aimed to build a professional learning community collaboratively among high school teachers for lifelong growth to minimize teacher isolation, discomfort, and fear. The study was driven by a compelling desire to extend personal learning in ways to impact the school learning community. The foundation for this study was the body of…

This paper reports on a project that involved Australian secondary school students working as participatory researchers in collaboration with a researcher and two teachers. Research methodology using visual narrative techniques provided the students with a conceptual lens to view their school community. The examples of visual narrative shared in…

Participatory research embodies an ideal of community education: all persons affected by issues and decisions should be involved in defining the issues, deciding what information is needed, and participating in making the decisions. (SK)

Discusses Participatory Learning Methods (PALM), a program in which the rural population becomes involved in creative, productive, and sustainable development activities. Describes a typical PALM program and the evolution of PALM methodology. (MDH)

Critically examines community development assumptions through historical analysis and mapping of political discourse. Using the methods of Foucault, Said, and Gramsci, demonstrates how participatory research, concerned with releasing people's knowledge through transformation, can expose and resist dominant discourses. (SK)

Highlander Research and Education Center, begun in 1932 by Myles Horton as Highlander Folk School, continues to provide adult education for empowerment and social change. Once active in labor organization and civil rights movements, the school now focuses on interrelated issues of economic development and environmental crisis in Appalachia. (SV)

Describes the activities of Orlando Fals-Borda and Maria Cristina Salazar in promoting participatory action research and political activism in Colombia. (SK)

Defines transparent research as a strategy in which the subjects of the research are fully involved in the entire process. Presents case studies of the emergency medical department of a medium-sized hospital and of a congregational development project developed in partnership with an Episcopal diocese. (JOW)

A 2-year ethnographic study of a clubhouse for people with long-term mental illness involved club members in particpatory research. The study explored questions of what is research and who drives it. A critical perspective on the social organization of knowledge and power inequities between participants was highlighted. (SK)

Summary Capacity to consent is an important concept when working with people with learning disabilities. The current concept of consent is based on a dichotomous categorization: people either have or do not have capacity to consent. Several research studies have focused on the assessment of capacity to consent and these studies report a range from…

How does one effectively and ethically conduct research with community members who are steeped in histories of economic and social dependency, so that the people themselves take charge of their futures? This question is explored in a Canadian context as the authors study the potential of new technologies to bring hope to traditional coastal…

"Qualitative Research Methods in Education and Educational Technology" was written for students and scholars interested in exploring the many qualitative methods developed over the last 50 years in the social sciences. The book does not stop, however, at the boundaries of the social sciences. Social scientists now consume and use research methods…

Fourth year students in psychology and social work from two South African universities worked together across boundaries of race and class in a course which required them to engage in a personal reflexive way with issues of community and identity. A combination of face-to-face workshops and online tutorial groups was used. The course was demanding…

This paper explores the potential for conducting collaborative and critical research in higher education which problematises the role and practices of the academy in maintaining exclusion. It begins with a brief discussion of UK government discourse on widening participation, and contrasts this with the research literature which indicates the…

This paper explores issues of critical literacy, gender justice and masculinity through "Mr A's" story. Mr A is head of English at "Grange College"--an all boys' school in a large urban centre in Queensland (Australia). The paper highlights how the privileging of rationality, control and "the masculine" within Mr A's…