Participatory action research (PAR) seeks to understand the world by trying to change it, collaboratively and reflectively. An alternative to positivism in science, this long-standing tradition emphasizes principles of collective inquiry and experimentation grounded in experience and social history. Within a PAR process, "communities of inquiry and action evolve and address questions and issues that are significant for those who participate as co-researchers" (Reason and Bradbury, 2008, p. 1).
PAR practitioners make a concerted effort to integrate three basic aspects of their work: participation (life in society and democracy), action (engagement with experience and history), and research (soundness in thought and the growth of knowledge) (Chevalier and Buckles, 2013, ch. 1). "Action unites, organically, with research" and collective processes of self-investigation (Rahman, 2008, p. 49). The way each component is actually understood and the relative emphasis it receives varies nonetheless from one PAR theory and practice to another. This means that PAR is not a monolithic body of ideas and methods but rather a pluralistic orientation to knowledge making and social change (Chambers, 2008, p. 297; see Allen, 2001; Camic and Joas, 2003; SAS2 Dialogue).
Chevalier and Buckles, 2103, p. 10 |
Read more about Participatory Action Research: Overview, Ethics, Challenges
Famous quotes containing the words action and/or research:
“Let him [the President] once win the admiration and confidence of the country, and no other single force can withstand him, no combination of forces will easily overpower him.... If he rightly interpret the national thought and boldly insist upon it, he is irresistible; and the country never feels the zest of action so much as when the President is of such insight and caliber.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“... research is never completed ... Around the corner lurks another possibility of interview, another book to read, a courthouse to explore, a document to verify.”
—Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897–1973)