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This section on developing courses on COMMUNITY-BASED ACTION RESEARCH focuses on a variety of approaches community-based organizations and others can conduct research from a community perspective. It stresses "participatory action research" a strategy which promotes the development of community leaders by directly involving as researchers the people who are most directly affected by an issue. They learn through researching that issue, usually working with others facing the same problem. and developed a shared analysis and plan.
This involvement includes conducting interviews with decision-makers, reviewing key documents, and analyzing issues -- their causes, alternative views on them, and relevant policies and institutions. |
As they research and analyze the issues through this process of "popular education", people develop their own deep knowledge of the issue so they can work out the solutions to their own problems. They gain experience in jointly developing findings, conclusions and recommendations. Through direct experience they develop their skills in analysis, building strong fact-based knowledge, and experience in argumentation, developing consensus, and creating effective reports and educational and media strategies.
By working with others affected by the issue, they can come together around a strategy they all own, and then work collectively to solve community problems through this deeply democratic process. In short, this experience develops strong, well-informed leaders, broad consensus and deeply grounded issue campaigns. |
From neighborhood resident to activist to a lifetime career in social and community change, Garland Yates tells the story of how he became nationally known as a community organizer and specialist in developing strong grassroots organizations and coalitions,
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"The popular education approach centers on creating opportunities for people to increase their consciousness of teh circumstances they live in, the root causes of those conditions, and how they can become actors in changing them" - Carlos Cortez Ruiz
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"The methodology requires that the investigators and the people (who would normally be considered objects of that investigation) should act as co-investigators.... Knowledge emerges only through invention and reinvention, the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry beings pursue with the world and with others.
"The investigation requires the people's thinking -- thinking which occurs only in and among people together seeking out reality. The more active an attitude men and women take in regard to the exploration...the more they deepen their critical awareness of reality and take possession of that reality.
"I cannot think for others or without others, nor can others think for me.
"Even if the people's thinking is superstitious or native, it is only as they rethink their assumptions in action that they can change. Producing and acting upon their own ideas -- not consuming those of others -- must constitute that process."
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Resources for Course Development
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Overview of Courses on Community-Based Research
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Learning Goals for the Course
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Citizens as Experts by Nick Kotz
Short article on an 80-city Participatory Action Research project, helping community-based coalitions to research local governments' compliance with federal requirements that lower-income people be the "primary beneficiaries" of local programs, plus compliance with federal civil rights, citizen participation and other requirements |
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Popular Education as a Powerful Tool by Professor John Hurst, UC Berkeley
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Sample Syllabi
CUNY Community-Based Research Course Course developed for Community Change Studies Certificate program at City University of New York, taught by Adjunct Lecturer Hilary Caldwell |
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Capstone on Community-Based Research
Course developed by Professor Lara Rusch, University of Michigan, Dearborn |
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Add story video of Roofless Women and Participatory Research -- TBA
Remarkable story of involving "roofless women" in researching and impacting issues which affect unhoused people. Marie Kennedy, Professor Emeritus, UCLA Urban Planning School, an expert in Participatory Action Research, helps community leaders and organizers as well as students to develop research skills and knowledge in community-based issue research.
Remarkable story of involving "roofless women" in researching and impacting issues which affect unhoused people. Marie Kennedy, Professor Emeritus, UCLA Urban Planning School, an expert in Participatory Action Research, helps community leaders and organizers as well as students to develop research skills and knowledge in community-based issue research.
Other useful educational materials
Research Methods for Community Change: A Project-Based Approach by Randy Stoecker
Now at the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee Stoecker is nationally known as a researcher and teacher on community organizing and action research.
Now at the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee Stoecker is nationally known as a researcher and teacher on community organizing and action research.
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Field Education and Community Based Planning
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Student Stories on Community Action Research
Excerpted from Preparing to Win |
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Student Stories on Policy Change
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Know your Community Assignment
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Community Based Research to Analzye the Community Where You're Working
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navigate to other Core Subjects
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