Participatory Action Research as Classroom Pedagogy: Evidence of Positive Impact on Youth Development and School Climate

• In Event: In and Out: Exploring the Role of Participatory Action Research in Classroom and Community Contexts

Abstract

Participatory action research (PAR) provides a rich learning environment for participants and the potential for transforming institutional cultures and policies (Cammarota & Fine, 2008). Yet, PAR projects discussed in the literature typically take place outside of school or in elective classes (Irizarry, 2010; Torre & Fine, 2005). This may be because most American schools are inhospitable to PAR tenets, including critical theory, open-ended inquiry, and democratic decision-making. But we see value in working with schools and teachers to integrate PAR into instruction, because of what it offers for student learning and school transformation.

Our purpose is to share evidence of the student-level and school-level outcomes we observed from a school-based PAR project called Critical Civic Inquiry (CCI). CCI is based on the premise that students from historically marginalized groups will be most likely to engage in school when they see academic work as relevant to their lives, have opportunities to critique and denaturalize their school experiences, and participate with adults in bettering schools.

We report results from Year 2 of CCI implementation (2011-12), including quasi-experimental survey research and interpretive qualitative research.
Data are drawn from analyses of nine secondary school classrooms taught by six teachers. The teachers participated in a year-long professional development course taught by the study’s PIs which focused on critical pedagogy, student-teacher partnerships, and PAR.

Survey data were collected at three time points from CCI participants and comparison students (n=177 for those in all three time points). Survey items included two key dependent variables: academic engagement and civic self-efficacy.
CCI classroom observations were documented through narrative field notes and video recorded on a weekly basis by graduate researchers, who also interviewed between five and ten students from each class at the end of the year.

Quantitative survey measures show that CCI participation was linked to improvement in our two key dependent variables: academic engagement and civic self-efficacy. A split-plot MANOVA revealed a statistically significant difference in academic engagement (Wilks λ = .97, F(4, 169) = 2.85, p = .038, η2 = .015, Observed power = .72). The CCI group reported increases in academic engagement over three time points, in contrast to the control group, which declined in academic engagement. Also, we detected a statistically significant difference between groups in civic self-efficacy (Wilks λ = .96, F(4, 168) = 3.39, p = .01, η2 = .019, Observed Power = .85). CCI participants experienced a growth in civic self-efficacy compared to comparison students who decreased. We did not observe any negative changes in CCI participants relative to comparison group.
Classrooms carried out CCI projects that called for a variety of solutions to barriers at their schools. These different projects varied in their impact on the schools, which we discuss in the full paper.

Results from this study are significant because a) few studies have examined instances of PAR integrated into academic content instruction and b) our results show that YPAR can be enacted in constrained formal education contexts in ways that contribute to student growth and positive school culture.

Authors

• Ben R. Kirshner, University of Colorado

• Carlos Porfirio Hipolito-Delgado, University of Colorado - Denver

• Shelley Zion, University of Colorado - Denver