From Lineage to Principle: Understanding a Participatory Action Research Entremundos Approach in Teacher Education

• In Event: Growing Your Own, Grounded in Participatory Action Research: Using Participatory Approaches in Teacher Education

Abstract

PAR has been recognized and is increasingly being used as an action-oriented inquiry approach in various disciplines. This portion of the panel will focus on describing some of the theoretical lineages and guiding principles that inform NLERAP’s approach to PAR in schools and with communities, that is Entremundos (Torre, 2009), as termed by the late Gloria Anzaldua. PAR is often described within Lewinian frameworks, but here we explore traditions from Las Americas that inform our vision and practice of PAR in the context of education. Discussing the theoretical underpinnings of this work is important, as we connect our histories to a set of principles and practices in this work. There are four theoretical lineages we will discuss, including 1) what has been termed the southern tradition, 2) critical race theory (CRT) 3) feminist theorizing and 4) indigenous cosmologies.
One key notion in the southern tradition is Freire’s (1970) praxis, the process by which critical reflection and creative, conscious action are combined to formulate an approach to gaining knowledge utilized for initiating change. The CRT element in PAR means that we must engage in practical and policy changes that are driven by a systems of domination analysis, including racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism and their intersections. Ideas drawn from feminist/womanist theorizing related to standpoint, intersectionalities and embodiment remind us that the positions we hold within our social, cultural, gender, and political contexts situate the knowledge we create, influence the angles we see and impact the connections we make. From the perspective of indigenous cosmologies, we reclaim and reshape for the modern era wisdom from ancient traditions, activating spiritual activism by integrating bodymindspirit (Lara, 2002), using healing, the arts, and the medicine of song, dance, story and silence (Arrien, 1993).

In the context of schooling, part of the goal of a PAR approach is to co-create transformative spaces of education through collectives of research, inquiry and social action. These collectives include youth, educators and community members as partners in the process and outcomes. Not only can this approach produce more meaningful research and community activism as a whole, the power of the process itself can have a deep impact on the individuals undertaking it. Understanding that those who participate in PAR are often transformed by recognizing their potential to produce knowledge that can foster change we see PAR as ultimately a systematic and collective approach to inquiry. Inquiry that leads to the production of knowledge applied for the purpose of facilitating greater equity and justice.

To support school and community efforts in engaging in this PAR approach, we developed a set of principles, informed by the above theoretical lineages, as well as our own, and collegues practice with PAR. These guiding PAR principles were developed with the intention to offer a developmental framework to consider when conducting PAR. The PAR principles include: participation; critical inquiry; knowledge co-construction; Power with(in)*; Indigenous cosmologies; Creative praxes;Transformational action; Concientizacion para la colectiva.

Authors

• Melissa Rivera, Hunter College - CUNY

• Jennifer Ayala, Saint Peter's College