Critical Participatory Action Research as Curriculum and Pedagogy: Empowering Students and Uniting Communities

• In Event: 67.068 - MTCC Roundtable Session 32
  In Roundtable Session: 67.068-3 - Disrupting Narratives: Innovative Teacher Preparation Practices

Abstract

Students/co-researchers collaboratively completed critical participatory action research (CPAR) projects in remedial English classes and identified numerous, multifaceted solutions for improving their local schools. Ultimately, they determined that CPAR has the potential to not only empower students and unite communities, the CPAR epistemology can also be used to inform pedagogy while CPAR projects can be integrated into a wide array of subject area and interdisciplinary curricula for students of all ages (K-16+). Thus, they concluded that CPAR, as an integral aspect of pedagogy and curricula, is a solution that has the potential to bridge communal divides and profoundly improve teaching and learning in our democratic schools throughout our nation.

Author

• Kathleen Nichols, University of Wisconsin - Madison