Grounded Data, Global Impact: The Collaborative Action Research Team

Session Submission Type: Roundtable Session

Abstract

In 2014 the international NGO Habitat for Humanity commissioned a team to research, develop, and implement a Global Youth Engagement Strategy in conjunction with it’s ambitious 2014-2018 Global Strategic Plan. The team coordinators were heavily influenced in two areas: (1) by the application-oriented idea of expanding Glaser and Strauss’ conception of grounded theory to the development of grounded programming, policy, and planning (Simmons & Gregory, 2003); and (2) the pragmatic tradition of action research and it’s history of social change oriented, stakeholder centered, academic endeavors (Greenwood & Levin, 1998).

The coordinators’ issue, however, was reconciling these areas of influence (that for theoretical, methodological, and logistical reasons are traditionally small in scale) with the task of developing global strategy. With operations in over 70 countries and 1,500 US-based local organizations, Habitat represents a complex and vast network of actors. The reconciliation took form in the Collaborative Action Research Team, a scalable model designed to influence networks focused around a common objective. The discussants on this roundtable will explore the Team structure, research strategy, grounding methods, key differences between this model and traditional action research, and (with the audience) the model’s implications and applications for other criminal & social justice related endeavors.

Sub Unit

• Area VIII: Roundtables

Chair

• Jordan Mazurek, Eastern Kentucky University

Discussants

• Nancy Acevedo, Kennesaw State University

• Adrienne McCarthy, Eastern Kentucky University

• Richard Thomas, Texas Christian University