Levelling the Playing Fields in PAR: The Intricacies of Power, Privilege, and Participation in a University–Community–School Partnership

Abstract

When academics, who occupy a traditional position of power and privilege, engage with community members whose thinking, attitudes, and responses have been shaped by ongoing sociohistorical oppression and disadvantage, democratic participation is not easy to attain. Yet, unless community members feel able to participate freely, the valuable local knowledge they bring to the project will be lost and the learning will again be based on theories that may have little relevance for them. We explain how power relations can be leveled through the utilization of specific strategies within a participatory action research design. Seven community members and five teachers collaborated to develop a program that the community members would later use to educate parents about how to better support their children academically. Informed by a qualitative analysis of visual and textual data generated in several working sessions for this project, findings indicate that, while the flattening of power relations is an ongoing and complex task, specific strategies can be used to “level the playing fields” and negotiate the intricacies of power, privilege, and participation.

Facilitating Co-Creation of Knowledge in Two Community-University Research Partnerships

“…While CBR is understood and applied in varying ways using multiple labels with overlapping definitions (Bivens et al, 2015), scholars concur that knowledge must be co-created with the community and of mutual benefit (Cuthill & Brown, 2010;Davies, 2016). All CBR approaches strive to be participatory, relationship based, process, and action-oriented, (Wood & McAteer, 2017) but some put more emphasis on equity and social change. Certain approaches, such as community-based participatory action research (CBPAR) and participatory action learning and research (PALAR), place researchers in the service of the community, aim to share power equally (Wood & McAteer, 2017), and balance knowledge generation with social action (Zuber-Skerritt, 2015).…”

“…All CBR approaches strive to be participatory, relationship based, process, and action-oriented, (Wood & McAteer, 2017) but some put more emphasis on equity and social change. Certain approaches, such as community-based participatory action research (CBPAR) and participatory action learning and research (PALAR), place researchers in the service of the community, aim to share power equally (Wood & McAteer, 2017), and balance knowledge generation with social action (Zuber-Skerritt, 2015). Using an iterative process, these approaches seek regular stakeholder feedback to inform ongoing adjustments (Hacker, 2013).…”

“…Achieving this in practice is not easy. Co-creating knowledge requires recognizing the diversity of legitimate knowers (Davies, 2016), valuing the unique strengths of each stakeholder (Schutz et al, 2004), and mobilizing multiple sources of expertise (Wood & McAteer, 2017). Multi-directional knowledge sharing can happen only if all partners are open to learning from the experience and each other (Kearney, 2015) and if each participates in decision-making throughout the process (Hacker, 2013;Tremblay & de Oliveira Jayme, 2015).…”

“…To be mutually beneficial, research must focus on problems of contextual and cultural relevance to the community, seek results that can be used for social change (Zuber-Skerritt, 2015), use several data collection methods, and disseminate findings where and when they will make a difference (Wood et al, 2015). Such research also strives to develop capacity and promote community ownership to foster sustainability of changes and learning (Wood & McAteer, 2017).…”

Deconstructing Social Unrest as a Response to Redefine Strained Relationships between Students and University Authorities

“…Participatory action research (PAR) was adopted to design this study, PAR as a participatory way of conducting research appears to be democratic considering its characteristics that pay essential attention to the equality and power differences between or among the researched community (Dube, 2016). These democratic tendencies according to Zuber-Skerritt (2015) and Wood and McAteer (2017) encourage full involvement of the community in the process of creating knowledge to sustain empowerment of the less privileged and undervalued people of the community. Hence, this study argues that trusting the unanimous partnership between the researchers and the researched (the community) to create knowledge and action is democracy.…”