The Role of Identity in Motivating and Shaping the Experiences of Social Work Participatory Action Research Scholars

Abstract

Participatory action research (PAR) and Community-based participatory research (CBPR) prioritize collaborative research approaches with the goal of social transformation. Themes from this qualitative study of 15 early career social work PAR and CBPR scholars indicate that they are strongly motivated to pursue these methodologies because of their own experiences with disempowerment as well as their connection to social work values. Participants reflected upon their experiences with marginalization (due to observed and unobserved identities/experiences), which fostered a commitment to emphasizing power sharing and elevating marginalized voices. Additionally, identity played a role in how researchers experienced doing PAR/CBPR. Researchers described being simultaneously an insider and outsider in the communities in which they worked, especially the ways that their status as university researchers impacted their positioning in the communities they considered their own. This article explores how identity motivates and presents challenges that scholars must navigate when pursuing PAR/CBPR. Additionally, findings indicate that some scholars who hold marginalized identities experience increased vulnerability within academia when they engage in PAR/CBPR. Such experiences may impact whose voices are represented in the body of social work literature.

Trainee-led research using an integrated knowledge translation or other research partnership approaches: a scoping review

“…Dwyer and Buckle [ 123 ] challenge the dichotomous insider and outsider identity of researchers and propose that “space between” is critical. In this “space between,” [ 123 ], researcher’s positionality is complex and fluid in nature [ 126 ] and can impact the research topic, epistemology, ontology and methodology [ 127 ]. Therefore, when trainees engage in IKT, it is more important that they practice self-reflexivity to understand their positionality in the study rather than focus on whether they are insiders or outsiders.…”

Service Barriers for Gender Nonbinary Young Adults: Using Photovoice to Understand Support and Stigma

“…Given our relationship to the field of social work (the first author is a social work educator and service provider, the third is a social work student, and the second is an educator in an allied field), we are drawn to PAR’s alignment with the field’s professional values, its commitment to justice, social transformation, and the prioritization of local knowledge (Altpeter et al, 1999; Cosgrove et al, 2020). Furthermore, the community-focused nature of PAR presents opportunities for social work to move away from medical models of practice while centering the profession’s commitment to research and practice being mutually informed by one another.…”

Hospital social workers and their understanding of compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma

“…PAR cycles typically encompass iterative activities, including "planning, acting, observing and evaluating" (Kjellstrom & Mitchell, 2019), a process particularly well suited to health and community research (Fox et al, 2007) and clinical practice (Koch & Kralik, 2006). PAR has historically been interested in the workplace dynamic as a site for change (Bradbury et al, 2008), and within healthcare has been popular with public health, nursing and education (Cosgrove et al, 2020). Within this methodological approach, it is common for the researchers to be experiencing the phenomenon they are researching, or to be key stakeholders in the issue at hand, appearing as valid co-researchers in the study.…”