Participatory Action Research
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Item Influencing a global movement: Notes the founding of the Consejo de educacion de adultos de America Latina (CEAAL)(0000) Hall, Budd LIn this piece, Budd L. Hall recalls how the Consejo de Educación de Adultos de América Latina (CEAAL) came to be founded. He starts with the creation of the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE) after the 1972 UNESCO conference in Tokyo, and his own work with the Chilean sociologist Francisco Vio Grossi on a participatory research network. The account then follows the 1979 ICAE meeting in Helsinki, where the decision was made to back Vio Grossi and the popular education movement in organising a Latin American body. It describes the Caracas meeting that led to CEAAL in 1982, and the 1985 World Assembly in Buenos Aires, where CEAAL held its first General Assembly. Hall offers these as personal reflections on the early years.Item Participatory Research in Asia(1980) Tandon, RajeshThis volume represents a major step in the Participatory Research Project (PRP) in Asia and is the first publication of its kind in the region. It has now been a little over two years since the project was started by the International Council for Adult Education. The PRP has been implemented through the creation and strengthening of five regional networks, and I have been acting as the coordinator of the Asian Regional Network for the past 18 months. A statement of the objectives of the Participatory Research Project and Network is included as an appendix. This volume draws together emergent theoretical concerns of Participatory Research (PR) in Asia, a set of case studies illustrating some of the under-lying principles and methodologies, some short discussion notes, and key reports from regional and sub-regional meetings. The purposes of this volume are manifold: first, this volume will present to the members of the network as well as those interested in PR, the current 'state of the art' in PR: it is intended to initiate a series of such volumes in Asia which will reflect the evolving character of PR as a concept and methodology: second, this volume is intended to stimulate further writing on and documentation of PR. I believe that a significantly greater amount of work is going on in Asia than is represented here. This is a weakness of the present volume: it is heavily biased in favour of some countries, especially India, than others. I do believe that other countries of Asia have a lot of exciting material to contribute to PR. I hope this volume will stimulate a more active circulation of already existing materials. Finally, this volume is intended to be a report on what has been happening in PR in Asia through exchanges across the region. Already four meetings/workshops have been organized on PR in Asia, and it is planned to hold many more within and across the region in the coming years.Item Description of the methods of participation research(1978) Le Boterf, GuyThe article describes a research method used to identify the basic educational needs of rural populations in six villages in Central America. The research method is an approach that combines experimental research with a participatory survey of the community to identify educational needs. The communities participated by defining the problems they were facing, discussing their situation, identifying their educational needs, and developing possible solutions. This is different from a typical survey, since community members were given an active role in the research activities. Moreover, they provided feedback and were actively involved in discussions at various stages of the study and research process. This allowed the researchers to discuss and analyse the results with the community and to use their feedback in understanding and addressing specific problems. The study began with an initial exploration of the community, followed by the identification and prioritisation of needs, setting educational goals, developing strategies, discussion with the community, and implementation of the strategies. Researchers and technical specialists acted as facilitators and educators rather than being the sole producers of knowledge. The study links research, education, and community action, which is intended not only to analyse the situation in the communities but also to contribute to solving the problems that were identified.Item Participatory research: A new methodology for adult educators?(National Center for Research in Vocational Education, 1979) Griffith, William S; Cristarella, Mary CParticipatory research is a term which has been appearing within the past several years in international adult education conferences and which some commentators believe has the potential of redirecting research within the field of adult education. The International Conference on Adult Education and Development held in Dar-es-Salaam in June, 1976, proposed that "all adult educators should receive training in the theory and practice of participatory research as well as in complementary quantitative research techniques" (Dar-es-Salaam Design for Action, 1976, p.32). The UNESCO program action plan for 1977-1982 includes the support of future participatory research (Hurly, 1976). Cain states "the forces producing the demand for something called 'participatory research' are numerous and compelling" (Cain, 1977, p.7).Item Participatory training and self development(0000) Acharya, Binoy; Verma, ShaliniHow should training be undertaken to encourage critical thinking and instill confidence in people? In this article, Binoy Acharya and Shalini Verma discuss the growing emphasis on training within the development sector while questioning approaches that reduce training to the mere transfer of information or techniques. They argue that many people, especially the poor and marginalised, experience the systematic devaluation of their own knowledge and capacities which weakens self confidence and participation. For this reason, simply providing more skills cannot by itself lead to empowerment, though external knowledge may still be useful. The focus of training, they argue, must be to foster critical thinking so that people can analyse their own realities, articulate their experiences, and identify what they need to learn further. Participatory training is highlighted as a process that breaks the culture of silence, restores faith in people’s own knowledge, and builds confidence for collective action. Social development, the authors emphasise, begins with the development of the self.Item Participatory research handbook for community groups(International Council for Adult Education, 1978-06) Barndt, Deborah; Conchelos, Greg; Etherington, Alan; Galindo, June; Hall, Budd L; Harasim, Linda; Jackson, Ted; Marino, Dian; Tobias, Kathy; Vigoda, Al; Correia, Dianne; Icaza, Bernardita; Mansfield, JenniferThis handbook is about doing participatory research in local groups and communities, prepared in 1978 by the Participatory Research Project Group at the International Council for Adult Education. It is written for community groups without the money, professional training, or institutional support that usually make research an exclusive activity. Three ideas run through the book: participatory research is a method of social interaction built on full community involvement, an educational process that raises awareness of local problems, and a means of acting on what the research finds. Control over how information is gathered, analyzed, and used is meant to stay with the community throughout. A circular model called the research puzzle organizes the handbook's practical sections, moving groups through knowing their situation, identifying resources and issues, gathering and understanding information, acting, and reflecting. A sample profile index built around a housing cooperative and six case studies from Canadian communities, unions, and cooperatives ground these ideas in practice. The authors call it a first draft and invite readers to help shape what comes next.Item Participatory research in Asia(1980) Tandon, RajeshThis book, edited by Rajesh Tandon and published in 1980 for the Asian-South Pacific Bureau of Adult Education, gathers the first two years of work under the Participatory Research Project coordinated through the International Council for Adult Education. He opens the collection with his own essay mapping the character of participatory research as it had taken shape across Asia by the late 1970s, tracing its overwhelmingly rural base, its entanglement with social action, and the political risk that came with working alongside landless labourers and tribal groups in states not always tolerant of organising. The theoretical section that follows sets contributors against each other rather than in agreement: Zafrullah Chowdhury reads decades of foreign-funded medical research in Bangladesh as a continuation of colonial control dressed up as philanthropy, while other papers by Banerjee, Ghosh and Das question participatory research's claims to method and rigour from more sceptical angles. The case studies, left largely unedited from their original submissions, cover a literacy programme in Mehrauli, the Shramik Sangathan's organising among agricultural workers, the Gonoshasthaya Kendra health centre in Dacca, and projects in the Philippines and Rajasthan, closing with reports from four regional meetings and a note on the project's founding objectives.Item Research for the people-Research by the people(1980) Erasmie, Thord; de Vries, J; Dubell, FItem Participatory research- An exploratory statement(0000) Tandon, RajeshIn this paper, Dr. Rajesh Tandon examines the limitations of conventional research that contributed to the emergence of Participatory Research. He identifies concerns such as the emphasis on objectivity, limited attention to the use of knowledge, the assumption that research is value-neutral, and the concentration of control over the research process and its outcomes in the hands of researchers. The paper distinguishes Participatory Research from academic, policy, and evaluation research by comparing who influences the selection of research problems, methods, and outcomes at different stages. It outlines an ideal participatory process based on shared decision-making, collaborative research design, and the joint collection and interpretation of data. Tandon also differentiates Participatory Research from Action Research by highlighting the researcher's explicit ideological position and the active involvement and control of participants throughout the inquiry. The paper concludes by identifying questions related to the validation of knowledge beyond conventional standards, the broader outcomes of participatory inquiry, and the political nature of research in social settings; presenting these as issues to be explored through participatory practice rather than resolved conceptually.Item Participatory research as a contribution to cultural reconstruction(1980) Tandon, RajeshIn this paper, Rajesh Tandon outlines the key characteristics of participatory research and discusses its contribution to cultural reconstruction, drawing on the case of the Commune of Pozzuoli, Italy, where a prolonged state of emergency had disrupted social, economic and cultural life. The paper examines how participatory research counters the dominance of expert-controlled knowledge by linking the acquisition of knowledge to community action, encouraging collective reflection and analysis, and recognizing the validity of ordinary people's experience alongside scientific expertise. Empowerment, understood as a shift from dependence to collective self-confidence, is identified as the central outcome of this methodology. In the context of Pozzuoli, the paper considers how participatory research can help stakeholders build a shared understanding of the crisis, recover historical and cultural roots through methods such as oral histories and personal narratives, and work toward a desirable cultural future. The paper closes by describing participatory research as a modest but useful contribution to cultural reconstruction, dependent on ownership and control remaining with ordinary people rather than experts or administrators, and not intended as a complete solution on its own.