Practical issues in the democratisation of research in non-formal education in the commonwealth

Abstract

Dr. Budd L. Hall prepared this paper for the Commonwealth Specialist Conference on Non-Formal Education for Development, held in New Delhi in January and February 1979, while serving as Director of Research at the International Council for Adult Education. It looks at research trends of that period across the Commonwealth, moving through broad overviews, literacy studies, media evaluations, action research, and participatory research, before turning to what he treats as the most significant among them: the shift toward democratising research itself. Several developments point to this shift, among them research relocating from metropolitan countries toward the Third World, local researchers taking over roles once held by expatriates, and poor and exploited communities gaining a direct role in shaping the research process rather than remaining its subjects. Case examples from Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, Canada, England, and India ground these claims. Practical questions follow how findings get communicated in accessible language, what alternative methods such as drawings, theatre, and song open for non-literate participants, how much longer democratic research takes, what it costs, and how local findings connect to larger structural issues. The paper ties democratic research to the wider struggle for social justice, with Hall insisting ordinary people hold both the ability and the right to interpret their own problems.