Revitalizing the teaching of participatory research in social sciences

Abstract

The report is based on several years of PRIA's experiences of working together with academic institutions. It began in 1994 with PRIA's collaboration with Association of Schools of Social Work in India (ASSWI). A series of inter- professional dialogues at national and regional level were organized to provide opportunities for social work educators, renowned academicians and experienced practitioners of participatory development (PD) and participatory research (PR) to come on a common platform and assess implications of the concepts in social work education and practice. Building on the lessons of the five-year collaboration (1994-1999), PRIA and ASSWI initiated a new phase of joint collaborative intervention in the year 2000 for strengthening the ideas of participation, democratic governance and citizenship. The need for the same was felt as the issues of democratic governance and citizenship gained significance in development debates and interventions. To effectively plan and implement this intervention, a strategy to strengthen five social work education institutions as Regional Nodal Centres (RNCs) was mutually agreed by PRIA and ASSWI. Institutions Identified to Work as RNCS were: Stella Maris Collage of social Work, Chenai; College of Social Work, Nirmala Niketan, Mumbai; Department of Social Work, Andhra University, Visakhapatnem; School of Social work, Lucknow University, Lucknow; Department of Social Work, Viswa-Bharati, Santiniketan. Besides working with ASSWI, PRIA also carried out a collaborative project with Jamia Milia Islamia, Delhi to help the faculties and students get conceptual orientation and field exposure in PR. An outcome of this intervention was introduction of the course on Participatory Sociology at postgraduate level. With PRIA's new strategic plan Governance Where People Matter "coming into operation in 2003, the academic Linkage porgrame has made concerted effort to reach out to social science faculties in Indian universities. During this period we hosted seminars in universities (Mysore University, Mysore; Osmania University, Hyderabad; Punjab University, Chandigarh) on participatory research and conducted an exhaustive mapping exercise of the teaching of PR in academic institutions. This synthesis report draws from 1) Earlier experiences and lessons gathered from working with ASSWI and Jamia Milia; 2) Discussions during seminars and lectures; 3) Independent discussion with social science faculty members in various universities; 4) Results of mapping of PR teaching; 5) Key note address given by Dr. RajeshTandon on "Should Participatory Research be Taught in a University?" (23 September 2003, Mysore University, Mysore) and key note address given by Dr. Ranjita Mohanty on "Participatory Research and the Agenda of Social Transformation" (29 August 2003, Punjab University, Chandigarh)