Early Career Academic Researchers and Community-Based Participatory Research: Wrestling Match or Dancing Partners?

Academic calendars and university timelines set an urgent pace for researchers, which can hinder the establishment of long-term community partnerships. Given community-based participatory research’s (CBPR) emphasis on community-led research, time constraints can inhibit academic researchers’ commitments to collaborative methodologies and participatory research. This article considers how CBPR can be adapted for shorter-term engagements while still producing mutually beneficial research. In doing so, we contribute to the existing corpus on rapid assessment methodologies, characterized for adopting methods traditionally practiced over a longer duration to shorter time frames. We review the successes and limitations of a CBPR project executed within the timespan of six months in Flint, Michigan. In the case discussed, photo-voice enabled the inclusion of diverse ways of knowing, horizontal partnerships, reciprocal learning, and an accessible disemmination format within a CBPR framework. In conclusion we assert that there is value in short-term CBPR, especially for emergent issues where there is a need for rapid, responsive methodologies. However, short-term CBPR is a sprint, rather than a marathon; although shorter in duration, it is more intensive. It requires significant methodological commitments, flexibility, and an intensified workload for those involved.

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Community and Research Together

Ho'i Hou Ka Mauli Ola ◽

10.21313/hawaii/9780824872731.003.0008 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Claire Townsend Ing ◽

Rebecca Delafield ◽

Shelley Soong

Keyword(s):

Health Status ◽

Health Outcomes ◽

Participatory Research ◽

Native Hawaiian ◽

Academic Research ◽

Community Based Participatory Research ◽

Native Hawaiians ◽

Community Based ◽

The Social ◽

Academic Researchers

Hawaiians have faced historical and cultural traumas leading to modern day inequities in the social, economic and political realms. These inequities contribute to poor health status that many Native Hawaiians experience. Two groups have attempted to improve these health outcomes, Academic researchers and the Native Hawaiian community. However, often times the approaches and goals of these two groups are at odds. Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) is an approach that seeks to combine community goals, action, and priorities with those of academic research. This chapter illustrates the evolution of CBPR in Hawai‘i, and its meaningful principles that have been effective for both the Native Hawaiian and research communities in their promotion of health.

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Finding a place for my research to belong: experiences of early-career social work participatory action researchers in neoliberal academia

Critical and Radical Social Work ◽

10.1332/204986020x16031175005938 ◽

2020 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Catherine S. Kramer ◽

Darren Cosgrove ◽

Sarah Mountz ◽

Eunwoo Lee

Keyword(s):

Social Work ◽

Action Research ◽

Participatory Action Research ◽

Social Workers ◽

Participatory Research ◽

Community Based Participatory Research ◽

Early Career ◽

Participatory Action ◽

Community Based ◽

The Us

Social workers face complex challenges that demand practice-engaged research and research-engaged practice. Participatory action research and community-based participatory research span the boundaries that often exist between the research and practice communities. Some social workers argue the values underpinning participatory action research and community-based participatory research align with the values of the profession; however, such methodologies are not widely represented in social work research in the US. This article presents the findings of a study examining the lived experiences of 15 early-career scholars, mostly based in the US, who were pursuing participatory action research and community-based participatory research. The neoliberalisation of the academy pervaded their experiences, presenting significant barriers to their ability to pursue action-oriented methodologies. Review of the international participatory action research literature also suggests the US may contrast with other regions in the world like Asia and Latin America, where participatory action research is more robust. Recommendations to better develop participatory action research social work literature are offered.

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“You Get a PhD and We Get a Few Hundred Bucks”: Mutual Benefits in Participatory Action Research?

Health Education & Behavior ◽

10.1177/1090198120902763 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 47 (4) ◽

pp. 549-555

Author(s):

Jennifer K. Felner

Keyword(s):

Action Research ◽

Community Health ◽

Participatory Action Research ◽

Participatory Research ◽

Community Based Participatory Research ◽

Early Career ◽

Participatory Action ◽

Community Based ◽

Participatory Approaches ◽

Research Studies

Participatory action research (PAR), community-based participatory research, and other participatory approaches continue to gain popularity within the field of public health and allied disciplines in an effort to democratize the production of knowledge and contribute to sustainable community health improvements. Consequently, more students and early-career scholars will elect to incorporate participatory approaches in their dissertations and other early-career research studies in an effort to meaningfully influence community health equity in a variety of contexts. While there is a growing body of literature on the processes and challenges involved in PAR, community-based participatory research, and other participatory research, early-career scholars infrequently critically reflect on and detail learnings from their participatory research studies in the academic literature. I respond to this gap by sharing and reflecting on three critical learning points from my own youth-led PAR dissertation study examining how youth of color experience aging out of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning)–supportive youth services. In particular, I interrogate how the processes in our academic–youth partner collaboration shaped the possibility of a mutually beneficial praxis and offer recommendations to other early-career scholars embarking on their own participatory research studies.

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