Authentic Research, Teaching, Events, and Assessments for Economic Prosperity

Responsive research serves as an alternative platform to address issues of human rights violations, ACEs, structural violence, and systemic poverty in particular as it relates to educational opportunities. This chapter identifies four step-by-step processes that can be used when conducting community-led research and education. Activist anthropology, studying up, studying through, and financial implications of debt foreground earlier efforts made by anthropologists to use their research as a way to examine how policy decisions shape cultural practices and impact the livelihood of specific communities. These efforts are expanded upon by examining the controversy, pitfalls, and rewards found within the epistemological paradigms and research methodologies. The second half of the chapter identifies four pathways researchers can use when engaging in activist anthropology: teaching to a goal; responsive mapping to uncover mystical barriers; community building as the goal for focus groups, interviews, and surveys; and responsive programs and events.

Husserlian-Oriented Descriptive Phenomenological Research Methodology

This chapter aims to extend the current body of knowledge about phenomenological research methodologies. By focusing exclusively on the Husserlian-oriented descriptive phenomenological methodology, (1) the authors will first provide a brief introduction to Husserl's phenomenology. (2) They will then give a thorough delineation of Giorgi's descriptive phenomenological psychological methodology, which is underpinned by Husserl's phenomenological philosophy. They will subsequently describe in detail methods of data gathering and the method of data analysis of this phenomenological methodology. (3) Finally, they will borrow raw data from published empirical research to demonstrate the application of this data analysis method.

Methodological Specification of Social Pedagogy as a Scientific Discipline

Social pedagogy as a discipline is known in different countries. However, interpretations of this discipline vary in different countries. As a result of different interpretation of the discipline, the discipline itself is seen from different perspectives, leading to different methodologies of investigating problems related to social pedagogy. The literature by researchers from different countries indicates how the interpretations differ, resulting in different research approaches. Implications of the different approaches on research are being investigated. This chapter makes the reader aware of these differences and how they emanate. Discussions which follow lead to justifications and guidance of research methodologies suitable for social pedagogy. Drawing on the different perspectives, this chapter explains different research methodologies and expands knowledge understanding of the field of social pedagogy as well as suitable research methods for this discipline and how they can be applied.

Critical Theory in Research

Based on critical theory, this chapter focuses on the first generation of Frankfurt School (mainly to authors such as T.W. Adorno, M. Horkheimer, and W. Benjamin). For discussing methodology in research, these authors are considered more representative than the younger generation (e.g., Habermas and Honneth) mainly because of the renewed interest in the direct critique of society and because of the failure of the younger generation to produce empirical research. The proponents of critical theory establish connections between theory and practice, in the sense that the social content of research must have human dignity at its centre. The difference between method-led and content-led research is discussed and considered central for this kind of approach to empirical research. Feminist research methodologies and critical race methodology are considered as closely associated with critical theory. These different approaches have developed autonomously from critical theory and are not directly related to it. However, feminist research methodologies and critical race methodology are expounded here because of their similarities to the critical theory of the Frankfurt School aimed at providing an emancipatory approach to empirical research.

Research as Resistance

This chapter provides an overview of activist research and how it is used in various fields including anthropology, social movements, and education. It discusses the impetus for incorporating activism into theoretical frameworks and research methodologies and the distinct aspects of activist research. Youth participatory action research (YPAR) is examined to identify how activist research can be situated into the methods and outcomes. Finally, a YPAR study is examined to illustrate how activist research can serve as a guided framework.

Writing Histories of the Present

Historical research in the area of curriculum studies has tended to hew quite closely to traditional understandings of history as a matter of individuals, events, and causes and effects. Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA) offers an alternative perspective on the past and present, one that sees history as erratic, discontinuous, and the result of operations of power and knowledge that exceed the level of the individual. This chapter begins with a brief overview of some of the theoretical underpinnings of FDA which make it unique among research methodologies in the field of educational research. The chapter then goes on to explore the types of questions that an FDA might pursue, the methodological tasks of FDA (including “archaeology” and “genealogy”), and closes with a discussion of two examples of FDA in curriculum studies.