Participatory Action Research as Service Learning

1998 ◽  
Vol 1998 (73) ◽  
pp. 57-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth M. Reardon
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jana V. Müller ◽  
Lieketseng Ned ◽  
Hananja Boshoff

Background: The call for institutions of higher education to foster interaction with communities and ensure training is responsive to the needs of communities is well documented. In 2011, Stellenbosch University collaborated with the Worcester community to identify the needs of people with disabilities within the community. How the university was engaging with these identified needs through student training still needed to be determined.Objectives: This study describes the engagement process of reciprocity and responsivity in aligning needs identified by persons with disability to four undergraduate allied health student training programmes in Worcester, Western Cape.Method: A single case study using the participatory action research appraisal methods explored how undergraduate student service learning was responding to 21 needs previously identified in 2011 alongside persons with disability allowing for comprehensive feedback and a collaborative and coordinated response.Results: Students’ service learning activities addressed 14 of the 21 needs. Further collaborative dialogue resulted in re-grouping the needs into six themes accompanied by a planned collaborative response by both community and student learning to address all 21 needs previously identified.Conclusion: Undergraduate students’ service learning in communities has the potential to meet community identified needs especially when participatory action research strategies are implemented. Reciprocity exists when university and community co-engage to construct, reflect and adjust responsive service learning. This has the potential to create a collaborative environment and process in which trust, accountability, inclusion and communication is possible between the university and the community.


Author(s):  
Melissa Cochrane Bocci

Youth Participatory Action Research offers service-learning practitioners a critical framework for guiding their projects, particularly those engaging diverse or marginalized communities. A YPAR-guided service-learning project is youth-led, centers and affirms youth identities, examines problems and takes actions on structural and personal levels, and bases those actions on original, youth-conducted research. As such, YPAR-guided service-learning explicitly promotes youth empowerment and positive identity development, which can result in increased academic engagement and motivation, making such projects a strong option for attending to the opportunity gaps marginalized students often face in their school systems.


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