This participatory action research (PAR) toolkit from the Centre for Social Justice and Community Action at the University of Durham shows what a PAR project can look like.
PAR is collaborative research, education and action used to foster change on social or environmental issues. Specifically, it is driven by participants rather than outside funders or academics, it allows participants to own and use the knowledge they gain, it involves discussion and pooling of skills and should result in some form of action, bringing about a change or improvement in the issue being discussed.
PAR is an approach to research, rather than a method. This is because there are many ways of carrying out PAR, e.g. group discussions, interviews, video, art etc. PAR is more like a set of principles and practices for designing and analysing research.
This toolkit outlines the typical stages of a PAR project and the types of questions you should be asking at each stage to help you plan your PAR. For example, you may want to consider who to collaborate with, what questions are most important to the community, will there be a power shift in the community, how will you keep your research ethical, how will you record your findings and what action will you take?
Download the toolkit here.
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