Session Information
15 SES 05, Research Methods for Knowledge Creation in Partnerships
Paper Session
Contribution
An increasing number of academic and social movements question social science research, with a special focus on educational research (Choudry & Kapoor, 2010). It is well known and demanded that research should be openly engage with fairer and more democratic ways to develop knowledge. Some of the questions that these movements put forward include the need to revise knowledge construction along with research-process participation, and how these necessarily inform decision making in social and professional practices and policies with which they are concerned. Close to this concerns are topics and challenges as the revision from a critical point of view of processes knowledge co-construction, the creation of participatory research communities, and how knowledge is mobilized, communicated, and transferred to society.
This paper is based on a participatory study founded by the Economic and Competitive Ministry of Spain (EDU2011-2928-C01)[1]. The research aimed to promote, explore and analyze community and participative inclusive practices and culture developed the schools and different agencies of a same locality in Galicia (Spain). In this paper practices relating to produce and collaborative communicate knowledge faced on the study are reported. The research questions faced here are:
- How are participative research groups constituted and how they contribute to generate democratic knowledge processes?
- What kinds of processes of knowledge creation and communication are participatory designed and developed in our study?
- Which are the learning demands involved in the promotion of democratic ways to develop and communicate knowledge?
According to McTaggart (2006), participatory research can be considered a social-mobilization knowledge tool, generating analysis and debate spaces ‘between’ participants. It is our assumption that if research has a participatory and inclusive approach it will be able to mobilize practical knowledge in a bottom-up fashion. This will help to satisfy one of the main challenges of the European Union research agenda: the connection of research to society developing research processes and knowledge transfer able to create, mobilize and ‘participate’ knowledge (2009 Lund Declaration and Horizon 2020-H2020).
Knowledge mobilization can be understood in different ways (Bennet et. al, 2007; Levesque, 2009; Naidorf, 2014 and Levin, 2011). In any case, its main objective is to maximize the real and practical influence research has on society, ensuring that society is aware and participate of research’s role and relevance. To achieve this, different communicative models, processes and strategies of creating, presenting, mobilizing, and democratizing research-produced information can be developed (Richardson & Adams, 2005). What is required from a participatory and inclusive perspective is to communicate research in a comprehensible, creative and collaborative fashion, making use of practices tailored to different audiences.
[1] This work is part of a research project funded by the National R&D&I Plan titled “Schools that walk towards inclusion, working with the local community to promote change” (MINECO EDU2011-29928-C03-01). Dir: Ángeles Parrilla (University of Vigo).
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Bennet, A., Bennet, D. Fafard, K., Fonda, M., Lomond, T., Messier, L. & Vaugeois, N. (2007). Knowledge Mobilization in the Social Sciences and Humanities. Mqi Press. Frost, West Virginia (United States of America). Bergold, J. & Thomas, S. (2012). Participatory Research Methods: A Methodological Approach in Motion [110 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 13 (1). Art. 30, http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1201304. Choudry, A. & Kapoor, D. (2010). Learning from the ground up: Global perspectives on knowledge production in social movements. Palgrave MacMillan: New York (United States of America). European Commission (2011). Communication from the commission to the european parliament, the council, the european economic and social committee and the committee of the regions Horizon 2020 - The Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. www.ec.europa.eu/research/horizon2020 Levesque, P. (2009). Knowledge Mobilization Works. www.knowledgemobilization.net. Levin, B. (2011). Mobilising research knowledge in education. London Review of Education, 9, 1, 15-26. Lewin, K. (1946). Action research and minority problems. Journal of Social Issues, 2, 4, 34-46. Lund Declaration (2009). Europe Must Focus on the Grand Challenges of our Time. Swedish EU Presidency, 8 July 2009, Lund, Sweden [Online] http://www.se2009.eu/polopoly_fs/1.8460!menu/standard/file/lund_declaration_final_version_9_july.pdf McTaggart, R. (1994). Participatory action research: issues in theory and practice. Action research, 2, 3, 313-337. Naidorf, J. (2014). Knowledge Utility: from Social Relevance to Knowledge Mobilization. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 22, 70. http://epaa.asu. edu/ojs/article/view. Nind, M. (2014). What is Inclusive Research? London: Bloomsbury Academic Richardson, L. & Adams, E. (2005). “Writing. A method for inquiry”. In Denzin, N. & Liconln, Y. (eds.), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Reseach (959-978). Sage Pub. California (United States of America).
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