According to Cheek (2017) neoliberalism works to make some problems visible and others not, some solutions visible, others not, and permeates and connects to all aspects of social, political, economy and research life. Research is produced under certain norms of what is perceived as a high standard. To have transformative impact in this context, while maintaining the necessity of critiquing how health and wellbeing are being framed in policy, research and practice, involves questioning how we are positioning ourselves and other stakeholders in our research. Critical education seeks to expose how relations of power and inequality are manifest, and shares a commitment to social transformation. Apple points out that a more robust understanding of power and inequality “involves fundamental transformations of the underlying epistemological and ideological assumptions that are made of what counts as ‘official’ or legitimate knowledge and who holds it” (Apple 2016: xii). In view of the above one can ask how critical health education research in its various approaches, (including Marxist-, structural-, and post-structural theory based approaches), respond to expectations of being both transformative and in transition.
This workshop raises questions about the possibility of transformative approaches in research in neoliberal times, allowing the participants to critically examine thinking and practice in health education research. The objective is to create a space for engaging with questions on where power is at play in research decisions, and to share strategies that can help resist ‘boxed in’ thinking.
