Prepared for the 2005 conference of the American Educational Research Association, this readers theater presentation explains the use of research and community organizing to change the landscape of educational politics. (more…)
This article explores the potential role of low-wage service sector unions in engaging in equity-minded school reform. The members of many such unions are parents of children attending poorly resourced public schools. In seeking to address the interests of their members, labor unions can draw upon resources, organizing strategies, and political relationships to contribute to grassroots campaigns for educational equity. Data gathered in Los Angeles from labor and civic leaders, as well as janitors belonging to the Service Employees International Union Local 1877, reveal possibilities for low-wage service sector unions to build alliances around educational reform issues and support their members’ individual capacities to advocate for their own children in schools. At the same time, low-wage service sector unions face challenges to participating in school reform efforts, including prioritizing education issues among other competing interests and identifying common ground with teachers’ unions. (more…)
The third brief in the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment’s (IRLE) series of Research and Policy Briefs highlights the work of the Service Employees International Union Local 1877, the UCLA Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access, UCLA School of Law’s Program in Public Interest Law and Policy, and the UCLA Labor Center in understanding and addressing the educational issues facing union members’ children. SEIU Local 1877 has sponsored “Parent University” workshops which teach members about topics that will help them to support their own children’s academic success and advocate for school improvements. SEIU Local 1877 is also working with a collaborative of unions and community groups to expand upon the Parent University work and stay involved in children’s education. (more…)
Philadelphia’s students have long been a major force in the battle for public education, and for the past decade and a half they have fought valiantly against the encroachment of neoliberalism, the idea that market-based logic can solve non-market problems more efficiently and effectively than governmental or public sector agencies. Leading this charge have been two prominent youth organizing groups, the Philadelphia Student Union (PSU) and Youth United for Change (YUC). Both PSU and YUC have been at the forefront of recent organizing efforts to protest and propose alternatives to the shuttering of 23 schools, the firing of 3,859 educators and support staff, and the elimination of extracurricular programs and arts education from the public schools for the 2012-2013 school year. (more…)
This article presents the results of a cross-site case study of four Community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnerships in the United States that research environmental health problems and worked to educate legislators and promote relevant public policy. The authors focus on community and partnership capacity within and across sites, using as a theoretical framework Goodman and his colleagues’ dimensions of community capacity, as these were tailored to environmental health by Fruedenberg, and as further modified to include partnership capacity within a systems perspective. The four CBPR partnerships were situated in New York, California, Oklahoma, and North Carolina and were part of a larger national study. Case study contexts and characteristics, policy-related outcomes, and findings related to community and partnership capacity are presented, with implications drawn for other CBPR partnerships with a policy focus. (more…)
In collaboration with university and community partners, the San Francisco Department of Public Health used an observational checklist to assess preventable occupational injury hazards and compliance with employee notification requirements in 106 restaurants in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Supported by a larger community-based participatory research process, this pilot project helped to spur additional innovative health department collaborations to promote healthier workplaces. (more…)
Community-engaged research on environmental problems has reshaped researcher–participant relationships, academic-community interaction and the role of community partners in human subjects protection and ethical oversight. The authors drawn on their own and others’ research collaborations with environmental health and social justice movement organizations to discuss the ethical concerns that emerge in community-engaged research. This paper introduces the concept of reflexive research ethics: ethical guidelines and decision-making principles that depend on continual reflexivity concerning the relationships between researchers and participants. (more…)
This report combines lessons and best practices from around the country with insights drawn from six case studies set in California. Background and context are provided, along with promising practices and sample resources and tools to assist local leaders in planning their own community-based participatory research (CBPR) inspired projects. (more…)
This case study explores the use of Participatory Action Research (PAR) by and with a community of people with disabilities in addressing a polarizing issue in that community: death with dignity or physician-assisted suicide legislation. Following a brief review of the debate within the community about this issue and the goals, methods, and findings of this project, the authors examine four key ethical challenges. These are dilemmas in issue selection when the community is deeply divided over a problem area, inclusion and exclusion in study team makeup and sample selection, insider/outsider issues, and how best to use findings in ways that can unite and strengthen the community. The implications of these issues for health educators and others engaged in community-based PAR efforts are presented. (more…)
When thinking about issues that affect children, community psychologists have most frequently conceptualized important stakeholders as parents and extended family members, family advocates, teachers, mental health professionals, and other adults in children’s lives. These adults may be consulted in interviews or focus groups, usually responding to the problem as conceptualized by the researcher. Increasingly, adult stakeholders and older youth may take on more participatory roles. Rarely, however, are children consulted or asked to help formulate the problem definition or proximate solution. Indeed, research is typically done for children, but not with children. This special issue is a collection of papers about participatory action research with children who are middle school age or younger, and is intended to stimulate dialogue and to offer alternatives when conducting research that affects children. (more…)