Girls Study Girls Inc.: Engaging Girls in Evaluation Through Participatory Action Research

Between 2004 and 2007, Girls Incorporated^® conducted research about the experience of five affiliates from different parts of the United States as they engaged with girls in Girls Study Girls Inc., a participatory evaluation project that explored the meaning and impact of Girls Inc. environments and uncovered ways such environments can be improved. We describe the context and motivation for using participatory action research [PAR] in Girls Inc. environments and discuss the relevance and importance of PAR for organizations that empower girls and young women. We explain the process of training and engaging Girls Inc. members in research, discuss the effectiveness of Girls Study Girls Inc. as an evaluation strategy, and conclude this article with lessons learned and recommendations for using PAR in evaluating youth development programs.     

“Big Organisations” Supporting “Small Involvement”: Lessons from Bosnia and Herzegovina on Enabling Community-Based Participation of Children Through PAR

The article presents the process and the outcomes of child participatory action research (PAR) conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), as part of UNICEF activities in this country. The study was implemented through children acting as co-researchers, organised in so-called Children’s PAR Groups, initiated in three BiH municipalities. Children collaborated with a Support Group in each of the municipalities, comprised of adults who helped children implement their activities. Children chose to focus their research on community participation and ensured a number of outcomes in a relatively brief period. The value of PAR in the development of child participation was highlighted by children and adults who took part in the study. Prejudices that children have toward adults, and vice versa, were issues identified as main barriers for wider children’s participation. This article also reviews a number of ethical challenges highlighted in the study, such as the organisational barriers to children’s participation and project-based support for its development.     

Underground railroads: citizen entitlements and unauthorized mobility in the antebellum period and today

In recent years, some scholars and prominent political figures have advocated the deepening of North American integration on roughly the European Union model, including the creation of new political institutions and the free movement of workers across borders. The construction of such a North American Union, if it included even a very thin trans-state citizenship regime, could represent the most significant expansion of individual entitlements in the region since citizenship was extended to former slaves in the United States. With such a possibility as its starting point, this article explores some striking parallels between the mass, legally prohibited movement across boundaries by fugitive slaves in the pre-Civil War period, and that by current unauthorized migrants to the United States. Both were, or are, met on their journeys by historically parallel groups of would-be helpers and hinderers. Their unauthorized movements in both periods serve as important signals of incomplete entitlements or institutional protections. Most crucially, moral arguments for extending fuller entitlements to both groups are shown here to be less distinct than may be prima facie evident, reinforcing the case for expanding and deepening the regional membership regime.     

Trying on and Trying Out: Participatory Action Research as a Tool for Literacy and Identity Work in Middle Grades Classrooms

This article explores the role of collaborative, ethnographic, participatory action research (PAR) with eighth grade students as a set of possible literacy practices for involving students with issues connected to their lives, resources, language(s), and communities. Findings are based on a year of fieldwork conducted as part of shared inquiry into one public school community’s experiences with gentrification and meeting the complex needs of diverse learners. Findings bring to life the ways in which PAR facilitates the redefining of reading, writing, and research; the reconsideration of languages; the rethinking of literacy practices; and the repositioning of participants within and beyond given research endeavors.     

Feminist justice and the case of undocumented migrant women and children: a critical dialog with Benhabib,Nussbaum, Young,and O'Neill

In recent years, scholars and researchers have discovered a new trend in the migration of unauthorized people into the United States: while the total numbers of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the border have grown exponentially in the past few years, human rights violations against migrant women have also increased significantly. This unfortunate trend is not unrelated to the intensifying border militarization and the criminalization of all unauthorized migrants. This paper attempts to provide an ethical solution to the political conundrum of undocumented migration by engaging a critical discourse with major feminist theorists of justice, including Seyla Benhabib, Martha Nussbaum, Iris Marion Young, and Onora O'Neill. I develop an argument in the paper that the US government's political appropriation of forgiveness is the most justifiable and practical solution for resolving the precarious situation of undocumented migrant women and children.     

Reflecting on Participatory,Action‐Oriented Research Methods in Community Psychology: Progress,Problems, and Paths Forward

This paper provides a critical reflection on participatory action research (PAR) methods as they pertain to community psychology. Following a brief review of the fundamental aspects of PAR, key developments in the field are examined. These developments include the redefinition of the research enterprise among groups such as Indigenous and consumer/survivor communities, challenges that attend the “project” framing of PAR, academic and practice context challenges, and important domains in which PAR methods need to become more engaged (e.g., social media and disenfranchised youth). Three illustrative case studies of programs of work in the areas of youth homelessness, consumer/survivor engagement, and Indigenous research are provided to illustrate these contemporary challenges and opportunities in the field. The authors make the argument that without an effort to reconsider and redefine PAR, moving away from the stereotypical PAR “project” frame, these methods will continue to be poorly represented and underutilized in community psychology.     

Partnering with Children Diagnosed with Mental Health Issues: Contributions of a Sociology of Childhood Perspective to Participatory Action Research

This paper explores the use of participatory action research (PAR) with children diagnosed with mental health issues. We argue that critiques from the sociology of childhood are useful for guiding PAR with children. First, we describe and critique values and assumptions that underlie research and practice with children who experience mental health issues. Second, we outline key qualities of the sociology of childhood, discuss their implications for PAR with children diagnosed with mental health issues, and touch on ethical issues. Five themes are explored: (a) values, (b) ontology/epistemology, (c) views about children, (d) agency/power in children’s relationships with adults, and (e) intervention/change focus. We conclude by encouraging community psychologists to consider PAR with children diagnosed with mental health issues.     

Mexican migrant-smuggling: A cross-border cottage industry

As the United States has intensified surveillance of its southern border with Mexico, unauthorized migrants have become increasingly dependent on hired smugglers when they cross the border and reach their destinations in the US interior. According to the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, tighter border controls have systematically transformed migrant smuggling into a sophisticated and highly profitable industry dominated by large-scale criminal syndicates that prey on migrants desperate to enter the US without official authorization. In this article I argue that despite the rise of larger-scale smuggling organizations, smuggling of migrants across the US-Mexico border is still undertaken by small-scale and/or part-time smugglers who are embedded in the Mexican migrant community itself. Moreover, I suggest that the logic that predicts the elimination of small-scale smugglers from the market is flawed because it is based on an unrealistic assessment of the requirements for mounting a successful smuggling enterprise. I base this claim on preliminary findings from an ongoing ethnographic study of migrant smuggling on the South Texas-Northeast Mexico border that I began in summer 1998.     

A Qualitative Systematic Review of Youth Participatory Action Research Implementation in U.S. High Schools

This qualitative systematic review examined the context-specific factors that influence the implementation of youth participatory action research (YPAR) projects in high schools within the United States. Thematic synthesis was conducted to identify and analyze the YPAR implementation factors that were present in 38 peer-reviewed studies. Results indicate the following two analytic themes concerning YPAR implementation in high schools: (a) pedagogical strategies and (b) stakeholder dynamics and needs. The themes provide support for existing ecological frameworks of implementation factors and demonstrate that adult researchers’ project-specific decisions are nested within educational power structures. This paper will discuss the implications of these YPAR implementation themes in executing YPAR projects in high schools.     

Participatory Action Research (PAR) in Middle School: Opportunities, Constraints, and Key Processes

Late childhood and early adolescence represent a critical transition in the developmental and academic trajectory of youth, a time in which there is an upsurge in academic disengagement and psychopathology. PAR projects that can promote youth's sense of meaningful engagement in school and a sense of efficacy and mattering can be particularly powerful given the challenges of this developmental stage. In the present study, we draw on data from our own collaborative implementation of PAR projects in secondary schools to consider two central questions: (1) How do features of middle school settings and the developmental characteristics of the youth promote or inhibit the processes, outcomes, and sustainability of the PAR endeavor? and (2) How can the broad principles and concepts of PAR be effectively translated into specific intervention activities in schools, both within and outside of the classroom? In particular, we discuss a participatory research project conducted with 6th and 7th graders at an urban middle school as a means of highlighting the opportunities, constraints, and lessons learned in our efforts to contribute to the high‐quality implementation and evaluation of PAR in diverse urban public schools.     

Participatory Action Research

Abstract

Traditionally, mental health research has been conducted exclusively by professionals with little input and participation from individuals with mental illness themselves. Participatory action research (PAR) provides a more dynamic method of research, giving individuals the opportunity to become activists and advocates by influencing the direction of mental health research. This paper outlines important differences between PAR methodology and traditional research, with an emphasis on the differing roles of persons with mental illness in the two models. PAR is consistent with the recovery movement in several ways: both approaches value self-definition, empowerment, and experiential knowledge. As an example, this paper describes one project that incorporates principles of the participatory action research paradigm.     

Participatory Research in Systems of Care for Children’s Mental Health

The children’s system of care initiative in the United States requires the participation of caregivers of children with emotional or behavioral problems in conducting research and evaluation. This entails a restructuring of traditional power dynamics among families served by the community mental health system and other system stakeholders, including researchers. However, evidence indicates that system of care research may not currently embrace the different types of knowledge possessed by caregivers and may be frustrated by traditional power hierarchies, resulting in research findings that are not useful for the community. In this paper I examine a framework for power and knowledge and examine how, when viewed through this framework, participatory research in the system of care initiative thus far may be less than authentic. I conclude with improvements suggested by the framework that are expected to shift power to caregivers and result in more useful, actionable research findings for the community.     

Girls’ Perspectives of Barriers to Outdoor Physical Activity Through Photovoice: A Call for Counselor Advocacy

Physical inactivity and limited time spent in nature are major societal concerns that affect the mental and emotional health of youth in the United States. As such, this study explored girls’ perspectives of barriers to outdoor physical activity using a qualitative participatory action research method called photovoice. Six themes emerged from data representing the girls’ perspectives of barriers to outdoor physical activity through photovoice: Very Busy Schedule, Social Media, Health Concerns, Indoor Activity Instead of Outdoor Activity, Electronic Devices, and Way of Life. Researchers address how counselors can use these findings to advocate on this issue, given that counselors are called to advocate at multiple levels to address barriers that inhibit the growth and development of clients.     

Participatory action research: The distress of (not) making a difference

Participatory action research (PAR) is alluring for researchers investigating traumatic and sensitive topics. While it is distressing for interviewees to recount these stories – and for researchers to hear them – PAR promises to make the pain worthwhile. Something good will come of it. In this paper, I reflect on a PAR project conducted with Tanzanian child domestic workers. Research vignettes are used to highlight moments of emotional complexity unique to PAR projects. First, the emotional burdens of PAR are distributed across a research team. Researchers need to think carefully about the appropriate ‘level’ of participation to pursue. Second, there is no guarantee that the impacts of PAR projects will be unambiguously positive. The risk of doing more harm than good can weigh heavily on the minds of the research team. Third, when PAR projects are conceived with the intent of producing long-lasting structural changes that benefit marginalised people, ‘failure’ can become a source of great distress. Those attempting PAR need to be prepared for the emotional pitfalls of research endeavours that seek to tangibly intervene in traumatised people's lives.     

The Effects of Artist Adoration and Perceived Risk of Getting Caught on Attitude and Intention to Pirate Music in the United States and Taiwan

Piracy is the greatest threat facing the global music industry today. This study explores the effects of artist adoration and the perceived risk of being caught on the attitude and intention to engage in pirating a digital song among college students. The moderating effect of cultural environment factor is also examined. Experiments using between-group factorial designs were conducted in the United States and Taiwan. The results show that perceived risk of getting caught and cultural environment are important factors that can significantly affect the attitude and intention toward downloading unauthorized music. In addition, a two-way (Perceived Risk × Culture) and a three-way interaction in the model are also observed.     

Guilt: A gendered bond within the transnational family

Between 1999 and 2003 Argentinians lived an economic, social and political crisis that led some of them to emigrate, mainly to the United States and Spain. There are few studies on Argentinean migration and even fewer studies that take emotions and gender during the migration process into account. The aim of this work was to understand the link between gender and guilt within the migration process. In order to consider this, I analyzed the expression of guilt within the narrative of Argentinean migrants in Miami, United States and Barcelona, Spain. In-depth interviews of Argentinean migrants were conducted in both cities. Research shows that guilt is a gendered emotion, which allows migrants to temporarily stay attached to their family in a gendered way during the migration process. Nonetheless, its expression depends on four different factors that are interrelated: representations of gender role and “imagined family”, representations' changes during the migration process and the context of departure and the context of arrival.     

Settler-State Borders and the Question of Indigenous Immigrant Identity

Indigenous migration from Latin America to the United States has been on the rise over the past decades. There has also been an increase in Indigenous self-identification amongst people in the United States who previously self-identified as Hispanic or Latina/o on census forms. Though Latin American Indigenous migration to the United States has been steadily on the rise since the 1990s, there remains a lack of resources—philosophical, political, and bureaucratic—to account for this migrant group. My goal in this article is to explore in greater depth why Latin American Indigenous migration is hermeneutically marginalised. First, I argue that we problematically fail to understand settler-state borders—particularly the Mexico-US border—as, in part, Indigenous spaces. Second, and relatedly, I argue that our failure to understand borders as Indigenous spaces is connected to the widespread, inaccurate presumption that Indigenous peoples ‘lose their authenticity’ (and, in turn, their very Indigenous identities) upon crossing settler-state borders. Contrary to what I describe as the dominant view of borders as de-Indigenised or non-Indigenous spaces, I argue in that many settler-state borders are spaces where Indigenous peoples, including Indigenous migrants, may experience their Indigenous identities intimately, and even publicly articulate and defend them. Importantly, this does not mean that settler-state borders do not also harm Indigenous peoples by threating Indigenous sovereignty. I end by arguing that addressing the hermeneutical marginalisation of Latin American Indigenous migration requires a rigorous reconceptualisation of borders themselves as Indigenous spaces.     

Rights and Restrictions: Temporary Agricultural Migrants and Trade Unions’ Activism in Canada and Spain

In the last two decades, temporary worker programs have experienced an unprecedented expansion as instruments of what is defined as the migration management approach. Various migrant rights activists have voiced concerns about the treatment of temporary migrants in these programs and taken initiative to advance their rights. For some migrant rights advocates, it is the temporary nature of migration that is primarily responsible for the rights deficit. Yet, other migrant rights activists accept the temporariness of labour migration while trying to ensure that migrants receive legal protections for their work rights and that these protections are enforced. Trade unions are among the actors who try to protect and advance temporary migrants’ labour rights, but their role in supporting or challenging the principles of temporary migration governance has been neglected in the scholarly literature. The article addresses this gap by highlighting the divergent position of Canadian and Spanish Unions on temporariness of this type of migration. As the article argues, the difference is related to the following four factors: (1) the degree to which the unions in question are institutionally embedded in immigration policy-making, (2) the social environment (that is, discourses on temporariness advanced by other unions and grassroots organizations), (3) the degree of protectionism unions express vis-à-vis new immigrant flows and (4) whether regulated temporary migration is contrasted with permanent or unauthorized migration.     

Hearing a Voice: Results of a Participatory Action Research Study

Interest in participatory action research (PAR) is rising among academics, researchers, families, and youth themselves who are involved in the system of care. PAR combines systematic research and professional guidance with the development of a practical intervention tailored to the user population in collaboration with the user population. We designed our research to sample and assess the level of interest in PAR for adolescents, gathering qualitative data about the level of understanding of, and expectations for, youth participatory action research. We present the results of a pilot study and then a survey, administered to two different conference populations during 2008. Our data offers insight into the world of service providers, beneficiaries, and advocates for children with mental health disorders. Based on the responses to our questionnaire, we identify four major themes and their underlying issues concerning the benefits and drawbacks of PAR for a young population. We also examine the concerns of each of the self-identified group to determine whether there were dominant characteristics for each group. We conclude that stakeholders do have reasonable expectations of participatory action research as a process and of the youth who could be empowered to bring about change in their system of care. Finally, we make recommendations for future research.     

Projection in the Face of Centrism: Voter Inferences About Candidates' Party Affiliation in Low-Information Contexts

When are voters more likely to project their own political position onto a candidate for office? We investigate this question by examining the assumed partisanship of a (self-declared) centrist politician, using data from a survey experiment fielded in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In doing so, we build on the social categorization model as well as recent U.S.-focused political science research on projection and ingroup/outgroup racial divides—extending our analysis to incorporate racial and class similarities/differences across three countries where these divides likely vary in salience. We thus seek: (1) to contribute to research on the inferences citizens draw in nonpartisan elections and low-information contexts generally and (2) to highlight some potential methodological complications of using partisanship-less candidates in vignette experiments. Results suggest that even in the face of a self-declared centrist, voters from across the political spectrum tended to assume shared partisanship in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Examining projection by ingroup/outgroup divisions indicated that class appears to shape projection across all three countries, but that the racial divide only mattered in the United States. Finally, we also find evidence of counterprojection toward outgroup members—but once again only in the American context.