Introduction: More than Methods—Reflections on Participatory Action Research in Geographic Teaching, Learning and Research

Abstract

This paper provides an introduction to this symposium issue on participatory action research in geographic teaching, learning and research. It introduces the themes of the symposium and contributions from the participating authors, and also offers additional discussion of the attendant benefits and challenges of using participatory action research within a pedagogic context. The authors begin by discussing the recent growth of participatory pedagogies in higher education, including service learning, research-based teaching and community-based research. They contend that participatory action research may be incorporated in all of these learner-centred and community-engaged pedagogies with beneficial outcomes for teaching, student learning and academic research; however, they advocate for its incorporation into research-oriented and research-based teaching strategies where possible. They also discuss some of the unique political, ethical and logistical challenges involved, and argue that an engagement with participatory action research in our teaching requires more than attention to methods, but, rather, a rethinking of theory–practice, teacher–student, and university–community relationships. They conclude with a brief discussion of the symposium and the authors' contributions.

Keywords:

• Participatory action research
• active learning pedagogies
• research methods

Notes

¹ The first international gathering focusing explicitly on teaching and learning participation was held at the Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, UK in 2003 in the form of an International Workshop on Teaching and Learning Participation in Higher Education.

² Even with all this, Jules Pretty—a trainer of participatory methods for international development workers—notes that in any given training course, about a quarter of the participants/students become really active and capable of innovation and of training others. About half of the participants understand some of the methods and can implement them in their project context. The final quarter of students in the course are unlikely to understand participatory approaches at all and may deliberately resist understanding (Pretty, 2003).

³ At the time of writing, we are aware of a forthcoming edited collection of reflections on incorporating PAR into undergraduate courses, with contributions from faculty in the humanities, sciences and social sciences (Hofman & Rosing, 2007).