More than Just an Academic Exercise: Conjoining Critical Policy Analysis and Community-Engaged Research as an Embodiment of Political Action

Abstract

Critical policy analysis (CPA) is a means by which to critique policy and promote agency, equity, and justice. However, most CPA scholars examine political discourse from a distance rather than actively participate in political processes. Meanwhile, there is a growing interest in community-engaged research whereby academics partner with community members in their research endeavors. In this article, we consider the value of conjoining the philosophies and processes behind both CPA and community-engaged research to create more powerful and meaningful research endeavors that potentially can lead to political action and policy change. For this article, we present a subset of data from a larger study that asked education policy scholars how critical policy analysis informs their work and what they consider to be key objectives of this approach. We focus on a subsection of participants who demonstrated how and in what ways they consider community-engaged scholarship to be an essential component of CPA. Participants discussed the roles of empowerment and voice, emphasized the importance of moving from theory to action in their research, and provided examples of how they embodied policy making on the ground with participants in their communities.