Social Justice

Introduction: Activist Scholarship-Possibilities and Constraints of Participatory Action Research

Beyond being a strategic tool for investigation, PAR provides an epistemologica! challenge to the social sciences, drawing urgent attention to the topic of where knowledge resides. [...] PAR attempts to redefine what counts as valid and relevant knowledge. [...] we thank Jessica Blundell, a doctoral student in the International and Multicultural Education program at the University of San Francisco for her assistance in the final stages of this issue.

The Cultural Organizing of Formal Praxis-Based Pedagogies: A Socio-Historical Approach to Participatory Action Research

Will the beast just purge them? Since graduating from the Social and Cultural Studies program, my work has been guided by these questions.\n Sánchez asserts that before the PAR project, the Latina youth possessed a critique of schooling; however, after completing a formal praxis, the Latinas advanced their critique in ways that posed opportunities for profound self -transformations.

Critical Dilemmas in Par: Toward a New Theory of Engaged Research for Social Change

FEMINIST ANTHROPOLOGIST DIANE WOLF (1996: 37) ONCE CHARACTERIZED participatory research (PAR) as "ideal for feminist researchers" because it effectively addressed multiple dilemmas of power in the research process, and particularly power inequalities between the researcher and the researched. In this article, I reflect on my experience of attempting to implement this "ideal" research approach across three PAR projects, each involving a distinct population: students at an alternative high sch...

Cultural Exclusion and Critique in the Era of Good Intentions: Using Participatory Research to Transform Parent Roles in Urban School Reform

Pollock, writing of her experience as an employee in the Office of Civil Rights circa 2000, uses the term "new civil rights era" to signify a struggle for equality in new forms, in an era where the reproduction of racial inequality is "fragmented"- spread across multiple system levels and chains of interactions- rather than explicitly mandated by law.1 "In a 'fragmented' system," Pollock writes, "we must now accept that racial inequality in education is formed not just by past generations' be...

'In Between Oprah and Cristina': Urban Latina Youth Producing a Countertext with Participatory Action Research

In other words, nearly half (48%) of all Latina/o students in this country are U.S.-born children of immigrants (second generation), and slightly less than one-fifth (17%) of all Latina/o students are first-generation immigrants themselves (Fry and Gonzales, 2008). [...] we can safely say that Latina/o education in this country is largely shaped by issues surrounding students' experiences with immigration or immigrant families, which inevitably includes aspects related to transnationalism.

Learning Power and Building Community: Parent-Initiated Participatory Action Research As a Tool for Organizing Community

[...] learning to be powerful derives from movement building and demonstrating the power of collective action (Oakes and Rogers, 2006). [...] equipped with substantial data, the three groups embarked on a particular action: PCAD implemented an intervention program, BOCA organized a 300-person community action in defense of the high school's English Language Learners, and the Coalition spearheaded a citywide organizing and school reform effort to break Berkeley High into small schools.

Exploring the Intersection of Philanthropy, Research, and Scholarship in a Third World Context

The study, which was conducted for my doctoral work in social and cultural studies in education, involved an analysis of the Nepali higher education system as a way of understanding some of the reasons behind the departure of increasing numbers of Nepali youth in pursuit of higher education abroad. Since most of the research on Nepali higher education is conducted and disseminated by the Nepali government, a group of four Nepali students and I mobilized to conduct a unique student-led inquir...

Activist Scholarship: A Review of Three Recent Works

Standout pieces in the volume include Ruth Wilson Gilmore's geographic privileging of "forgotten places" in prison abolition movements, Joäo Costa Vargas's refashioning of ethnographic methods to produce scholarship in the service of Los Angeles-based grassroots organizations, and Laura Pulido's FAQ to address the concerns of potential scholar activists. In a reductive misrepresentation of both Civil Rights and AIDS activisms, Domke writes, "early in our partnership we hit an effective way t...