Is validity really an issue for participatory action research?

Abstract

The discourse of validity has been colonised by positivist thought. Recent methodological debates in the qualitative social sciences have opened new issues in the relationship between researchers and research ‘subjects’, between knowledge and power, and between research and social action. This has necessitated the rethinking of the concept of validity. The author argues that developments in the theory and practice of participatory action research provide the basis for an extended view of validity. This approach to validity takes the view that examined change with moral justification is most likely to be sustained when it is conducted with careful attention to the manifoldness and concrete particularity of social life which participatory action researchers attempt to influence, portray and understand. Participatory action research is not valid unless it meets the criteria of defensibility, educative value, and political efficacy and moral appropriateness.