Making meaning about educational experiences through participatory action research: a project conducted with adults enrolled in a community college mathematics course

Abstract

This paper discusses the findings of a group of co-researchers involved in a participatory action research (PAR) project conducted with adults in a developmental education program. The co-researchers were mostly individuals of Hispanic descent, who had struggled in the past with schooling. Because the educational experiences of Hispanics often involve marginalizing events, the experiences of the co-researchers are contextualized by explaining how Hispanics and other persons of color experience schooling, and the lasting impact of those experiences on their psyche. The study was based on principles of PAR especially tied to the notion of vivencia (genuine human experiences), and on examples of the use of PAR in educational environments. In order to understand the meaning of the co-researchers’ experiences conveyed during dialogue sessions, the author/researcher used thematic analysis of dialogue and journals that was guided by ‘hermeneutic phenomenological reflection’. Those themes were then critically analyzed by the co-researchers in subsequent sessions. The initial dialogue session gave group members a chance to see commonalities in their educational experiences, contradictions between their experiences in and out of school, and differences in their purpose for being in school. In the second dialogue session, co-researchers discovered through critical dialogue that for people of color, educational experiences involve alienating racism encountered in various forms.