The catalyst process: What academics provide to practitioners

Abstract

AbstractIn this article, I explore what academics may offer community groups and practitioners by suggesting that scholars serve as catalysts that make community projects possible. One goal is to propose the catalyst model as a way of refocusing the action research paradigm. Action research is an established paradigm for scholars who wish to combine their research agenda with a desire to partner with community leaders on change projects. Discussions of action research tend to focus on the value of the approach for academics and methodological strategies that allow them to produce research their university colleagues consider legitimate. In the catalyst approach, we explore what university people provide in pragmatic terms that allows community movements and projects to move ahead. I deemphasize expert knowledge and focus instead on institutional resources. Scholars provide a gateway to a rich resource environment. The organization of professional work also allows scholars to give continuity to projects and to provide a framework that allows projects that otherwise might stall to move toward completion. The catalyst model eliminates the notion that scholars and practitioners belong to fundamentally different intellectual cultures and thereby removes one of the perceived barriers to effective action research. The model also indicates some organizational strategies for university people to use should they wish to set up long‐term university‐community partnerships..