Action Researchers Research Articles

Community gardening: metaphorical reconstruction of transformative health governance

Abstract Transdisciplinary working has been defined by the inclusion of non-academic stakeholders in the process of knowledge production. While theoretical, phenomenological and experimental dimensions have been described in the literature, Rigolot proposes transdisciplinarity as a ‘way of being’ that stretches beyond professional life. The promise of transdisciplinarity however does not always meet the expectations in practice. How to get started, maintain and overcome barriers requires guidance. In an action-oriented evaluation research study we explored this dimension in the Dutch All about Health collaborative platform, which since 2014 facilitates a continuous development of bottom up health initiatives, networks, alliances and other forms of collaboration and learning. From our case studies we developed the Transformative Health Governance model. The model shows the ongoing and reciprocal connections between the actions, the context and intermediate results that were verified in a survey among 103 platform participants. Five types of returns are also building blocks that increase the chance of real (yet hardly measurable) increasing health benefits. They reinforce each other in a continuous process of ideation, integrative approach, innovation, implementation, and impact. The context provides for acceleration or deceleration of that process. With the help of a cartoonist we translated our model into an ongoing cycle of community gardening and maintenance. This metaphor makes the intangible of underlying social processes more tangible, providing a bit more grip on the building blocks, timing and time aspects, as well as deeper understanding the role and necessity of conflict and explicit conflict engagement rather than management. Moreover the cartoon elicits recognition, acknowledgement and spirit to continue their rowing against the systems-invoked tide for better health. It serves as a concrete aid to transdisciplinary working towards planetary health.

Credible, Competent Contributors: Children and Young People as Postdigital Citizen Social Scientists

AbstractI argue that participatory action research (PAR) is a valuable means by which to advance citizen social science, not by researching with and on adults, but with children and young people (CYP). Given the right opportunities, using child-friendly and child-centred research methods, CYP can be credible, competent contributors to social science, including the digital environment. The foundational goals of PAR are empowerment, transformation, and enfranchisement of the traditionally marginalised, and none are more universally and structurally marginalised than CYP. Using a child rights argument, I explain why CYP continue to be excluded from research and why there is still so much scepticism that CYP are credible contributors. One reason is childism, a system of oppression, prejudice, and discrimination against CYP on account of their perceived status as not yet human and not fully rational beings. Childism entails the belief that adults are automatically superior to children. I argue further that CYP’s participation in postdigital social science research enacts the entitlements in Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), even though state parties, having ratified this landmark convention, find it very challenging to do more than simply laud its aims. Using three case studies of CYP’s contribution to research and human rights activism, I make the case that they are expert knowers of their own social and digital experiences and have the skills and insights to examine their social worlds in ways that adult researchers too easily overlook, downplay, or simply ignore. As importantly is that CYP are expert users of digital and social media. Their epistemic and ontological experiences as users, creators, contributors, and disseminators of content, and as targets of malign actors, must be included in any research, policy, or law.

“I stayed on the street, as if there was no COVID-19”: enacting practices of care with youth at risk of violence and social exclusion in Portugal

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, a world of carelessness was made visible. Public health guidelines against the spread of COVID-19 (e.g., school closures, staying home, social distancing) have substantially affected youth’s health and well-being and highlighted the need for context-specific understandings of infection, risk, and care. Our research aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the impacts of COVID-19 on boys and girls serving educational measures and placed in the custody of the juvenile justice system in Portugal during the pandemic. Sustained by the use of ethnographic principles and methods along with participatory techniques, this article uncovers complex entanglements between the public health measures to mitigate contagion and the dynamics that exacerbated socio-spatial dynamics of social exclusion and isolation, educational and (mental) health inequities, and lived and practiced forms of violence by youth-serving tutelary measures in Portugal’s six educational centers. Following Tronto’s feminist ethical–political proposal of care, I argue that COVID-19 became a lens to access youth care needs — self-care, care for others, care as essential work of nurturing affective trajectories and solidarities and promoting positive and non-violent relationships. By caring for youth stories, the engagement of researchers and professionals in this action-oriented research aimed to promote the enactment of practices of care with youth in the Portuguese detention centers as a way to positively affect their inhabited present, promote healthier lives and nurture the construction of caring and non-violent post-pandemic futures.

Heritage volunteerism, cultural journalism and participatory placemaking: insights from ‘European Heritage Times’ and Erzgebirge cultural landscape

This study investigates the impact of collaborative creative approaches and voluntary work in the heritage domain, particularly exploring how participatory journalism can involve young volunteers pursuing serious leisure careers. The investigation utilises concepts from citizen humanities, participatory informal placemaking, and serious leisure theory to explore the potential advantages of engaging in voluntary heritage-related activities for both serious leisure volunteers and applied World Heritage Sites. These activities encompass visits to historic locations, short-term stays in heritage sites, and participation in experiential and formative programs. Furthermore, the study explores the effects of this volunteering process on transformation, highlighting both the volunteerism and placemaking aspects of the learning-making process. The researcher, serving as both a serious leisure volunteer and participatory action researcher, employs the editorial project ‘The European Heritage Times’ to assess the impact of this process on volunteers and the heritage sector, as well as on informal placemaking within the applied cultural context of Erzgebirge.

Solidarity and broadening the practices of action research

We live in a world of runaway global social inequality and immanent planetary ecological collapse and action research is more necessary than ever. Solidarity across countries, regions, classes, and ecosystems is the only way out of these linked crises caused by neoliberal capitalism. Action research is a vibrant and heterogeneous set of democratic practices capable of addressing many of these dilemmas. Action researchers have for generations largely been content to develop their own approaches independently and the attempts to create better integrated global action research networks have yet to show the needed success. This essay argues that the lack of collaboration and solidarity across the whole spectrum of action research is an unaffordable luxury. Living up to our own ethical and political commitments, we need to find ways to treat the diversity among our own practices and political visions as sources of strength and dynamism. Beyond this, together we need to make a concerted effort to link with other groups and networks promoting fairness, democracy, sustainability and solidarity because the future without these collaborations is unsustainable.

Reformulating action research to facilitate territorial responses to climate change

This article serves as an introduction to the special issue by presenting the results of a learning process shared by action researchers coming from different action research traditions and geographical areas. The goal of this learning process has been to generate explicit criteria and features that action researchers can integrate in their facilitative work in territorial development processes to make these development processes more effective in facing climate change. These criteria relate to the roots of climate change, justice, innovative ways to understand democracy and governance, the contribution of feminism to climate change and the role of emotions when facing it. These reflections and learnings are synthesized into twelve principles for action research for territorial development (ARTD).

Developmental Sensemaking for Transformative Action Taking: The Constructive Motion of Emotion

The article refreshes the concept of learning from experience, by emphasizing how experience is primarily anchored by emotion not rational thinking alone. It then inquires into the potential value of engaging emotions as a resource that gives vitality to action research. The proposition is that by including disappeared and denied emotions, perhaps especially at this moment when we confront planetary crisis, we may find greater perspective and imagination in co-creating response with stakeholders. Insights from two bodies of literature, action-oriented psychology and constructivist adult development are brought to flesh out the argument. A rich learning chronicle from a large scale, successful action research at the Port of Los Angeles is used to illustrate. The relevance of this chapter for action researchers engaged in territorial development lies in the provocation that more action researchers enrich capacity for helping transformations happen by leveraging the motion of emotions at this time of ecosocial crisis.

An action-oriented participatory research methodology involving residents, elected representatives and researchers: a case study in Rezé, France

The management of sound environments is a major challenge for the quality of life of residents (a definition here including city users). Local authorities have regulatory tools at their disposal to manage urban noise pollution, but these are sometimes far removed from the residents' perceptions. The aim of the SonoRezé project is to build on a citizen science approach, based on a triptych of "Local authorities - Residents - Researchers", working together on the diagnosis and management of urban sound environments in the city of Rezé, in Nantes metropolitan area. The approach consists in participatory noise measurements using the NoiseCapture mobile application, and the definition and implementation of actions jointly developed by residents, elected representatives and researchers, with the aim of improving the city's sound environments. The article will present the interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder methodology involved. Then, two initiated actions will be outlined and discussed: (i) a scientific mediation initiative in schools focusing on the development of perceptual sound maps, (ii) an action on aircraft noise, precising the methodology involving the three parties used to construct the action, as well as some of the results produced, namely a sensitive map, analyses of measurement data and the production of alternative indicators.

The regional development and implementation of home-based stroke rehabilitation using participatory action research

Purpose This study aims to overcome the challenges experienced in the regional development and implementation of home-based stroke rehabilitation (HBSR) and to understand the change process needed. Materials and methods Using participatory action research (PAR), participants and researchers collaboratively produced knowledge and took action to improve the offered HBSR. Different methods for data generation and analysis were used, depending on the aim of the PAR phase and the participants’ stages of change. The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) was used to select implementation strategies and to evaluate the implementation process. Results Developing and implementing HBSR resulted in multiple products that promoted the implementation of a regional stroke network and affiliated work arrangements. Work arrangements were embodied in a stroke care pathway, follow-up tool, and expertise requirements. Evaluating the PAR process identified participants being able to take the lead, being facilitated by others, and making progress visible, as implementation facilitators. Collaborating within a primary care project can be challenging but is considered essential and has a positive impact on multiple levels. Also, the implementation of HBSR calls for multiple implementation strategies reflecting multiple CFIR constructs. Conclusion This study highlights the complexity and achievements of developing and implementing HBSR using PAR.

Purposive motivation in an Unlikely place: A study of party activists in Ukraine

This study examines the motivations of party activists in Ukraine, a country known for clientelistic and oligarch-led political parties. It investigates whether these parties attract individuals seeking purposive incentives and explores factors associated with such motivation. Data were collected from surveys of approximately 200 party activists across three major Ukrainian cities during the 2019 Parliamentary Elections. The analysis reveals that purposive motivation is more prevalent among party activists than previously thought. Older activists and formal party members demonstrate higher levels of purposive motivation compared to their younger and non-member counterparts, while the study finds no positive correlation between ideological extremism and purposive motivation. These findings challenge the conventional assumption of party activists as hired “mercenarie” in volatile party systems and extend the scope of party membership and activism research beyond established Western democracies.

Exploring Action Research Sponsorship: Role and Enactment

This paper explores the complexities of involving partner organisations in co-generative learning processes within Action Research (AR) initiatives. Despite formal agreements, action researchers often face challenges in collaboratively addressing specific organisational issues through AR cycles. When action researchers adopt the “friendly outsider’ role, their initial task is to secure commitment to an AR initiative from senior leaders as sponsors. However, the existing literature lacks comprehensive guidance on facilitating this commitment. Therefore, drawing from both literature and empirical cases, this paper examines the pivotal role of the AR sponsor in securing funding and political backing, offering constructive critique, and facilitating learning. It provides insights into how action researchers can facilitate sponsors to enact these roles effectively so as to ensure the success and sustainability of organisational changes resulting from AR initiatives.

Outreach as Research Activism: Using STEM Outreach as a bridge to Social Change

The STEM Explorers outreach project, headed by a Faculty of Education at a University in Ontario, Canada, brings free, hands-on, and in-community science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) outreach events to children and their families from groups under-represented in STEM education and careers. The project provides pre-service teachers with experience facilitating inclusive approaches to STEM education and also creates a context to explore their conceptions of activism. The purpose of this phenomenographic research is to describe the experiences of these aspiring teachers to better understand the ways that outreach initiatives can impact their role as STEM education activists. Findings suggest that a positive STEM educator identity, a program of integrated and student-centered STEM learning, and possessing an activist sense of purpose, contribute to the degree to which pre-service teachers regard themselves as STEM education activists.

Reclaiming Narratives - Muslim Women Navigating Activism in Educational Research Implications and Recommendations for Educators

This chapter delves into the intricate dynamics of activism within educational research within the context of resistance and justice within settler-colonial states from Turtle Island and beyond. Drawing inspiration from Eve Tuck's (2010) concept of shifting from damage-centered research to desire-based research and Sara Ahmed's (2010) work on embodying what it means to be a killjoy, we endeavour to confront and address prevailing tensions we face as visibly identified Muslim women researchers and educators. We position ourselves to navigate the complexities of our lived experiences and advocate for justice in the current climate. We come together from Pakistani and Palestinian familial lineages to share our lived experiences and specific testimonies of ‘othering’ in educational research and activism. Using an anti-colonial and desire-based framework, we explore the framing and tensions of Orientalism and the struggle against it. We also contemplate our identities, positionalities and stances within educational research. Drawing strength from Indigenous cultures and Islamic philosophies, we seek to advocate for disruption, refusal and subversion, essential to activist research. We conclude with implications for educators, universities, researchers, schools, communities, and beyond. We aim to illuminate the paths we navigate as activist researchers, harnessing our collective experiences and reframing the research approach through a desire-based approach.

Mapping the discursive landscape of data activism: Articulations and actors in an emerging movement

Growing awareness of the societal consequences of datafication in recent years has given rise to a new form of civil society engagement called data activism. This article examines the discourse surrounding data activism on the social media platform Twitter. Through a mixed-methods approach combining computational analysis of Twitter content and close readings of Twitter profiles, we explore how new forms of civil society action related to data justice are articulated and linked to other forms of activism, conflicts and problems, and the actors involved in these articulations. Our analysis reveals a distinction between two articulatory patterns in the data activism discourse. The first involves grassroots actors, such as community organisations and individual citizens, who challenge existing power structures and advocate for social change. The second, on the other hand, is associated with academics, capitalists and policymakers who already hold positions of power and influence. This asymmetry is consistent with previous findings in data activism research. We encourage future research to extend these patterns, using additional methods and case studies, to further refine and contextualise the understanding of data activism within the civil society realm.

Tier-specific energy benchmarking for disparate schools in developing South Africa

The increasing impacts of human-induced climate change in developing countries have spurred government policies, activism, and sustainability research aimed at reducing energy consumption. Understanding the electricity usage of buildings is crucial to cutting carbon emissions and achieving cost savings. This study addresses the challenge of establishing realistic and relevant energy benchmarks for educational institutions in developing countries, specifically focusing on the Western Cape, South Africa. Schools in this region exhibit significant differences in energy intensities but are currently assessed using the same reference standard. A top-down analysis was performed using descriptive statistics to develop energy performance benchmarks tailored to unique patterns of energy consumption in schools. Data from 31 less affluent schools were collected using smart meters to ensure accuracy. The proposed reference benchmarks, ranging from 12 to 37kWh/m2 per year, are significantly lower than the existing 60kWh/m2 per year benchmark, demonstrating substantial potential for energy savings. This nuanced benchmarking approach accounts for seasonal and term variations in energy usage, providing a more accurate comparison across schools. The research introduces a novel, context-sensitive benchmarking method that extends beyond existing standards by incorporating these variations. It underscores the importance of localized benchmarks for achieving school energy efficiency, contributing to environmental preservation and financial savings. The proposed benchmarks offer a robust framework for policymakers, standard bureaus, and education departments to craft energy efficiency policies that drive progress in the education sector. By addressing the unique energy usage patterns of schools, this approach facilitates targeted interventions, leading to improved energy management and sustainability.

Implementation of the Health Promoting School Approach in Europe: A Cross-Sectional Study Among National Representatives.

Although principles of the health promoting school (HPS) approach are followed worldwide, differences between countries in the implementation are reported. The aim of the current study was (1) to examine the implementation of the HPS approach in European countries in terms of different implementation indicators, that is, percentage of schools implementing the HPS approach, implementation of core components, and positioning on so-called HPS-related spectra, (2) to explore patterns of consistency between the implementation indicators across countries, and (3) to examine perceived barriers and facilitators to the implementation of the HPS approach across countries. This study analyzed data from a survey that was part of the Schools for Health in Europe network's Monitoring Task 2020. The survey was completed by HPS representatives of 24 network member countries. Large variations exist in (the influencing factors for) the implementation of the HPS approach in European countries. Observed patterns show that countries with higher percentages of schools implementing the HPS approach also score higher on the implementation of the core components and, in terms of spectra, more toward implementing multiple HPS core components, add-in strategies, action-oriented research and national-level driven dissemination. In each country a unique mix of barriers and facilitators was observed. Countries committed to implementing the HPS approach in as many schools as possible also seem to pay attention to the quality of implementation. For a complete and accurate measurement of implementation, the use of multiple implementation indicators is desirable.

Transforming ambition into action to catalyse nature-based solutions: Insights from 250 good practice policy instruments

Ambition to leverage the power of nature-based solutions (NbS) to address global challenges such as the interlinked climate change and biodiversity crises has reached unprecedented levels. Despite a growing consensus around the potential benefits of NbS, this ambition has not translated into sufficient actionable progress in practice. Cities, increasingly recognized as centres of transformative capacity, have become a focal point for achieving NbS ambitions. Nevertheless, the transition from theoretical discourse to practical implementation has been slow, with NbS frequently being overlooked until recently in political agendas. A key obstacle to progress is the lack of action-oriented research grounding theoretical discussions in empirical evidence on NbS policy design and application. This paper seeks to address these knowledge gaps by: (i) defining criteria for good practices in urban NbS policy design and implementation; (ii) assessing policy instruments from the Urban Governance Atlas (UGA) against these criteria using mixed statistical and qualitative methods; and (iii) identifying potential pathways and actionable measures to promote the adoption of good practices in practice. Drawing on the diverse UGA examples, with a particular focus on Europe and the CELAC region, the paper identifies seven good practice criteria and outlines four potential pathways and related actions to guide the development of NbS policy instruments across varied urban contexts. Concrete recommendations around actionable knowledge aim to tap the transformative potential of NbS in addressing pressing global issues.

‘Can we Mec the Municipality?’ Emerging voices of young people in a segregated urban landscape

This article details the failure and success of an action research project that experiments with foregrounding young people’s perspectives in visions of future, sustainable, urban landscapes in Malmö, Sweden. In a range of future-creation workshops, the author, an assistant, and 34 young people aged 15–20 from two low-income neighbourhoods developed analyses, visions, and concrete change proposals for meaningful interventions in Malmö’s urban environment. The primary contribution is the young participants’ analyses of the subjective experience of a segregated urban landscape, the facilitation and contextualisation offered by the action researcher, and the integrative visions and actions that arose. The open-ended approach allowed participants to accentuate both diverse experiences and gathering points (such as a shared metaphor). The article highlights the discursive limits encountered by participatory processes related to urban landscape planning, as well as the methodological openings offered by critical utopian action research to experiment with overcoming these limits.

Childhoods, Lives, and Histories of Critical Qualitative Inquiry

The purpose of this article is to briefly overview this history of critical inquiry as conducted by early childhood education and care scholars; research by those with direct daily experience usually as teachers and/or caregivers with those who are younger, and remind everyone, including myself, that we have multiple locations and possibilities for putting forward justice-oriented critical activist research agendas. Before doing so, however, the understanding the reasons for engagement with critical histories can be very important to that work, along with an understanding of the research context from which the scholarship has emerged.

Stakeholder and Institutional Perspectives in Social Activism Research: Systematic Literature Review

Stakeholder and Institutional Perspectives in Social Activism Research: Systematic Literature Review