12
YOUNG PEOPLE AS CO-RESEARCHERS SEMINAR 23 rd January 2010 [email protected]

YOUNG PEOPLE AS CO-RESEARCHERS SEMINAR 23 rd January 2010 [email protected]

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Page 1: YOUNG PEOPLE AS CO-RESEARCHERS SEMINAR 23 rd January 2010 rachel.pain@durham.ac.uk

YOUNG PEOPLE AS CO-RESEARCHERS SEMINAR

23rd January 2010

[email protected]

Page 2: YOUNG PEOPLE AS CO-RESEARCHERS SEMINAR 23 rd January 2010 rachel.pain@durham.ac.uk

Decide on aims – and develop aims Choose the methods Collect the data Analyse the data Make sense of findings (conceptualise or

theorise) Write it up Disseminate - tell other people to

influence change

Page 3: YOUNG PEOPLE AS CO-RESEARCHERS SEMINAR 23 rd January 2010 rachel.pain@durham.ac.uk

…is the most important part of Participatory Action Research…

But where does it come from? What knowledge is it founded on? Who shapes this and how? Kellett (2005) – reports widespread concern

about involving young people in developing ethical frames of research

Involvement in analysis and theory much more challenging to conventional researchers

But everyone has the capacity to analyse and theorise…we all do it, all the time!

Page 4: YOUNG PEOPLE AS CO-RESEARCHERS SEMINAR 23 rd January 2010 rachel.pain@durham.ac.uk

3 year research relationship with African-run community project in Byker

20+/- young people of African and white British heritage aged 5 – 15

Used discussion groups, diagramming, different forms of art, creative writing, web design, etc

Page 5: YOUNG PEOPLE AS CO-RESEARCHERS SEMINAR 23 rd January 2010 rachel.pain@durham.ac.uk

Usually driven by a knowledge/action/policy imperative

Alternative: a ground up process where YP think through what research should ask

How can that be facilitated?

Page 6: YOUNG PEOPLE AS CO-RESEARCHERS SEMINAR 23 rd January 2010 rachel.pain@durham.ac.uk

Method (1): Discussion groups to brainstorm issues around hope/fear most relevant to them. Several follow ups – iterative analysis - to narrow focus.

Development of research questions and analysis From a range of local/global concerns... Iterative analysis by groups of their own and others’

findings on “hope” and “fear” Prioritisation of certain issues to investigate in depth,

e..g bullying, racism Research questions continued to change: e.g. from

difference to connection, from stereotypes about people to stereotypes about places

Method (2)Chose art as a means of exploring and expressing emotions

and the final research focus.

Method (3)Young people designed and uploaded content for a website

about bullying and racism

Page 7: YOUNG PEOPLE AS CO-RESEARCHERS SEMINAR 23 rd January 2010 rachel.pain@durham.ac.uk

Ruby: Data analysis – I hate it. When doing this part of the project the day just seemed drag.

Annissa: It’s just torture that’s all.Caitlin: Why is it torture?Annissa: I don’t know it reminds me of school.Ruby: It’s like to over analyse –Annissa: I think I like to speak and put things

out there and not have to think about why I said them.

(Caitlin Cahill, with the Fed Up Honeys, 2007)

Page 8: YOUNG PEOPLE AS CO-RESEARCHERS SEMINAR 23 rd January 2010 rachel.pain@durham.ac.uk

In conventional research analysis is:A separate phase of the research processConducted by experts Includes abstract and formal tests of

validity and cross-questioning of dataSupposedly, accountable…

“Participatory analysis embraces knowledge production as a contested, fraught process. It assumes there is no singular or universal truth” (Cahill 2007)

Page 9: YOUNG PEOPLE AS CO-RESEARCHERS SEMINAR 23 rd January 2010 rachel.pain@durham.ac.uk

Techniques: a range of analytical methods can be applied to data from PAR, as for conventional social research: E.g. content analysis, qualitative analysis,

quantitative analysis, visual analysis, etc Process: the process of analysis is

different. Collaboration: analysis is undertaken by

participants Classically with participatory methods,

analysis is built into their use (e.g. diagramming)

Analysis may also be undertaken by others – e.g. external researcher, other stakeholders

Page 10: YOUNG PEOPLE AS CO-RESEARCHERS SEMINAR 23 rd January 2010 rachel.pain@durham.ac.uk

Conventional stages of theorisation:Before any contact with participants: theoretical

grounding to suggest research questionsMay use elements of grounded theory during

fieldwork… (though most often not) Theorisation is done afterwards, separately,

with no input from participants.

If many researchers question people’s ability to analyse data….much bigger concerns about theorising: an elite activity

Who gets to interpret their lives and the world?

And what power does this have?

Page 11: YOUNG PEOPLE AS CO-RESEARCHERS SEMINAR 23 rd January 2010 rachel.pain@durham.ac.uk

Writing project with young women “Risky and painful” process:

identifying how they had absorbed other people’s stereotypes

Working through differences – not to reach ‘consensus’ but to agree on key themes and findings, and priorities for action

Scaling up: particular linking global/ societal/ neighbourhood/ intimate processes and causation (contextual validity)

How to capture mess and dissonance? – experiment with different voices in outputs.

Page 12: YOUNG PEOPLE AS CO-RESEARCHERS SEMINAR 23 rd January 2010 rachel.pain@durham.ac.uk

mrs c. kinpaisby-hill (2010) Participatory praxis and social justice: towards more fully social geographies, in Del Casino V et al A Companion to Social Geography