Abstract
One of the ways doctoral students can engage in powerful learning that makes a difference is via community-engaged research. In this chapter, the authors describe the tensions experienced by a team of university researchers (doctoral students, staff, and a faculty member) conducting community-engaged research with a local charter school deemed underperforming by the state. Tensions explored in this chapter include honoring principles of community-based research while quickly getting the charter school the report it needed, balancing the importance of service to community and doctoral student learning, centering social justice by resisting deficit notions and pressure to report on school level problems when the state-level system needed to be changed, and constantly checking our assumptions as a team of privileged scholars working with an under-served community. The chapter concludes with recommendations and implications for practice and suggestions for future research.
TopBackground
For this community-based project, the research team used a constructivist case study, which Merriam (1998) describes as a “holistic description and analysis of a bounded phenomenon, such as a program [or] an institution” (p. xiii). The team also drew from “participatory or collaborative modes of research” (Merriam, 1998, p. 205) throughout this project. Whenever possible, the community was invited to offer suggestions and feedback on the research process. A later section delves more deeply into the tensions between wanting to honor tenets of community-based research (Jason & Glenwick, 2016; Strand et al., 2003; Wood, 2017) and the limitations related to what school leaders contracted the team to do within a 3-month timeframe.
As part of the community-based project, the researchers collected multiple types of data through document review, observations, focus group interviews, and individual phone interviews. However, most of the rich data were gathered via individual and focus group interviews with 117 stakeholders, including: alumni (n = 3), current students (n = 60), family members (n = 18), teachers (n = 11), and non-instructional staff (n = 10). Twelve focus groups were conducted in English and three with a Spanish interpreter. The team also completed 10–20-minute phone interviews with 15 students who were not regularly attending school.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Qualitative Evaluation: A research method that provides an in-depth exploration of a process or program.
Partnership: A relationship between two or more people or groups with common goals.
Community-Based Research: Research method focused on meeting community needs through partnerships between local communities and researchers.
Social Justice: Challenging and dismantling power, privilege, and oppression toward creating equitable systems.
Positionality: Lens of the researcher based on their relationship to the research topic and participants.
Charter School: Independent public school.
Reflexivity: Researcher practice of ongoing analysis of their relationship to the research topic and participants.