Cases and Stories of Transformative Action Research

Five Decades of Collaborative Action and Learning

John A. Bilorusky

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000373134
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Evaluierung & Bewertung im Bildungswesen

Cases and Stories of Transformative Action Research builds on its companion book, Principles and Methods of Transformative Action Research, by describing and analyzing dozens of examples of successful action research efforts pursued in the past five decades by students and faculty of the Western Institute for Social Research.

Some projects are large-scale, and some are modest interventions in the everyday lives of those participating. Some are formal organizational efforts; others are the results of individual or small group initiatives. Included are chapters on community needs assessments and innovative grassroots approaches to program evaluation; the challenges of improving our decision-making during the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic; strategies of intellectual activism in addressing the growing problem of workplace bullying; action research to preserve and share the history of the Omaha tribe; and plans for an innovative school-based project based on collaborative action-and-inquiry between students and Artificial Intelligence. In addition, there are a number of detailed stories about the use of transformative action research in such areas as somatic and trauma counseling, ethnic studies, health disparities, gender differences, grassroots popular education, and the improvement of statewide steps for preventing child abuse, among many others.

This book can serve as an undergraduate or graduate social sciences text on research methods. It is also a guidebook for action-oriented research by academics, professionals, and lay people alike.

1

Introduction

What is transformative action research?

This book aims to build on the book, Principles and Methods of Transformative Action research: A Half Century of Living and Doing Action-Inquiry, by providing many more specific examples of transformative action research in practice. In the companion book, I articulated what I see to be the key elements—the main concepts and methods—essential to the transformative approach to action research that I have learned to be especially valuable in contributing to meaningful changes, be they large or small. I’ve referred to this approach as transformative action research, or as a transformative approach to action-and-inquiry.

As I stated in the companion book, transformative action research

is about “research,” “inquiry,” and “action”—and an overall perspective on methods for bringing those together in transformative ways to make a difference. Most people use “action research” to describe and discuss research that is used in conjunction with action, whether before, during, or after the action taking place. The word “transformative” in “transformative action research” means several things.

First, action-and-research, or action-and-inquiry, transform each other, where each, action and inquiry, is a different emphasis, but still part of a yin-yang sort of whole. Consider for example, “imaginative and reflective action” which refers to inquiring aspects of action, or “engaged and involved inquiry” which refers to the action-oriented qualities of research and inquiry.

Second, “transformative action research” leads to some changes that “matter” and are valuable and useful for an individual, a group, an organization, a community, and/or the larger society.

“Transformative” action research is not limited to cut and dried processes, but often uses improvised strategies, still based on solid principles of inquiry. Consequently, it may often lead to significant changes, for even if the changes are small, they may not merely be incremental ones along already well-known paths, but instead lead to fundamentally different directions and outcomes. (Bilorusky, 2021, p.1)

Transformative action research is not a “thing”; it is more appropriately seen as a “sensitizing concept,” as an organic, evolving process. In this book, I have suggested that “it” is characterized by a coherent constellation of some key qualities, principles, and methodological approaches. Also, it is necessarily a “work in progress” that should, and will, come to mean different things to different people. It is not “my” method or approach, but rather a set of related ideas, methods, and principles that I have learned from the insights of others, as well as through my over 50 years’ of experience collaborating and being engaged with others, living and doing transformative action-and-inquiry. I have learned from a number of intellectual traditions, including especially insights from T. S. Kuhn and his modern classic, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the naturalist research methods of symbolic interactionism, the Dreyfus theory of expert knowledge, and the educational views of John Dewey and Paulo Freire, among others. Quite significantly, I have learned much from my colleagues (e.g., students and faculty) with whom I have worked on many action research efforts for the past 50 years.

This book contains many varied illustrations of “transformative action research” to help the reader learn about 1) some of the key qualities of, and issues pertaining to, science and inquiry; 2) how to participate and collaborate with others in inquiry; 3) how to use and critically evaluate specific techniques and practices of action research, and 4) ways to incorporate action research and transformative inquiry into our everyday lives, and how we may help others to do this as well.

This book builds on the companion book by providing in great detail, specific applications of action research (Part I), and illustrations of a wide variety of ways in which my colleagues have used action research for transformative purposes (Part II). For those of you who have not read the companion book, I am highlighting here a few of the main points made in that book (Bilorusky, 2021, Chapter 14):

• Transformative action research is about “research,” “inquiry,” and “action” and is an overall perspective for bringing those together in transformative ways to make a difference in our lives and the world.
• The word “transformative” is to emphasize how action research and inquiry can be used to develop fundamentally new insights, practices, and change. “Transformative inquiry” as a way of living, brings together thinking and acting in one’s life, in order to work toward personal and/or societal transformations.
• Action research, or action-and-inquiry, is fundamentally about learning, and my decades of experience have convinced me that, overall, learner-centered approaches to learning are most effective, especially because learners make use of what they have learned in ways that are significant and meaningful to them.
• Participatory research and democratic community knowledge-building will be served if we try to develop among us a steadily increasing number of professional and community participants who are knowledgeable about action research, and quite importantly, who can then help to teach others about transformative action-and-inquiry.
• The following strategies or considerations may often contribute positively to transformative action research:
  1. Being actively involved in the social realities, or circumstances, that we are studying.
  2. Considering alternative interpretations or hypotheses.
  3. Modifying and redirecting our research methods as we learn more.
  4. Using specific examples and stories to illustrate our concepts.
  5. Writing about our findings by “telling the story” of what we did during the research process, and how we came to our findings. In this way, we can try to be transparent about our methods, and potential biases, because when others read the story of our inquiry, they can decide whether, and in what ways, to take our research seriously.
  6. “Script improvisation” is a valuable, guiding metaphor for transformative action-and-inquiry. All theories should be used as “scripts for improvisation,” as potential starting points for further inquiry-and-action.
  7. Consciously and persistently trying to look for, find, and learn about examples that illustrate the exceptions to the rule, the variations on the theme. By understanding such “exceptions to the rule,” we can better appreciate the “general theme” or “general rule,” Through this process, we can then begin to develop a more comprehensive theory which accounts for both the examples that “prove” the rule, as well as those that are the exceptions.
• To take a transformative approach, it helps if we nurture these qualities:
  1. a desire to look at things that don’t quite fit;
  2. an inclination to probe beneath the surface appearances of things;
  3. an openness to new thoughts;
  4. a spongy mind that is open to and in contact with others from whom we can learn;
  5. active curiosity; and
  6. a sense of wonderment about things that is not fearful of open-endedness.
• Some valuable qualities that may contribute to the validity of our action research are:
  1. considering different situations and contexts, and the bigger picture;
  2. looking for specific examples to test out our insights;
  3. taking our own experiences and insights seriously, while also evaluating information from differing perspectives;
  4. looking beyond ourselves for information and insights from others; and especially,
  5. collaborating with others and getting the benefit of their analyses.
• Trying to adopt and practice these qualities, including transparency, is more important than whether we use numbers and statistics, more important than whether we adopt a particular research design, or any single research procedure. If we are transparent, then others will be able to evaluate our research, or action research, and decide how confident that they wish to be in our findings. Also, they can decide in what ways our findings seem to be “valid” and in what ways, limited.
• Sometimes emotions, as well as our idiosyncratic experiences, may actually aid the development of knowledge and expertise and be invaluable qualities of human intelligence.
• Transformative Action Research requires that we continually ask ourselves questions about what we think “matters” the most—about what’s valuable, and what’s useful or practical, in ways that matter to us.
• Science is a special version of abilities and understandings that we all have as human beings. It is a precious possession of all humans who want to participate in it. It can be reclaimed, at least in part, from the big research labs and academic departments that now dominate it. Seeing it as a social process, and as an important part of society, can be a step in that direction. Collaborating with each other in reclaiming science—that is, acting socially in another sense—is very much worth our efforts.
• In so many ways, our society and our culture, and especially those groups and people with the greatest power, influence, and privilege, may significantly influence, and distort, our inquiry in ways that we may not always readily appreciate. Action research cannot realize its transformative potential without a consistent and continual awareness of the challenges involved in addressing these biases. For these biases are not merely “academic” matters that influence our “research conclusions,” they impact our lives and our society, and especially the lives of those who continue to be most marginalized and least privileged people in the society.
• With the transformative approach, the following steps in the process of research need not always follow the usual conventional sequence, but may continue to interact and interweave with one another throughout the process of action-and-inquiry:
  1. asking questions;
  2. sampling (where to seek data and information) and the actual data-gathering;
  3. analyzing data; and
  4. communicating what has been learned during the research, as well as of course, with action research, the important, additional step of taking action!
  5. Action may happen before, during and/or after the research, and ideally, we should remain conscious, of all three options.
• We all observe, take in information, store it in memory, sort it into tentative categories, re-do these categories from time to time, come to conclusions, change our minds, re-interpret the ideas and facts we are using—and go on about our business as we are doing these things. Thinking together about these activities—what is generally natural about them, and what is special to “science” is important if we are to engage in transformative action-and-inquiry.
• As researchers, we are continually making decisions about what to look for next, what to sample for, or who to sample for, as the inquiry progresses, as we get more information and as we do preliminary analyses of the data. The more we learn about our topic of inquiry, the more we know how to sample, to test out and improve upon our initial ideas. It is important, to the extent possible to do “diversified sampling.” That is, our understanding and ideas, and our actions, will be more informed and more “valid” if we try to get information from the range of people involved in what we’re studying, or from the range of organizations or circumstances relevant to our research questions or purposes.
• In using statistics, we should not fall into the trap of abdicating our responsibility for, and opportunity to, weigh the evidence from many angles and then making the best judgment that we can, for now. We cannot rely on quantitative analyses alone. Very often there is an attempt to put effectiveness, risk, and effort into dollars-and-cents terms, so we can have a neat, and seemingly definitive, cost-benefit equation. But this is an artificial procedure. Instead, whenever we are in a position to decide, we need to take responsibility for making decisions, using our values and commitments, along with our best judgments in weighing what is often a very complex array of sometimes confusing, contradictory, or at least far from clear-cut, evidence. Also, rather than translating qualitative issues into dollars and cents, we can begin to translate dollars and cents into human terms, and then weigh the evidence; that is, make judgments about the information available based on human and social considerations.
• We—those of us doing the research, engaged in inquiry—inevitably make judgments and decisions about data-gathering and analysis, whether we are doing so qualitatively, quantitatively, or both. In all cases, the solidity and limitations of our process should be transparent and subject to critical examination and evaluation by others!
• In using a “both/and” perspective, our efforts in “making sense out of experiences” become all the more interesting, less frustrating, and more important and meaningful. This doesn’t mean that both perspectives have equal weight or validity, but that often, each perspective can contribute some things of value to our transformative approach to action-and-inquiry.
• It helps to have our perspective or “paradigm”—our valued assumptions and considerations—consciously in mind, because we, and often others, will live with the consequences of our choices—for better and for worse. We do have a lot of freedom to pick our tentative conclusions, and our facts and arguments, to fit the values and purposes we want to serve. It should be added that if we wish our action-and-inquiry to be truly transformative, then we also have the challenge of intermittently re-evaluating our values and purposes, and our overall “paradigm” by seeking out “new” information and by considering fresh and new ways of looking at the data.
• It is always a good idea to get additional evidence, be it more quantitative or more qualitative, or both. The primary consideration isn’t whether the evidence is “hard” or “soft”—because arguably all evidence is soft, and perhaps becomes a bit “less soft” if we are deeply and critically reflective, as well as imaginative, in weighing the evidence.
• Three related, important considerations in collaboration are: how to best communicate what we know to others, how and why we should collaborate with others to improve our research, and our action, and the importance to provide transparency about how we have arrived at our findings. Consequently, it is important for us to put ourselves at the heart of the “story” of the action-inquiry about which we are writing. This means sharing with our readers (or listeners) the thinking behind the decisions we make at various steps along the way when doing the action research, being transparent and engaging others in our thought processes during the inquiry. This includes writing to convey not just generalizations and abstract concepts alone, but also to connect ideas and conclusions with a variety of specific examples. This means using storytelling, case studies, and detailed illustrations—and, writing in our own voice and from our own perspective.
• With a transformative approach to action-and-inquiry, our goals and values themselves should become subjects of inquiry and re-examination. However, when a strong, valid, and passionate commitment creates a sort of tunnel vision, then it becomes a “preoccupation.” In such cases, we limit our own options for inquiry-and-action.
• Even within our strong commitments, our informed critiques and analyses of social reality, and our primary areas of activity, we must continually look beneath the surface, to discern the many layers of meaning underlying our activities and the realities with which we are concerned. If we do this, we can become more effective and informed in our actions and in the pursuit of our commitments and concerns.
• We are responsible for the potential impact on the society—as well as on specific individuals and subgroups within the society—of the written results of our research and of actions taken by others that may grow out of, or might be in any way influenced by, the research.
• We end up making value-based, cost-benefit analyses in deciding upon what action research questions to ask, what problems to address, and how to a...