Community-based research in public health focuses on social, structural, and physical environmental inequities through active involvement of community members, organizational representatives, and researchers in all aspects of the research process. Partners contribute their expertise to enhance understanding of a given phenomenon and to integrate the knowledge gained with action to benefit the community involved. This review provides a synthesis of key principles of community-based research, examines its place within the context of different scientific paradigms, discusses rationales for its use, and explores major challenges and facilitating factors and their implications for conducting effective community-based research aimed at improving the public’s health.

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Review of community-based research: assessing partnership approaches to improve public health.

Photovoice is a process by which people can identify, represent, and enhance their community through a specific photographic technique. As a practice based in the production of knowledge, photovoice has three main goals: (1) to enable people to record and reflect their community's strengths and concerns, (2) to promote critical dialogue and knowledge about important issues through large and small group discussion of photographs, and (3) to reach policymakers. Applying photovoice to public health promotion, the authors describe the methodology and analyze its value for participatory needs assessment. They discuss the development of the photovoice concept, advantages and disadvantages, key elements, participatory analysis, materials and resources, and implications for practice.

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Photovoice: Concept, Methodology, and Use for Participatory Needs Assessment:

How to ... be a reflective practitioner.

Theory in Practice: Increasing Professional Effectiveness

This article presents an overview of philosophy of science and research paradigms. The philosophy of science parameters of ontology, epistemology, axiology, rhetorical structure, and methodology are discussed across the research paradigms of positivism, postpositivism, constructivism-interpretivism, and the critical-ideological perspective. Counseling researchers are urged to locate their inquiry approaches within identifiable research paradigms, and examples of locating 2 popular inquiry approaches-consensual qualitative research and grounded theory-are provided. Examples of how counseling research would proceed from varying paradigms are explored, and a call is made for expanding the training students receive in philosophy of science and qualitative approaches to inquiry.

Qualitative research in counseling psychology: A primer on research paradigms and philosophy of science

Members of the editorial board of Action Research responded to the question, `Why action research?' Based on their responses and the authors' own experiences as action researchers, this article examines common themes and commitments among action researchers as well as exploring areas of disagreement and important avenues for future exploration. We also use this opportunity to welcome readers of this new journal and to introduce them to members of the editorial board.

Why Action Research

Foreword by Paulo Freire Introduction by Budd Hall What is Participatory Research? A Theoretical and Methodological Perspective by Peter Park The Powerful, the Powerless, and the Experts: Knowledge Struggles in an Information Age by John Gaventa If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em: The Professionalization of Participatory Research by Thomas W. Heaney A Way of Working: Participatory Research and the Aboriginal Movement in Canada by Ted Jackson Putting Scientists in Their Place: Participatory Research in Environmental and Occupational Health by Juliet Merrifield The Appalachian Land Ownership Study: Research and Citizen Action in Appalachia by Billy D. Horton Participatory Research as Critical Theory: The North Bonneville, USA Experience by Donald E. Comstock and Russell Fox Breaking Down Barriers: Accessibility Self-Advocacy in the Disabled Community by Mary Brydon-Miller Aboriginal Organizations in Canada: Integrating Participatory Research by Marlene Brant Castellano Challenges, Contradictions, and Celebrations: Attempting Participatory Research as a Doctoral Student by Patricia Maguire Appendix: Contact Organizations Bibliography Index

Voices of Change: Participatory Research in the United States and Canada

Action research is a term used to describe a family of related approaches that integrate theory and action with a goal of addressing important organizational, community, and social issues together with those who experience them. It focuses on the creation of areas for collaborative learning and the design, enactment and evaluation of liberating actions through combining action and research, reflection and action in an ongoing cycle of cogenerative knowledge. While the roots of these methodologies go back to the 1940s, there has been a dramatic increase in research output and adoption in university curricula over the past decade. This is now an area of high popularity among academics and researchers from various fields - especially business and organization studies, education, health care, nursing, development studies, and social and community work. The Sage Encyclopedia of Action Research brings together the many strands of action research and addresses the interplay between these disciplines by presenting a state-of-the-art overview and comprehensive breakdown of the key tenets and methods of action research as well as detailing the work of key theorists and contributors to action research. To watch a video of editor David Coghlan discuss the importance of this major reference work as well as the implications, challenges and successes of editing The Sage Encyclopedia of Action Research.

The Sage encyclopedia of action research

From Subject to Subjectivities profiles the recent debates about the role of qualitative and participatory methods in psychology, a discipline which has traditionally seen itself as a form of positivistic science. Contributors explain how fundamentally different views of the nature of reality and of scientific theory have shaped these debates, and how psychology is being transformed through the use of these methods. At the heart of the book are 10 exemplars of interpretive and participatory action research which describe the rationale for and process of using these methods in actual cases. They also articulate some of the challenges psychologists may face in adopting them, offering insights into how these complications can be successfully negotiated. Relevant beyond psychology, the models provided can be used within the context of a wide array of social science disciplines, from sociology and anthropology to women's studies and public health. The contributors represent a veritable "who's who" of qualitative scholars, including Lyn Mikel Brown, Larry Davidson, Michelle Fine, Louise Kidder, M. Brinton Lykes, Jeanne Marecek, Abigail Stewart, and Niobe Way. No previous book has examined qualitative and participatory methods specifically within the context of psychology. From Subjects to Subjectivities provides a unique and badly needed resource for those interested in learning about the practice of these methods in the field.

From subjects to subjectivities : a handbook of interpretive and participatory methods

Participatory Action Research provides psychologists with a way of putting their skills and training to work in support of positive social change while still contributing to the important work of knowledge generation within the field. This article summarizes the development of Participatory Action Research and reviews the theoretical justification for this practice as a valid form of social research. The basic tenets and practices of this approach are discussed and the potential role of Participatory Action Research in psychology is considered.

Mary Brydon-Miller

Papers

Why Action Research

Voices of Change: Participatory Research in the United States and Canada

The Sage encyclopedia of action research

From subjects to subjectivities : a handbook of interpretive and participatory methods

Participatory action research : psychology and social change