POPULAR EDUCATION AND PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH
The field of community organizing in
the United States could be greatly benefitted by the triple standpoint of
research-education-action akin to popular education and participatory action
research tradition in Latin American. This chapter aims to go deeper into these
two approaches for a better understanding of their basic principles,
methodologies, and practical implementation.
For Paulo Freire, the late Brazilian
pedagogue considered by many as the founder of popular education or liberation pedagogy,
this type of educational approach is one that fosters the discussion of the social
issues in which the individuals are embedded. In effect, through dialogue, this
pedagogy attempts to build a critical awareness to help individuals overcome a
naive attitude about the world they live in: "An education that enables the
brave discussion of their problems, their insertion into those problems” (Freire,
1975a: 85)[2].
From a Popular Education
perspective, the task of the educator/facilitator is not to lecture about
reality or "to give" or extend the content on selected topics, as if
this knowledge is an all-finished and static object. On the contrary, his/her
role is to motivate learners to reflect on their reality, in which the educator
is not indifferent, since she or he is also problematized by that reality.
Popular Education, like any other
educational approach, is always political. That is, the practice of a neutral
education, aseptic and untouchable from the point of view of values is
impossible to achieve. While those
involved in formal education studies
usually won’t admit it, nevertheless, this discipline is as political as
the ones that openly proclaim their political nature.
What to know?, how to know?, for what to know?, in favor of what and for
whom to know? - And therefore, against what and against whom to know? – Those are
theoretical and practical issues and not intellectualisms...So, to deal with the
question of what to know? I find myself necessarily gotten into the what for? the
how?, the favor of what and who?, and against what and against whom to know?,”(Freire,
1978: 135-136).
Popular
Education Methodological Principles
The relationship
between theory and practice
Popular
education merges theory and practice in its methodological approach. While this
type of educational perspective acknowledges that the educator/facilitator brings
a wealth of theoretical knowledge that enlightens and inspires practice, it is
also true that this same educational exercise
produces new theoretical knowledge through a dialogue between the
educator/facilitator and the student/participant.
Therefore, new theory is created through a process of
uncovering and examining the student/participant´s social practice, then reflecting/theorizing
on that practice, and finally enhancing the student/participant´s social
practice with what has been learned in the process. This dynamism allows both the
educator/facilitator and the student/participant to get closer together to
their subject knowledge. In the words of Carlos Núñez, the late Mexican
educator and politician:
It is the continuous and systematic process
that involves moments of reflection and study on the practice of a group or
organization. It is the confrontation of the systematic practice, with elements
of interpretation and information to take such conscious practice to new levels
of understanding. It is the theory of practice, not theory over practice (1985:
55)[3].
Relationship
between subject and object
Popular education breaks the
subject-object dichotomy in the relationship between the educator/facilitator
and the student/participant. This approach challenges traditional education’s vertical structure in which the educator is
located in a superior position vis-a-vis the student/participant. When the
conventional approach is taken, the educator
is the subject who knows, who explains, and his/her role is active; the student
is the object who learns, and this role is passive. In this regard, Freire
makes an exhaustive list of the dynamics that operate within the traditional educator-student
contradiction. Due to its clarity and
richness, it is worthy of an extensive quote
(Freire, 1986: 59):
... To
reflect the oppressive society ... banking education maintains and stimulates
the contradiction (teacher and student) Hence it happens that:
a) the
teacher teaches and the students are taught;
b) the
teacher knows everything and the students know nothing;.
c) the
teacher thinks and the students are thought about;
d) the
teacher talks and the students listen-meekly;
e) the
teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined;
f) the
teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the students comply; .
g) the
teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the action of
the teacher;
h) the
teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his own professional
authority, which he sets in opposition to the freedom of the students;
j) the
teacher is the subject of the learning process, while the pupils are mere
objects.
On the
other hand, from a popular education perspective, both parties, the educator and the learner, are active subjects of knowledge, mediated
by the world that constitutes the object that they reflect about. Thus, instead
of being regarded as the source of the knowing act, education is actually the
mediating act between two cognitive subjects: the educator and the learner.
This relationship also involves, as a prerequisite, overcoming the
contradiction that operates between the educator and the learner through
dialogue. Hence, Freire´s famous reasoning about the social nature of education
argues that:
Now, no
one educates anyone, nor anyone educates himself or herself, men are educated
in communion, mediated by the world. Mediated by knowable objects, which in the
"bank" educational practice belong to the educator who describes or
deposits them into the passive learners (Freire, 1976: 90).
Collective Production
of knowledge
Similar to all critical pedagogy, popular
education aims to unveil social reality. In order to achieve this, it traces
the causal relationships between its various components and seeks to produce collective
knowledge that somehow describes and explains that reality, while helping to
transform it at the same time. In that process, popular education confronts the
educator´s key theoretical and technical knowledge with the traditional,
popular lore of the learners.
Moreover, this traditional
knowledge has allowed these groups to survive and resist in extremely harsh
conditions of oppression, marginalization and/or exclusion. So lore, folklore, popular science, or science
of the people refers to all the knowledge that has been treasured for generations
by the marginalized, oppressed or excluded collectivities, and this knowledge has
been necessary in order to survive and resist. It is therefore, experiential
knowledge that needs to be recovered, systematized, and tinged with academic
knowledge. In the words of Carlos Rodriguez Brandao (1987: 39), this science is
popular: "First ... by being committed to the popular cause. Second ’popular’
because it thinks from the logic of the people ... the way it conceives its
reality."[4] Orlando Fals Borda (1981: 22), who coined the term
“popular science” for the very first time, defines it in similar terms:
By popular
science or folklore, knowledge or wisdom, we understand the practical empirical
knowledge of common sense, which has been an ancestral ideological and cultural
procession of people from the grassroots; the one that has allowed them to create,
work, and interpret predominantly with the resources that nature directly offers
to man.[5]
What are the elements of
this lore? Following Carlos Rodriguez Brandao in his paper "La Participación en la investigación en los trabajos
de Educación Popular” (The participation in research in the works of
popular education) (1983: 94-97) and from an anthropological reading, those
elements can be traced to the social practice of the popular sectors.
In the practice of living, people
exchange material goods, services, and meanings in a "vast and full of
interactions" repertoire. In this process, they exchange knowledge, ways
of knowing, and values. Symbols and meanings, according to the plot of the
reality in which they are involved (religion, health, education, productive
work, family life, politics, etc.), " constitute what we know from the
outside as popular culture, popular [SLH1] science, popular
religion, and folklore."
However, this knowledge is more
than cultural forms of "rustic technology" of "primitive
philosophy" or "spontaneous science." It includes particular
structures and the production and reproduction of lore that wisely reflects the
reality that participants come from in their own language.
POPULAR EDUCATION
METHODOLOGY
Methodologically speaking, there is a difference between
designing a popular education process with a series of educational events that have a common, continual theme
developed through several topics and a single
educational event.
Popular Education process
When designing
a popular education process, the first thing to do is what Paulo Freire called
“Thematic Research.” This is participatory research conducted with the future
participants of the educational process. The aim of this research is to
identify the main themes and topics that the community is demanding to learn. Instead
of deciding the main theme and subsequent topics unilaterally, the facilitating
team conducts a consultation with the future participants about the pertinence
of those contents.
Usually, the thematic research departs from a central pre-defined
theme and a list of topics. These are confirmed by the participants (discarding
some, and adding others), or they are prioritized. Changes are allowed in order
to make sure the content of the process will match the cognitive needs of the
participants.
Ideally, the educational process should be part of a
much more complex process, but there isn’t always time and resources to do so. Nevertheless,
the future participants under consultation should suggest the majority of the
topics.
Participatory workshop with a popular education
methodology
Typically, a popular education workshop follows an
internal structure or logic (referred to in Latin American as “Vertical logic”)
of three consecutive moments: Practice-Theory-Practice improved[SLH2] and Research-Education-Action. Along with the vertical
logic, there is a horizontal logic that details the distribution of time,
content, procedures, and resources.[SLH3]
The first moment, “Practice/Research,” is the
introductory time period when the facilitator uncovers the participants’
previous knowledge, experience, or judgment about any determined topic that is
going to be reflected on throughout the workshop. To do so, the facilitator gathers information
from the participants using participatory learning tools like games, drawing,
storytelling, dramatization, etc., usually in breakout groups. Then, a plenary
session follows, where all the groups share their work. The second moment
begins during the plenary session.
The second moment “Theory/Education” is when the
facilitator tries fuse the knowledge that he or she brings to the workshop,
with what the participants have just shared. During this process, the
facilitator also constantly draws out and explains the participants’ own
perceptions, feelings, and examples, without forgetting his or her content as
well.
The third moment, “Practice/Action” (also called “Commitment”
in some circles), is the final phase when participants go back to their groups,
or to a plenary session, to discuss the future applications of what they have
learned or the possible utilization of the knowledge built during the workshop.
It antecedes the final evaluation.
An important element of a popular education workshop is the utilization
of participatory learning tools, which foster the participants’ real
integration into the educational event. There are a variety of participatory
tools, depending on their utility (energizers, integration, analysis, research,
etc.), mode (audio, experiential, video), and the type of group being utilized
(individual, break out groups, pairs).
PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH
According to critical pedagogy
authors Stephen
Kemmis and Robin Mctaggart (2,000: 2):
Participatory
research (often called PAR) is an alternative philosophy of social research
(and of social life, experience), often associated with social transformation
in the Third World. It is rooted in the theology of liberation and the
neo-Marxists community development approaches (In Latin America, for example),
but also has its origins in the liberal human rights activism in Asia, for
example. Three particular attributes continually distinguish participatory
research from conventional research: shared ownership of research projects,
community analysis of social problems, and an orientation toward community
action. Given their commitment to social, economic, and political development
geared to the needs and opinions of ordinary people, proponents of
participatory research have highlighted the political nature of conventional
research, arguing that orthodox social science, despite its intended neutral
value, usually serves the ideological function of justifying the position and
interests of the rich and powerful.
Participatory Action Research
(PAR) is consists of a triple
combination of elements: 1) research that builds knowledge in a collective work;
2) educational activity that includes a process of social raising awareness;
and 3) action for social change.
This research
method involves -itself- a learning process ... Very synthetically arguably
participatory research is research, education and learning, and action. The
participatory research is itself an educational method and a powerful tool for
awareness (Bosco
Pinto, Joao, 1977: 25, quoted in De Schutter, Anton, 1981: 164).[6]
The PAR is not at the service of
any social group, but rather is a method [SLH4] for the ones who struggle
to overcome the objective and subjective constraints that limit and maintain
them in oppressive situations. As stated
by Peter Park, "The PAR is a way to deliver research capabilities to poor
and subjected people to transform their lives by themselves" (1992: 138).[7]
From this perspective, the
cognitive interest of the PAR is not only the production of knowledge for
knowledge's sake. Rather it involves an emancipatory, liberating interest,
which seeks the knowledge that is useful to the objectives of social change.
This is an investigative process,
which involves a new attitude of the social scientist engaged in the production
of liberating knowledge. That is why it establishes new collaborative
relationships with the actors-subjects of the research process:
The real
investigator in this case is not the traditional researcher who ... is related
to the "subjects" of research ... just as objects of research, or as
a source of information. Rather, they are ordinary people ... those who
collaborate with the researcher to know the dimensions of oppression,
structural contradictions, and the transformative potential of collective
action. (Park, 1992: 140).
PAR
Methodological Principles
, Various authors stress different fundamental
methodological principles of PAR that they believe would be basic to this
research discipline. Thus, according to these authors, the eigenvalues of the
Participatory Action Research methodological principles are as follows
1. Commitment: The researchers
involved in PAR assume a commitment to
investigate realities and give away concrete contributions of their discipline(s)
to the popular sector and its cause (Fals Borda, 1992). Paraphrasing Freire,
researching from a PAR perspective, the research team asks itself for what and
for whose interests the research is being conducted; and at the same time,
against what interests and against whom the action research is directed.
2. Analysis: Participatory research from a methodological point of
view is an analysis of class, gender, race, ethnicity, geographic location,
age, sexual orientation, etc. of the region where the research is conducted
(Fals Borda, 1987: 92). For those researchers conducting participatory
research, society is a conflicting reality permeated by different mechanisms of
power, subordination, and inequality.
3. Critical Recovery of history: The researcher and his/her colleagues seek the
historical roots of social antagonisms in the community where the research is
being conducted. Especially, they try to bring back popular memory of those
institutions and individuals who in the past defended the interests of the
community where the research is implemented, in order to learn the lessons of
history and the achievements made.
4. Systematic devolution: In
PAR, the researchers return the results of the investigation to the groups with
whom they implemented their work. The primary interest is to contribute to the
results of the investigation in order to provide an illustration of the
population’s own reality - their strengths and weaknesses, potential opportunities,
and the cracks in the system.
6. Rhythm Action-Reflection-Action: The knowledge that results from a
process of PAR advances like a spiral from action to reflection and reflection
to action on a new level of practice. In this research, the data about the
reality of the grassroots is taken from the mouths of the actors. The
information is digested at the first level, and then it is reflected at a more
general level.
7. Modest science and dialogic techniques: The implementation of the
PAR assumes that social science can advance even in the most modest and
primitive conditions without sophisticated instruments and complex scientific
apparatuses. PAR makes use of local, economic, and practical materials, which
are precisely those that can be found in popular contexts. However, this
simplicity does not mean that the knowledge produced from the PAR processes is
second-class or inferior; on the contrary, it should be rigorous if it really
tries to meet people's needs.
8. The Research-Education-Action model becomes methodological moments of a
single process for social transformation: These three activities are
integrated into a single process, constituting not necessarily a sequential or
linear model, but rather, an indispensable and articulated model (Rodríguez
Hernández, Gabarron and Landa, 1994: 43).
PAR Methodology
The PAR methodology is comprised of the following phases:
1. Assessment: Assess the problems of reality.
2. Planning: Prepare actions to solve the problems.
3. Implementation: Apply the planned actions.
4. Evaluation: Assess the actions performed.
5. Systematization: Reconstruct the experiences of the entire process,
and create theory out of it.
The assessment consists of an investigation
of the key issues that exist in the social practice of local communities,
social movements, and social organizations. This is the time to collect
information and analyze possible causes and consequences, relationships with
other problems and other major realities, conflicts, etc. The tools implemented
during this phase are popular research tools known as “participatory
appraisals” or “rapid rural appraisals.”
The planning phase is to prepare and organize
the educational process, and to design a possible action plan to tackle the
problems identified in the previous phase. The plan might include the following
elements: the actions to take, how they will be implemented, the people who will
be involved, the type of relationships that they seek to establish, the resources
needed, and the time it will take to implement those actions.
The Implementation phase is the central phase toward
which both the upstream and downstream phases of the work cycle point. Here, the action plan is implemented with the
means and resources available, and there is an attempt to meet the deadlines
that were fixed.
The evaluation, which happens throughout
the process, reflects the positive, negative, regular, planned, or unplanned
consequences of the actions that have been made. It is best that the evaluation
is constant during all phases of the project, following the dynamic Action-Reflection-Action
process, to correct errors and change the course of the project if necessary.
The systematization is the reconstruction of
the work done, from the assessment of the problems to the evaluation of the
action plan. This is the time to achieve a more comprehensive and deeper
insight into the practice. The systematization can be done some time after the
completion of the cycle or after each action plan.
Another way of describing the PAR methodology follows:
Extractive-Investigative: It is the process of
presenting the research proposal to the community, its objectives and their validation,
incorporation of auxiliary community members into the research team, the visit
to the areas, the implementation of participatory appraisals, informal
dialogues with community members, participation in festivities, cultural and
religious events, sharing working and resting moments, the triangulation of
different sources of information, and the determination of themes and topics
demanded by the community.
Programmatic: The
education process is designed. Themes and topics are chosen and confirmed by future
participants from the community. The participatory workshops are designed, the
codifications are created and toolkits are written.
Educational: The
workshops are implemented. The experience is registered and analyzed by the
multidisciplinary team. The definite themes are chosen and developed into
topics. Some “hinges topics” are determined since they are considered fundamental.
The elaboration of the didactic units begins, and the educational program is
presented to the community for future implementation.
Participatory appraisals
Participatory appraisals are basically local investigations implemented by
local communities, complementing or replacing the extractive research done by
external agents in the practice of social-development projects. (Schonhuth and
Kiewelitz, 1994: 4).
There are different types of participatory appraisals: social (social
problems map, the social tree, rich-poor drawing, etc.); historical (the
community history chart, the time line, the seasonal analysis, etc.);
ecological (the natural resources and land use map, transect walk and
diagramming, farming map, etc.); gender (the gender use of time, the benefit
analysis, the mobility map); and organizational and planning (organizational
institutional analysis, community planning map, action plan matrix, etc.)
It is important to have in mind some of the methodological principles of
the participatory appraisals, so that their implementation is not done
mechanically with the risk of neglecting some basic assumptions that make these
tools really participatory. A number of people who are familiar with these tools have
provided guidance about their use (Pretty, Guijt, et al,1994: 56-57; Chambers, s/f: 4);
Schonhuth y Kiewelitz, 1994: 7-13; and the World Bank, 1996:12):,
1. Multiple Perspectives: A
central goal of this type of methodology is to seek diversity, rather than to
simplify complexity. This involves recognizing that different individuals and
different groups make assessments of situations that lead to different actions.
However, as much as possible, the team
should try to see reality "through the eyes of those affected"
(Schonhuth and Kiewelitz 1994: 7).
2. Triangulation: This is a
test method based on the variation of sources of information and techniques
applied. Each group should contain members from different disciplines, forms of knowledge, and genders, ensuring that each subject is approached from
different points of view and with different research techniques.
3. Appropriate Instruments:
Participatory appraisals rely on informal, but structured, research tools. The
techniques implemented are selected based on the participation they promote. Available materials (ie. flipcharts, markers
and tape) which are considered suitable
means to describe realities and analyze systems also are used.
4. Visual report-back: The
results of the investigation are shown in visuals: maps, models, and diagrams, so
that everyone can see, point out, discuss, manipulate, and modify
representations or physical objects. Here, the crosschecking and triangulation occurs.
The information is visible and public, added, owned, and verified by the
participants.
5. Analysis and Presentation in
place: The results are presented to the entire community, which has the
ability to discuss with team members. The presentation of the results may be
not be only writing; it also may use
tables, graphs, photographs, cartoons, theater, puppets, stories, etc.
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