Collaboration for Improving Social Work Practice: The Promise of Feminist Participatory Action Research

Abstract

Feminist research and participatory action research (PAR) share the belief that research should directly serve social justice aims and work to alleviate suffering of marginalized and oppressed people. This article presents the results of a unique feminist PAR (FPAR) approach to designing and implementing an evaluation of an intervention with women who have used violence. The site of our analysis is the steering committee that oversaw this work and the extent to which members adhered to FPAR principles. Over the two decades since feminist critiques of PAR began to emerge, new discourses of collaboration have appeared. As researchers, we must be alert to FPAR discourses that mask ongoing hierarchies. Our findings suggest that, while reflexivity and genuine commitment to collaboration are fundamental to enacting FPAR principles, social workers nevertheless face real challenges confronting structural barriers that impede anti-oppression goals. This study highlights the challenges of adhering faithfully to feminist participatory principles in real-life settings and the need for future research to examine the effectiveness of FPAR processes in achieving authentic collaboration among committee members who are chosen to represent disparate perspectives and are backed by vastly different levels of social and institutional power.

Developing an obesity research agenda with British Pakistani women living in deprived areas with involvement from multisectoral stakeholders: Research priority setting with a seldom heard group

“…This was to avoid difficulties that may arise conducting a joint prioritization exercise between professional stakeholders and PW, such as the stifling of women's voices due to power dynamics. Participants were also recruited as participant researchers as FPAR advocates women's involvement in data collection 36,37 to share control of the research processes with participants 38 …”

“…Participants were also recruited as participant researchers as FPAR advocates women's involvement in data collection 36 , 37 to share control of the research processes with participants. 38 …”

An intervention strategy to enhance technical vocational education and training entrepreneurship education lecturers’ knowledge of content and teaching

“…In designing intervention strategies for improved EE teaching, the study used a stakeholder led PAR approach or bottom-up approach for team members' involvement. The PAR approach is political, and differs from the positivist research, which advocates the researcher as neutral -it involves the researchers as participants along with the marginalized communities [25]. The PAR approach to research aims at putting those who are affected at the centre in order to co-produce knowledge for action that improves the overall teaching of EE for the benefit of students and lecturers, and other interested parties [26].…”

Collaborative practice research in social work: piloting a model for research and professional learning during COVID-19

“…For example, Godden (2021) explored with indigenous communities in Peru the idea of 'buen vivir', which is a value-based love-driven framework for 'living well' with both people and nature. Feminist PAR (two articles) and appreciative inquiry (two articles) were also explicitly employed to work with, respectively, people who have experienced gender-based violence (Johnson and Flynn, 2021), women living with HIV (Greene et al, 2021) and sexual health disparities (Loutfy et al, 2016), and people with disabilities (Roy et al, 2021).…”