This presentation was delivered at IAFOR’s Asian Conference on Education and International Development (ACEID) 2017 in Kobe, Japan. Presentation abstract: Community-based participatory research (CBPR) in an education context equitably involves teachers, pupils, community members, organisational representatives and researchers, with a commitment to sharing power and resources and drawing on the unique strengths that each partner brings. The aim through this approach is to increase knowledge and understanding of a given phenomenon and integrate the knowledge gained into interventions, policy and social change to improve the health and quality of life of those in the school community. Sightsavers, a disability-focused iNGO, has been implementing a community-based participatory research approach (CBPR) within its education and social inclusion research in the global South. This paper describes the CBPR methodology, how it works within international development, and its impact on Sightsavers interventions in schools. Specific reference will be made to working with teachers as peer researchers – including those with disabilities, training material for peer researchers, CBPR ethical principles, and community analysis of data.

1. Community-
Based
Participatory
Research:
A Story Of
Empowerment

2. Dr Margo
Greenwood
Sightsavers
UK

3. CBPR Synergy with 2030 Agenda
(paragraphs 36, 39, 74 and goal 17)
• “foster shared responsibility”
• “mobilize all available resources”
• “commit to multi-stakeholder
partnerships that mobilize and
share knowledge and expertise”
• “be open, inclusive, participatory
and transparent”
• “support reporting by all relevant
stakeholders”
• “be people-centered, gender
sensitive, respectful”
Approaches to
implementation

4. Sources: Lewin (1948/1997), Freire (1970)
What is Community-Based Participatory Research?
Lewin’s action
research in the
1940s
…challenged the gap
between theory and practice
and used a research cycle
involving planning, action,
and investigating the results
of the action to solve
practical problems
Emancipatory participatory
research that emerged
in the 1970s in Latin America,
Asia, and Africa
…shift from being objects of study
to being part of enquiry.
Research not neutral but committed
to with critical consciousness,
emancipation and social justice.
Research role challenged
CBPR (1990s onwards)

5. Features of CBPR
(Greenwood et al, 2016; Levine-Rasky 2015; Kemmis & McTaggart 2005)
Peer researchers interviewing
teachers in Kenya
Level hierarchy
where possible
Mutual dialogue &
understanding
Shared decision-
making & ownership

6. Features of CBPR
(Greenwood et al, 2016; Levine-Rasky 2015; Kemmis & McTaggart 2005)
Community research team in Cameroon
Members of the
community are
actively involved in:
• planning
• data collection
• analysis
• dissemination

7. Aim of CBPR (education)
(Greenwood et al, 2016; Levine-Rasky 2015; Kemmis & McTaggart 2005)
A child learns in Rajasthan, India
To increase
knowledge and
understanding of a
given phenomenon
To integrate the
knowledge gained
with interventions,
policy and social
change
To improve the
quality of life of the
(school) community

8. Ethical Principles of CBPR
(CSJCA & NCCPE 2012)
School friends in India
• mutual respect
• personal integrity
• equality and inclusion
• democratic participation
• active learning
• making a difference
• collective action

9. Authentic Relating Principles
Be
committed
through
connection
…choose to stay in the
situation exactly how it
is (rather than avoid
discomfort)

10. Authentic Relating Principles
Trust your
experience
…express
authentically and this
will build connection

11. Authentic Relating Principles
Be with
the other
person in
their world
… be curious
without assumptions
of knowing what it
is actually like

12. Authentic Relating Principles
Own your
experience
…take responsibility
for your emotions
and hold others
responsible for theirs

13. Authentic Relating Principles
Stay at the
level of
sensation
… check in with your
body and use it as a
cue to know how a
situation is going and
how you feel about it

14. Authentic Relating Principles
• Be committed through connection – choose to stay in
the situation exactly how it is (rather than avoid discomfort)
• Trust your experience – express authentically and it will
build connection
• Be with the other person in their world – be curious
without assumptions of knowing what it is actually like
• Own your experience – take responsibility for your
emotions and hold others responsible for theirs
• Stay at the level of sensation – check in with your body
and use it as a cue to know how a situation is going and
how you feel about it
(Wilkinson, S., & Thompson, J., 2016)

15. Examples of CBPR in Education
Kenya: how boys and girls with disabilities,
their parents and their teachers are experiencing
school inclusion over three years of training in schools.

16. Examples of CBPR in Education
Malawi: how EY caregivers and parents of infants with
disabilities are experiencing inclusive early childhood
development education and following those experiences
as caregivers go through inclusion training.

17. Examples of CBPR in Education
Senegal, Cameroon, Sierra Leone & Mali: how children with
disabilities, teachers, carers and community members experience or
perceive disability in primary - implications of these perceptions on the
participation and quality of learning of boys and girls with disabilities.

18. Examples of CBPR in Education
Bangladesh: bid in progress.

19. Level of
coding
Explanation
Open coding
The process of breaking down, examining,
comparing and conceptualising data
Axial coding Making connections between categories
Selective
coding
Selecting the core theme by systematically
comparing it to other categories. A core category is
the central issue or category into which all other
categories are integrated
Data Analysis

20. A case study: Kenya
Stage 1 (year 1):
Find out from parents, teachers and children with disabilities:
• how they think links between them can be strengthened
• what they see as obstacles, opportunities and ideal directions for
classroom practice and promoting community participation

21. A case study: Kenya
Stage 2 (year 2):
Find out how they are experiencing the programme project
developments that are designed.
The findings strengthen the programmatic project at each stage.

22. A case study: Kenya
Stage 3 (year 3 and 4):
Find out from the SEN coordinators in the pilot schools:
• how they are experiencing their (new) role;
• what they see as the key elements of good practice in terms of the
inclusion of children with disabilities in their school.

23. Kenya Project Stage 1 Findings
Overarching themes for specific focus:
• Community and school sensitization
• Safety and dignity of pupils
• Empowering teachers through strategies and resources
• Advocating government
• Increased/improved diagnosis or assessment in
EARCS and beyond
• Collaboration through co-ordinated action
• Celebrating the children’s successes (being and doing)

24. Successes
There have been community members
waiting for an opportunity to contribute.
Such voices are part of sustainable change locally.

25. Successes
Training design seems to help peer researchers
remember the learning points whilst undertaking
the interviews and observations.

26. Successes
Cost of undertaking CBPR is relatively low.

27. Successes
Connection between participants and interviewers
has enabled the interviewee(s) to feel safe
to express their experiences.

28. Successes
A peer researcher disseminating his/her research
at events has been powerful. This can continue
beyond the life of the project.

29. Successes
It has been fairly straightforward to
meaningfully include peer researchers with
physical impairments into the research process.

30. Successes
At a micro-level, CBPR has begun to inform how policy and
programmes can be altered to best meet the needs of people
with disabilities, build the picture of disparities in education, and
show how children experience disability day to day.

31. Tensions and Dilemmas
• Reporting back findings in time to influence the decision-making processes
relating to interventions can be difficult when there are delays
• Ensuring CBPR ethical principles are fundamental to the study can be in
tension with cultural norms
• Power differences can remain substantial and it has not always been clear to
all what working towards sharing power more equally looks like in practice

32. Tensions and Dilemmas
• Peer researchers cannot be as included in research planning as CBPR
methodology requires
• It has been difficult to know how to best include peer researchers in
data analysis
• No one with speech difficulties or intellectual difficulties has yet become
part of a community research team

33. To conclude
• Clear alignment between the aims of the 2030
Agenda and the nature of CBPR
• CBPR research can identify key barriers to and
facilitators of achieving the SDGs in relation to
education
• Tensions and dilemmas need to be
acknowledged and need time to navigate
• “Leaving no one behind” - better achieved if
children, youth and adults (including with
disabilities) are participating in local, national
and global research/policy
• Generates local and national ownership of
findings
• Facilitates the translation of knowledge into a
catalyst for policy change
What
we are finding
so far…

34. For more information:
Greenwood, M. 2017. The capacity of community-based participatory research
in relation to disability and the SDGs. Disability and the Global South (in press).
Greenwood, M., Fakih, B., Steff, M., Bechange, S., & Mwifadhi, M. 2016.
Hear my voice: a community-based participatory study gathering the lived
experiences of people with disabilities and older people in Tanzania.
Knowledge Management for Development, Vol 12, no. 2. 63-78.
http://journal.km4dev.org/index.php/km4dj/article/viewFile/308/395
Blogs
https://blog.sightsavers.org/participatory-research-sdgs-sightsavers/
http://blog.sightsavers.org/pamoja-project-research-working-towards-access-to-education-for-all/

35. References
CSJCA & NCCPE (2012). Centre for Social Justice and Community Action (CSJCA) and National Co-ordinating Centre for Public
Engagement (NCCPE). Community-based participatory research - a guide to ethical principles and practice. Bristol: NCCPE.
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Seabury Press.
Greenwood, M., Fakih, B., Steff, M., Bechange, S., & Mwifadhi, M. (2016). Hear my voice: a community-based participatory study gathering
the lived experiences of people with disabilities and older people in Tanzania. Knowledge Management for Development, Vol 12, no. 2 (IN
PRESS).
Kemmis, S. & McTaggart, R. (2005). Participatory action research: Communicative action and the public sphere. In N.K. Denzin & Y. S.
Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 559-604). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Levine-Rasky, C. (2015). Research For/About/With the Community: A Montage. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 15(6), 455–467.
SAGE Publications.
Lewin, K. (1997). Resolving social confl icts and fi eld theory in social science. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
(Original work published 1948).
Mcdonald, K. E. & Raymaker, D. M. (2013). Paradigm shifts in disability and health: Towards more ethical public health research. American
Journal of Public Health, 103, 2165-2173.
Mcdonald, K. E. & Stack, E. (2016). You Say You Want a Revolution: An Empirical Study of Community-Based Participatory Research with
People with Developmental Disabilities. Disability and Health Journal, doi:10.1016/j.dhjo.2015.12.006.
Pain, R., Kindon, S. & Kesby, M. (2007). Participatory action research: Making a difference to theory, practice and action. In S. Kindon, R.
Pain, & M. Kesby (Eds.), Participatory action research approaches and methods (pp. 26-32). London: Routledge.
Wilkinson, S., & Thompson, J. (2016). We-space Practice, The Future, Circling and All There Is. In: Cohering the integral we space.
Gunnlaugson O., & Brabant, M. (Eds). Pp 313-330.

36. Thank you
Contact email:
mgreenwood@sightsavers.org
@MargoGreenwood
Community-Based Participatory Research:
A Story of Empowerment