The growing popularity of Participatory Action Research (PAR) can be attributed to its commitment to doing research with rather than on or for participants, it’s potential to challenge policy and practice from the bottom up, and its multiple goals of knowledge generation, concrete action, and, critical pedagogy.

The Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions and the Morgridge Center for Public Service co-sponsored a workshop and discussion with New York University Professor Gary Anderson for UW-Madison students, staff, and faculty who conduct or plan to conduct Community-Based Participatory Action Research.

College and university programs that craft student experience have become a major selling point, representing an intersection of student life administration and higher education marketing. For example, “First Year Experience” programs craft student life in ways designed to fit students into the most productive aspects of college life, optimizing the production of an ideal student. That production, understood in terms of measurable outcomes, becomes a major marketing angle for parents worried about their child’s future. Neither perspective takes into account structural inequities shaping student experience, with consequences for at-risk students. Nor do they take seriously the role of faculty, who are neither problem solvers nor career developers.
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