This case study discusses the use of participatory visual methods with two groups of young women (coresearcher participants) in two distinct (Muslim and Christian) communities in rural northern Nigeria. These workshops addressed the challenges the young women faced in combining education with the multiple forms of work demanded of them in their…

Purpose: This study aims at understanding how higher education institutions (HEIs) can contribute to sustainable development, by designing their programmes for bringing about a transformative impact on communities and students, and also to examine what alternative pedagogical approaches could be used for that. In the past decades, HEIs have…

The Gloucestershire Gateway Trust (GGT) is a social enterprise initiative in Southwest England focused on Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD). This article describes a six-year action research collaboration that has sought to support the GGT and its local non-profit organizational partners using a variety of action research methods, including…

The paper focusses on three aspects of our work with the urban poor: utilization of participatory research methodologies to elicit local knowledge in forms that do not require traditional education; building capacities to create active organized citizenry through catalysing Settlement Improvement Committees, which are representative bodies…

Participatory research actively engages participants in some or all stages of the research process -- from deciding on scope and problem statement to actively collecting data to disseminating results and effecting change. Considering the shifting roles of participants and researchers in participatory ageing research, to the academic, participatory…

What happens, if a university moves to a town that never had a higher education institution previously? What is the impact of this development both on the community and the institution? The aim of this paper is to answer this question. The authors use the concept of 'social innovation' for understanding the developments. An institute may initiate,…

Purpose: Nation states in both the Global North and South have debated the human rights and liberatory function as opposed to the dependency and economically viable function of social protection policy. This article is an attempt to advance empirical knowledge in the field of social protection policy and poverty alleviation. Method: Using…

Schools in poor working class communities in South Africa face a myriad of equity challenges that impact negatively on their ability to achieve basic school functionality. Yet, within such communities, there exists a wealth of valuable local knowledge and support that can be mobilised to assist school leaders, not only to bring about school…

Pre- and post-tenure faculty face immense pressure to meet professional expectations and requirements from their colleagues and disciplines. Faculty involved in community-campus engagement (CCE) for social change face additional demands to maintain relationships and continue their interventions. We present a collective autoethnography from a…

The purpose of this article is to provide an educational, theoretical, and methodological framework for using a special kind of action research, namely PALAR (participatory action learning and action research). This integrated methodology of lifelong action learning (AL) and participatory action research (PAR) has been developed over the past…

Research in extension education is a serious and challenging task facing Nigeria today because of new trends that keeps on emerging continuously. This paper seeks to examine some of the common research techniques used in extension education and describe their applicability and workability in helping people to help themselves. Most of the…

This paper outlines a critical pedagogic approach to field-based learning (FBL) at graduate level. Drawing on student experience stemming from a FBL module and as part of an MA programme in Environment, Society and Development, the paper addresses the complexities associated with student-led, participative critical enquiry during fieldwork in…

The need to work in partnership with communities in a meaningful and impactful way has become a core part of university planning in many countries around the world. In the Global South, the potential for the Eurocentric knowledges and power structures to dominate such partnerships is pervasive. This article reports on findings of a participatory…

In this article we present and discuss experiences developed through a dialogue conference which we organised as part of a three-year participatory action research project related to primary education and agricultural education in Tanzania. We explore how dialogue conference as a research method can fill a gap between traditional ways of mutual…

This study supported the emergence of a transformative learning and planning community among marginalized informal settlers in Manila, Philippines. The research was rooted in transformative learning theory while drawing from systems theory, planning, and development participation. We adapted the Search Conference (SC) to examine the process of…