Transcript Community Inquiry Laboratory

Community Inquiry Labs
for
Community Organizations
Ann Peterson Bishop
Andre Brock
Library & Information Science
U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Community-Based
Research, Learning & Action
Uniting people from all walks of life in
identifying, investigating, and taking
action on conditions that affect the
well-being of local residents.
Participatory Action Research
& Participatory Evaluation
 Incorporate local knowledge held by
marginalized groups;
 Gain the participation of
marginalized groups in all stages;
 Build capacity and achieve
constructive social outcomes.
http://www.incommunityresearch.org/
ICR has used participatory action research as a
capacity building and prevention approach for youth
and adults in the greater Hartford, CT area. Issues
that have been addressed include sexual identity
and support for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender
or questioning youth, working with young girls and
their mothers as a drug, alcohol and tobacco
prevention model, and engaging residents around
issues of community and family strengthening.
http://www.luc.edu/curl/projects/past/participatory.shtml
CURL promotes an innovative model of teaching and
learning that reaches beyond Loyola's campuses and
classrooms to develop equal partnerships between the
university and Chicago's communities. CURL is guided by a
mission which places strong emphasis on research that
addresses community needs and involves the community at
all levels of research. By working closely with activists
outside the university, the Center recognizes and values
the knowledge and experience of individuals and
organizations in non-academic settings.
http://www.iisd.org/ai/default.htm
Appreciative inquiry turns the problem-solving
approach on its head. It focuses on a
community's achievements rather than its
problems, and seeks to go beyond participation
to foster inspiration at the grass-roots level.
Community Inquiry Labs
A place where members of a community come together to develop
shared capacity and work on common problems.
"Community" = support for collaborative activity and for creating
knowledge that is connected to people's values, history,
and lived experiences.
"Inquiry" = support for open-ended, democratic, participatory
engagement.
"Laboratory" = a space and resources to bring theory and action
together in an experimental and critical manner.
A CIL is most importantly a concept…
Community Inquiry Labs
http://inquiry.uiuc.edu/cil
• Web-based suite of Open Source software tools
to support collaboration and communication (e.g.,
bulletin board, document uploading, blog, inquiry
units)
• People create CILs (websites) on their own, to
support their activities within and among groups
• Inquiry units = webpages in form of lesson plans,
action plans, meeting minutes, research reports,
journals, policy statements, etc.
Community Inquiry Lab Goals
How can we:
a) connect learning & life?
b) support participatory design?
c) accommodate diversity & shared values?
Connect Learning and Life: ESLARP
ESLARP Sample Inquiry Unit
Support Participatory Design:
SisterNet
http://sisternetonline.org/ourinquiry.html
• New model for Black women's organizing
• Wholeness through physical, emotional,
spiritual, and intellectual health
• Political strategy to resist oppression and
shape livable communities
• Community health fairs, conferences, and
learning/action circles
SisterNet’s CIL in Action
Taking Action for Water Quality
Spiritual Health Plan
From the Create section -I would like to accomplish the following goals: Once each week
I would like to take at least four (4) hours of the weekend for
my own enjoyment. This will include, but is not limited to, things
like: going to the beauty shop, going out to dinner or to the
movies with my husband, reading my Bible or some other book,
or just praying or meditating. … I also will let my family know
that I love and support them...
Accommodate Difference & Shared Values:
Paseo Boricua Community Library Project
http://www.prairienet.org/pbclp/community_inquiry_lab.htm
• Puerto Rican Cultural Center in Chicago's
Humboldt Park neighborhood
• Galvanizes neighborhood residents around
community projects
• Addresses critical issues: gang violence,
AIDS, social and environmental justice,
literacy, and economic development
Paseo Boricua Street Academy
http://inquiry.uiuc.edu/cil/out.php?cilid=112
Participatory Inquiry
and Information Systems
Design through use or participatory inquiry aims to
respond to human needs by democratic processes.
Through creation of content, contributions to
interactive elements, and incorporation into
practice, users are not merely recipients of
technology, but participate actively in its ongoing
development.
Co-Evolution
Knowledge
Technology
Community
Equitable Relations, Then Tasks
renders the progress of expertise in a community
secondary to a relational and epistemological
practice of confronting differences so that its
participants can come to understand how the beliefs
and purposes of others can call their own into
question.
Clark, "Rescuing the discourse of community"
Active Participation
Every individual must be consulted in such a
way, actively not passively, that he himself
becomes a part of the process of authority.
Dewey, Democracy & Education
Resources
Bruce, B. C., & Bishop, A. P. (2002, May). Using the web to support inquirybased literacy development. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 45(8).
http://www.reading.org/publications/jaal/index.html
Clark, G. (1994). Rescuing the discourse of community. College Composition and
Communication, 45(1), 61–74.
Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Macmillan.
Freire, Paolo (2002). Pedagogy of the oppressed. 30th anniversary ed. New
York: Continuum.
Glassman, M. 2001. Dewey and Vygotsky: Society, experience, and inquiry in
educational practice. Educational Researcher, 30(4), 3-14.
Resources
Greenwood, Davydd J., & Levin, Morten. (1998). Introduction to action research:
Social research for social change. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Patton, M.Q. (1999). Some framing questions about racism and evaluation." The
American Journal of Evaluation, 20(30), 437-444.
Rinaldo, R. (2002). Space of resistance: The Puerto Rican Cultural Center and
Humboldt Park. Cultural Critique , 50, 135-174.
http://leep.lis.uiuc.edu/spring03/LIS450PAR/Rinaldo.pdf
Stringer, Ernest T. (1999). Action research. 2d ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Reardon, K. M. (1998). Participatory action research as service learning. In R. A.
Rhoads and J. P. F. Howard, eds., Academic service learning: A pedagogy of action
and reflection (pp. 57-64). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Whitmore, E. (ed.). (1998). Understanding and practicing participatory evaluation.
San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.
Contact Information
Ann Bishop
[email protected]
217-244-3299
Andre Brock
[email protected]