Abstract
This paper describes the impact of using Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) to enhance a campus-community partnership. The key stakeholders, who are also the participants, share how learning from the reflective journals, collaborative sessions, and interview data analysis transformed their practice. The collaborative partnership was designed to allow prospective teachers from a School of Education at a U.S. liberal arts college the opportunity to teach Diverse language learners (DLLs) who were attending a summer program at a nearby community learning center. The teacher educators responsible for teaching the prospective teachers, the director of the community learning center, and a student researcher joined the project as collaborative participant researchers. Together they analyzed the data collected from various participating groups which included their own work and reflections, as well as those of the prospective teachers and prevention specialists who were employed by the community learning center. The findings from this study revealed that all participants benefited from the campus-community partnership because it was built on trust, mutual respect, reciprocity, and the use of shared language among key stakeholders. This CPAR project provides specific ideas and steps implemented to develop a well-functioning and reflective partnership between a community learning center and a local college. Examples of the specific praxis involved in such partnerships are often absent from the literature.
Recommended Citation
Coles-Ritchie, Marilee; Eggington, Kalani; and Valdez, Trina M.. (2019). Enhancing Teacher Education and Community Learning Center Programs through Critical Participatory Action Research. i.e.: inquiry in education: Vol. 11: Iss. 1, Article 8.Retrieved from: https://digitalcommons.nl.edu/ie/vol11/iss1/8