Title: Community Inquiry Labs for Community Organizations
1Community Inquiry Labs forCommunity
Organizations
- Ann Peterson Bishop
- Andre Brock
- Library Information Science
- U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
2Community-BasedResearch, 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.
3Participatory 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.
4- 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.
5http//www.luc.edu/curl/projects/past/participator
y.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.
6http//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.
7Community 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
8Community Inquiry Labshttp//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.
9Community Inquiry Lab Goals
- How can we
- connect learning life?
- support participatory design?
- accommodate diversity shared values?
10Connect Learning and Life ESLARPESLARP Sample
Inquiry Unit
11Support 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
12SisterNets CIL in Action Taking Action for Water
Quality
13Spiritual 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...
14Accommodate Difference Shared Values Paseo
Boricua Community Library Projecthttp//www.prair
ienet.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
15Paseo Boricua Street Academyhttp//inquiry.uiuc.e
du/cil/out.php?cilid112
16Participatory 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.
17Co-Evolution
Knowledge
Technology
Community
18Equitable 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"
19Active 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
20Resources
Bruce, B. C., Bishop, A. P. (2002, May). Using
the web to support inquiry-based literacy
development. Journal of Adolescent and Adult
Literacy, 45(8). http//www.reading.org/publicatio
ns/jaal/index.html Clark, G. (1994). Rescuing
the discourse of community. College Composition
and Communication, 45(1), 6174. 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.
21Resources
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.
22Contact Information
Ann Bishop abishop_at_uiuc.edu 217-244-3299 Andre
Brock albrock_at_uiuc.edu