While participatory research methods, especially participatory action research, are a recognized approach to the study of social movement learning, the way in which this participatory relationship is framed and designed has deep implications on the collaborative nature of the research. Studies overly framed and designed by academics, as opposed to collectively designed with movements, run the risk of mining movements for information as opposed to contributing to their goals and learning. This paper describes a co-owned design process, based on established relationships, with a social movement in Ghana where being based in movement-articulations helps the research move with the movement. This co-owned process sets the stage for the emergence of movement embedded knowledge democracy.

This interdisciplinary action research project has its background in the Swedish government’s introduction of national guidelines to address deficiencies in elderly care, wherein it gave each municipality the responsibility to formulate its own guidelines. The main purpose is how we successfully involved stakeholders to create and agree on core values and local guarantees of dignity with regard to elderly care. This paper focuses on the choices we made that led to the politicians adopting the guidelines, and we discuss the lessons learned. This project is based on a participatory and appreciative action and reflection approach. We worked with stakeholders, including managers, politicians, older persons, relatives, nurse assistants, nurses, occupational therapists, and organizations for retired persons (n ∼ 386) in elderly care in three phases from 2010 to 2013. Firstly, we cocreated practical knowledge via interviews, focus group discussions, and participated in nurse assistants’ work. Secondly, we trained managers who formulated preliminary core values and guarantees of dignity. Thirdly, we returned to the stakeholders for a critical review. We learned it is possible to manage a project and involve stakeholders in an action research project by having access to scheduled meetings, providing training to managers, and using appreciative intelligence and technical aids.

This article considers environmental projects as means for engaging elementary school-aged immigrant children in their community. Based on an environmental research project with children aged 9–12 involved in their school’s Green Committee (GC), we identify multiple components for enabling meaningful children’s participation. Space was essential in creating a context for children to discover and express their voice. The combination of capacity-building and research activities as well as rapport-building between children, adults and the environment fostered care and ownership. Reaching out to a variety of audiences including peers and parents helped orient and strengthen the GC’s actions. The children were listened to but also actively sought and responded to audiences. Influence involved receiving external funding, completing landscaping of the school’s front courtyard as well as engagement with adults considering (or not) members’ views. The project showed that if supported by committed and facilitating adult educators these children remained motivated and that their process had the power to lead others into action and change. Children valued the socio-physical and aesthetic aspects of the environment, and furthermore, their engagement provided them with a sense of belonging. The GC experience itself illustrates how an action research project that involves a small group of children can serve as a model to create meaningful participation of children and broader partnerships in schools on collective interests.

In this chapter I will describe an action research (AR) study that I used to develop local managers in a multinational company where I was a senior manager and had taken over responsibility for managing a newly set up global engineering operation. My study also contributed to completing a PhD thesis with the University of South Australia. I have structured the chapter as follows: I have started with a description of the context for my study and the reasons why the problem addressed in the study was important to the organisation where it was carried out, to me, and to the six managers reporting to me who became my coresearchers in the study. I will explain why I selected the action research model that I used it in my study. I will then introduce my Australian doctoral supervisors, the Singaporean managers who were involved as coresearchers as well as three other Singaporean managers, who were also doctoral candidates and who were being supervised by the same supervisors, with whom I formed an action learning set during the study. The role played by a virtual action learning set that I formed with an international group of action researchers will also be explained. I will then describe the setting which was a Japanese company, where the study took place. This will be followed by a description of the research carried out. I will follow this up with insights from my study. I will close the chapter with a reflection on how my study could have been done differently as I have now gained experience as an academic and supervisor of doctoral students who are using action research.

Community conversations are structured, inclusive conversations that bring together a group of people to engage in meaningful conversation, share knowledge and ideas, and discuss solutions to complex problems. This article focuses on the methodological aspects of using community conversations as a research approach. Participants included paramedics, ambulance service managers, paramedicine students and paramedicine educators, who gathered at La Trobe University in Bendigo in February 2013 to attend a conference titled ‘Paramedic Education and Leadership. Conversations took place over three days, with participants spending around five hours discussing the key issues related to paramedicine student clinical placements. Three stages of community conversations are described, along with the participants’ evaluation of the process, leading to the conclusion that community conversations are a valuable and effective way to bring together groups of people to discuss ideas and solutions to complex social problems.

This study details an action research project completed by an Information and Communications Technology Integration Coordinator and a team of five teachers, supported by the university partners as consultants. The project focused on the process and outcomes of the introduction of iPad technology to support students with developmental disabilities at a private high school in Sydney. The data were analyzed using the inductive content analysis approach. This paper describes the experience, including teacher and student perceptions of iPad implementation. Recommendations for implementation and further study are also discussed.

Older prisoners are the fastest growing group in prisons. They have complex health and social care needs and the coordination of their care is suboptimal. An action learning group including health care staff, prison staff and older prisoners was established at one prison in England. The group developed the Older prisoner Health and Social Care Assessment and Plan (OHSCAP) which is a health and social care assessment and care planning process for the better identification and management of older prisoners’ needs. This paper describes and critically analyses the process of action learning in prison to develop and pilot the OHSCAP. Data were collected through reflective notes from the action learning group facilitator, reflective diary writing from group members, emails, research project steering group meeting notes and interviews with action learning group members. The constant comparison method of data analysis was used. We found that action learning is a valuable approach for developing practice in the challenging prison environment. There are important considerations when using action learning in the prison setting. These include maintaining the groups’ focus; clarifying roles and procedures; providing practical and theoretical space and considering the groups’ composition.

Young mothers are often socially and economically marginalized, and tend to be discussed as one homogenous, high-risk, deficit-based group. They are frequently excluded from youth participatory action research and youth leadership research, which leaves little space for considering them as engaged citizens or leaders. To contribute to filling this gap, I created and implemented, in collaboration with a group of 11 young mothers, a policy-focused participatory research project called Engage for Change. My objectives included generating youth-based research evidence for informing public policy; exploring intersectionality as a theoretical foundation for participatory research with young mothers; and better understanding the impacts of participatory research on young mothers’ leader and collective efficacy. In this article, I describe the implementation of Engage for Change, highlighting the work of participating young mothers. I explore intersectionality as a theoretical foundation, and consider the leader and collective efficacy development of participants, with the goal of: 1) contributing to the sparse literature on participatory research with young mothers; 2) suggesting that intersectionality is a useful theoretical foundation for participatory research with young mothers; and 3) highlighting participants’ leader and collective efficacy, while acknowledging persistent systemic exclusions they face in exercising leadership and engagement.

In South Africa, the under-resourced and socially challenging contexts in which the majority of schools function, calls for leadership that has the vision to look beyond seemingly insurmountable problems. South African school leaders must develop the capacity to envisage and create schools that function well, in spite of the daunting environmental challenges. To facilitate the development of leaders capable of doing this, we engaged ten schools, and 24 school leaders, in an action research project. In this article we provide qualitative evidence that engagement with a systematic process of critical reflection and action facilitated epistemological and ontological shifts within the participating school leaders, contributing to changed perceptions and leadership practices. Critical reflection on the values underpinning this transformation also provided them with standards against which they can gauge the quality of their future leadership practices, thereby promoting sustainable development and improvement within their school communities.

What is the purpose of knowledge? Is it an end product only, or a means for action for change? Who is expected to take action – the researcher, research subjects, both, or some unknown others who may come across the knowledge produced? The larger question then is: is it health research, or research for health, equity and development? This article raises these concerns in context of a study conducted in Pakistan entitled Women’s Empowerment in Muslim Contexts (WEMC). This article argues that participatory action research (PAR) provides a bridge to the separation of knowledge and action. It proposes, especially, in resource poor countries, combining health research with Paolo Freire’s view of participation and change; and sees action by research participants as an outcome of the development of their critical consciousness.