In response to the discussion of academic research and PAR,
most recently Jane Springett's posting, I agree that while
PAR is academically risky, its link with health promotion
makes it an approach that should be considered in health
promotion practice beyond academia.

As most health promotion practitioners are NOT academic
researchers, but people who work in small agencies and large
bureaucracies, we (in the North York Health Promotion
Research Unit - myself, Robin Mason, Irv Rootman, and Ann
Robertson) wanted to extend PAR as an approach to  health
promotion practice within community.  We linked up with
nursing practitioners in a Public Health department to try a
participatory research approach with the community.  We saw
this a a shift in the usual model of PAR - that of academic
researchers working directly with community members. Our
intention was to integrate PAR into community nursing
practice.

 The community with whom we (researachers and nurses) linked
were a group of unemployed young people, living in a
so-called "high risk" neighbourhood, who were teaching
literacy in their neighbourhood and were interested doing
research on the links between racism, unemployment and
educational streaming.
 As research associates, Robin and I linked directly with
the youth and with two public health nurses, while the
university faculty members supported us in the background.
As anyone who has done this kind of research would predict,
the challenges we encountered went far beyond academic
career risks.  While we went into the project with
experience in working with these communities, we found that
PAR challenged our understandings of each other's experience
of power and reality, each other's disciplines and lexicons
(researchers and nurses), and our relationships with our own
(hierarchically structured) employing organizations.  While
PAR is exciting, we learned that it has to be approached
with an understanding of the time and career commitment that
goes beyond the project itself. That is, PAR projects have
fluid boundaries.

Like, Jane in her posting I am realizing I could go on for
pages, so I better stop.  Irv, Robin and I have written
about how we see this model - forthcoming in the Jan 1997
issue of Health Promotion International (more advertising?)

I look forward to continuing the discussion.

Marie Boutilier
Sr. Research Associate
North York Health Promotion Research Unit
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ont, M5S 1A8
email:  [log in to unmask]