What’s more, In participatory research individuals are called participants and advisors they have no real ownership of the work, for example a research carried out by Manning (2009) on oral history who used the participatory paradigm, she was instructed by local governments to go and collect data about people with learning difficulties experience of being institutionalised , this research was clearly driven by the researcher and her board of advisors who happen to be the local government, people with learning difficulties had no real part on construction of the research, but I guess in a sense because it was their story it can be seen participatory. But, to me this type of research still reflects research “on” people with learning difficulties rather than “with” because after all you’re collecting information “on” people rather doing what emancipatory research does which allows people to co-research which reflects the theory research “with” people, Gilbert (2004) agrees with this (French and Swain, 1997).
But it seems researchers like Ward and Simons (1998) are describing participatory research in the context of emancipatory research. Ward and Simons (1998) state that people with learning difficulties help to set out research agenda and are involved in research dissemination; I believe I have proven to be a false claim. But perhaps researchers like Ward and Simons (1998) are talking about the fact that participatory research is the perfect building block for emancipatory research.
Furthermore, reading about different role of participatory research has made me question whether participatory research actually exists. What I’m saying is just by including people in ones research doesn’t making it participatory, the power and ownership lies at the hand of the researcher, Stalker (1998) has stated that in both emancipatory and participatory research the researcher remains the export and people with learning difficulties till remain the object of research (Stalker, 1998), so in theory is inclusive research is still “on” people with learning difficulties?, I’m rather confused I believe to some extent participatory research does reflect on the theory of normalisation and social model because it allows people to voice and raise issues, and it breaks social barriers because to some extent it includes people in society by allowing to participate in a valued role.
Emancipatory Research
Well known learning difficulties researchers such as Oliver (1992), Chappell (2000) and Walmsley (2001) all define emancipatory research as paradigm for facilitating research. Emancipatory research is described as tool for improving the lives of disabled people, and by all means there should be a greater opportunities in the academic world to allow people with learning disability to take on the role as researchers(Chappell, 2000). According to Carmichael (2004) emancipatory research must work within the framework of social model of disability, she cited Zarb (1992) who said that unless people with learning difficulties are involved in construction of the research then it’s not an emancipatory research and it will not empower people with learning difficulties. The social model of disability has reconstructed the position and role of disabled people in the society. The social model states that people impairment doesn’t disable them but it’s the society and its attitude towards disability that disabled a person. One of the major issues the social model try’s to tackle is lack of inclusion and the negative “they can’t do” attitudes held by the society (Carmichael, 2004). Fisher (2002) has stated that the root of oppression faced by people with learning difficulties in the social and welfare system, this is the main reason why emancipatory research is political strong and tries to bring a change in the social and welfare areas.
Therefore, by drawing on the work of feminist on oppression towards woman the emancipatory paradigm was created, there was great work and support by the disabled movement acts and of Oliver (1992) and Zarb (1992), this type of research aims to change the relationship between researcher and the researched individual, in other words giving equal power or often more power to people with learning difficulties (Gilbert, 2004). Emancipatory research digs deeper than participatory research, as mentioned it aims to give complete control of the research process, emancipatory researches key element are empowerment and reciprocity. Emancipatory research aims and objectives are set by people with learning difficulties in partnership with non disabled researcher. In emancipatory research the disabled researcher aims to change the society and society’s perception of people with learning difficulties
However , there seems to be criticism on social model idea of allowing people with learning difficulties to be in control of research, Gilberts (2004) has stated that many people with learning difficulties struggle to read, write and speak, hence Gilbert (2004) and Walmsley ( 2001) states people with learning difficulties will struggle with the intellectual demand of the research process. But I disagree with this, people can be supported to carry out tasks, in emancipatory research the researcher is suppose to offer their skills at the disposal of people with learning difficulties. With this in mind Jan Walmsley (2004) discussed the role of research supporter greatly in her work.
Walmsley (2004) also talked about the issues of unclear roles of people involved in research, this is to do with use of terms to describe people with learning difficulties who conducted research and other supporters , most researchers with learning difficulties who participated in research called themselves co-researcher , Walmsley (2004) cited a study by William (1999) who called themselves life historians . However, it seems by researchers supporting people with learning difficulties emancipatory research can be seen as participatory due to close involvement of non disabled people, so this can lead an argument can this type of research truly be emancipatory?
Another fundamental issue of emancipatory research is funding, Gilbert (2004) cited Wieman (1998) who stated that participatory research is closely matched with the aspiration of research funding bodies, as seen in Manning’s (2009) research, this means funding bodies might be put off from the political embrace of emancipatory research, Gilbert (2004) also states that researchers skill is valued by academic and policy makers as they can deliver and look at data objectively, so in this theory it seems participatory research seem to gain respect far more than emancipatory research because of the researchers ability. To me this goes against the belief and philosophy of social model of disability, if academic bodies perceive research carried out by disabled people alone to not be valid, this is a severe case of disempowerment . Emancipatory research still seems to be in its youth, and as the years pass it’s getting its credibility and providing much needed respect and social inclusion to people with learning difficulties, funding bodies will soon need to realise only way forward in disabilities studies research is through emancipatory research.
Pros and cons of positivist/ Inclusive style research
Positivist approach to research often used in social research, sociology and psychology. Positivist treats research as a political, emotionally distanced and unbiased structure who applies the theory of natural science into the study of human behaviour (Griffin and Phoenix, 1994). On the other hand you have emancipatory and participatory research which use qualitative methods in their research and they believe in exploring human phenomena, and they reject positivism because quantitative method believes in one truth while qualitative data believes in multiple realities and they also believe as stated by postmodernist sociologist Lyotard (1984) who said knowledge and reality is socially constructed and therefore will be different for each individual and it’s something that cannot be experimented upon.
Also positivist paradigm tends to be macro theory, unlike inclusive research which looks at micro theory and interaction among small groups of people, macro theory try to understand the big picture and tend to look at interaction among the society by sampling large number of people. Although sampling a large group of people would allow the research make generalisation, this is a weakness of emancipatory and participatory research because its micro based theory and its interested on peoples experience in greater detail it can’t handle large amount of data so therefore its limited to study individual groups.
Furthermore quantitative data looks for fact, in order to get facts it use methods such a questionnaires which seek factual detail about a person like age, background information and values and opinions, it tries to be objective as possible, however postmodernist and feminist believe its impossible to be objective when you studying a human nature. Emancipatory and participatory research use qualitative methods, therefore the method of data collection are use of informal interviews, observations, case studies and eagerly favoured life stories and biographies (Bell, 1987, Denscombe, 2004, Babbie, 2004). However, observations can also produce quantitative and qualitative data so there is a cross between two methods. Inclusive style research also use narrative method which allows the researcher to explore experience of the person, giving them a voice in the society this method is often associated participatory research (Manning, 2009). However questions have been raised about the validity and truthfulness of using such method. But having said that quantitative research also has a major flaw on its collection of numerical data, numbers can be shaped to fit the purpose, so equally both quantitative and qualitative methods have issues with validity and reliability.
Additionally , quantitative research typically use experiments and quasi experiments, before the form of social model and in the time of the medical model learning disability research was predominantly based on positivist theory, the researcher or scientist would carry out experiments to determine factors of health, knowledge and characteristic (Danieli and Woodhams, 2005). positivist try to analysis and interpretat data to find correlation between cause and effect of relationships between variables , so statistics, graphs and charts can provide facts about change that has occurred over time in the learning disabilities fields, for example looking at institutions, and employment level. Quantitative research also tends to be self correcting, so once you put your theory out there other researchers will test it to prove it wrong or find other measures, as mentioned before inclusive research discard this notion.
However, as mentioned previously looking at positivist data from interactionist prospective, interactionist would say using positivist methods would not allow the research to discover true meanings, motives and reason behind individuals experience in the society, from the social models prospective using positivist methods would not give us an idea on how exactly society oppress people with learning difficulties (Denscombe, 2004) . Inclusive research like participatory paradigm tend to use “verstehen” which mean the use of empathy to figure out why an individual is doing what they’re doing this word was constructed by Max Weber, so therefore use of qualitative data is a must in inclusive research.
What ‘more I think if we can apply the objective theories of positivist, who believe in value free research, and don’t make any positive or negative judgements; then studying intimate and sensitive issues with people with learning difficulties can be easy, value free research doesn’t let the researchers own belief get in the way, but this is practiced even in qualitative research and relates to Weber’s verstehen of empathy getting into the world of person and not letting your own personal judgement clouding the results, however you could say using this theory could make the data subjective.
Challenges and dilemma of conducting participatory/ emancipatory research
There are few challenges and dilemmas to conducting participatory and emancipatory research, one of the barriers to conducting emancipatory and participatory research is gaining access and forming a relationship with the participants. In order to conduct an action based research, researcher must gain entry into organisation and groups then form a working relationship. However, there are few barriers to gaining access; these can be differences in gender, class, sexual orientation, race and even ability. To break these barriers researchers must first cooperate with local groups and organisation that has ties with the group the researcher wishes to collaborate with. Community entrance is important in order to build relationship and gain trust and to establish the base for collaborative project planning for research. What’s more it’s important to note that in emancipatory and participatory research gaining entry can be lengthy and time consuming, therefore the researcher must fully commit their time to the research and to the co-researchers (Atkinson, 2005).
Another fundamental dilemma explored by Atkinson (2005) and Penzhorn (2005) is the issue of forming a relationship with a people over time, people with learning difficulties already lead a very isolated life and when a researcher enters their life they might open doors to friendship and companionships and these ties mean awful lot to people. Atkinson (2005) states that she carried out a study using oral history, where they talked about their past and would meet up weekly then every fortnight, she sensed that this meeting became an important part of their life. When research ended she had to close the group, but there was a plea to keep the group open. Similarly Penzhon (2005) study with a local Africa woman in a course of 10 month had very similar problem, but unlike Atkinson (2005), Penzhon (2005) planned the groups withdrawals which gave people chance to come to terms with the ending.
Another key issue is often faced by emancipatory research is to do with power and interruptions. Power issue is one of the fundamental barriers in emancipatory research (Gatenby and Humphries, 2000).
In an emancipatory study carried out by Abell et al (2007) who conducted a study to describe what it was like for group of researchers with learning non learning difficulties to work together, they described one of the dilemmas to be about the group dynamic, they said it was difficult get everyone to join this was due to some group members finding it difficult to follow what others were saying and there was also power struggle among the group, they resolved this issue by pacing their discussion at a level where everyone could catch up and understand , and every week they would appoint a chair person this way everyone got the change to be in control, I believe this is a fantastic way to resolve group dynamic issues (Abell et al, 2007).
Conclusively, it seems there is also an issue with non disabled researchers voicing their views, they fear if they speak up they will silence the voice of researcher with learning difficulties. Although there doesn’t seem to be a clear cut answer on ways to resolve this, but I personally believe in order to form an inclusive research project both non disabled and disabled researcher should be given equal amount of power, this way you would be truly integrating people with learning difficulties into the academic world, I’m sure people with learning difficulties don’t want “special” treatment, they want to be seen as equals, so by emancipatory and participatory research providing more power to researchers with learning disabilities they are in fact treating them as “special” this is something inclusive research suppose to eliminate, is it possible by giving more power to one group they are merely creating further segregation?
References
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