Critical Participatory Action Research: Methods and Praxis for Intersectional Knowledge Production

Building on the conceptual foundation of articles published in the 2005 volume of the Journal of Counseling Psychology on the qualitative turn in Counseling Psychology, we write to introduce and reflect on Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) as an intersectional approach to knowledge production by psychologists researching alongside individuals, communities, and movements dedicated to social justice. We open with a brief review of the origins of CPAR and the epistemological commitments of this approach to inquiry. We then explore why and how participation matters, and the delicate dynamics of CPAR through various phases of research: putting together a research team, crafting research questions and design, selecting methods, sampling, participatory analyses of qualitative and quantitative material, and figuring out how to produce and circulate findings in ways accountable to the community/movement of interest. The second half of the article offers a slow journey into one CPAR project, What's Your Issue?, a multigenerational, national, participatory survey designed by and for LGBTQIA+ youth, with an emphasis on the participation and representation of youth of color. We write this article for scholars, practitioners, activists, educators, and students to make visible why participation is so crucial to social justice research; that no research on us, without us is both scientifically and ethically valid, and how mixed methods research with LGBTQIA+ and gender-expansive youth can open new horizons for theory, methods, and action.

Automated summary

This article introduces Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) as an intersectional approach to knowledge production in Counseling Psychology. It emphasizes the importance of psychologists researching alongside individuals, communities, and movements dedicated to social justice. The article discusses the origins, methods, and dynamics of CPAR, and showcases a specific project to illustrate its application. Ultimately, it highlights the crucial role of participation in social justice research and the potential for mixed methods research with youth populations to bring new perspectives to theory, methods, and action.