Stoecker, Randy

This article describes the role of academics in participatory research (PR) and argues that doing research is not a goal in itself but only a means. The author argues that the three conventional PR approaches available to academics - the initiator, the consultant and the collaborator - seem unsatisfactory and fraught with tensions, which he traces to a misconception that PR is a research project. Once PR is seen as part of a larger community change project, of which research is only one piece, the researcher role becomes one of many.

In just two short decades, colleges and universities across the United States (US) have begun to transform themselves from remote ivory towers to neighbourly community citizens as their faculties and students collaborate more and more with groups outside the academy. There are many important questions to ask to help these institutions become the kind of community members that their neighbours want.|This paper reviews some past and current practices in US universities. It explores the challenges of universitiesÆ interactions with the community and asks what role the universities will take.