Abstract:

Over recent years, school and community-based coping has become increasingly important, especially in vulnerable communities where the help and assistance of external agencies is not always easily available or accessible. In this paper, I explain the way in which participatory reflection and action (PRA) research can be combined with school/community-based intervention studies in contexts of vulnerability, in support of coping, resilience and the general well-being of societies. More specifically, I describe school/community-based participatory action intervention research (PAIR) as possible avenue for promoting the health and well-being of vulnerable school-communities. My discussion foregrounds the value of an integrated participatory intervention research approach when wanting to facilitate social change in school-communities. As conceptual framework, I rely on an integration of the underlying principles of resilience theory, strength-based approaches to coping, community-based responses to adversity, intervention research and PRA methodology.

My paper is based on research in the field of participatory action intervention research (PAIR) over a period of 16 years, across different disciplines, yet with the mutual aim of supporting vulnerable communities to cope with adversity and contemporary challenges. I present the cases of several broad research projects where this research approach was followed, many of which involved researchers from various disciplines, faculties and institutions. Findings of these studies illustrate how a strength-based philosophy and dual partnerships between researchers or external stakeholders and people facing adversity on ground level may facilitate cycles of reflection and action during the development and implementation of self-driven interventions. During this process, taking agency can subsequently result in sustainable change and address social justice within vulnerable contexts. The assumption I put forward is that communities that take charge of and drive their own initiatives to resolve problems will strive for and facilitate positive change on ground level.

In my discussion, I foreground how the PAIR approach can be applied in fields such as education, community psychology, the natural sciences (mathematics teaching), physical health and lifestyle (fields of physiology, nutrition and education), and health sciences. As such, the findings I present can contribute to the existing knowledge base on participatory methodology, intervention research, strength-based approaches to coping and resilience as well as social change theory.

Keywords:

Coping, intervention studies, participatory action intervention research, participatory research, resilience.