Principal Investigators: Dr. Anita Chikkatur, Professor and Chair of Education Department, Carleton College, and Dr. Amel Gorani, Director of the Center for Community and Civic Engagement, Carleton College
Community Partners: Faibault Public Schools, Somali Community Resettlement Services, Community Without Borders
Title: Participatory Action Research on Rural Secondary Education: Experiences of Diverse Students, Parents, and Teachers
In an effort to promote inclusivity, Carleton College's Community Conversations project facilitates conversations about race, gender, class, and privilege, what makes for a healthy community, and the ways the community falls short of its aspirations.
As a 2018 National Service and Civic Engagement Competition grantee through AmeriCorps, Carleton College and its community partners are conducting research on a rural community with rapidly growing Latinx and Somali populations. This research hopes to understand the experiences of Latinx and Somali high school students and their parents as well as white teachers with the Faribault school system. This project will use participatory action research (PAR) to empower these students and their parents to document their experiences with the Faribault public school system, and to equip teachers to conduct parallel PAR research on teaching Somali and Latinx students.
While anticipated outcomes are unknown, Carleton researchers seek to:
- Collect more data about specific aspects of education in Faribault
- Create more PAR groups to advance the research in specific directions
- Recommend specific policies to policy and decision-makers, from high school or school district administrators to the school board and city council
- Convene public meetings, dialogues, town halls, or other events to share findings, test recommendations, and gather additional information
- Develop strategies to address key challenges facing Somali and Latinx students, their parents, and their teachers
- Produce materials that present research findings and recommendations that are appealing
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