The Higher Education Institutional Culture Equity and Transformation (HEICET) group recently had a fruitful seminar with Prof Ronél Ferreira on Participatory Action Research (PAR) and Action Research (AR).
Prof Ronél Ferreira is Head of the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Pretoria. She holds a PhD in Educational Psychology from the University of Pretoria. She is the Research Theme Leader for Facilitating behaviour change for improved health and well-being in the Institute of Food, Nutrition and Well-being at the University of Pretoria. Her research focus areas are psychosocial support within the context of vulnerability, psychological well-being of children and communities; HIV&AIDS, asset-based psychosocial coping, and the use of action research in combination with intervention-based studies that could improve community-based coping and facilitate community development and well-being.
Prof Ferreira shared her experience from the projects that she is involved in, using PAR to build healthy communities, empowered partnerships, and community-based PAR for Environmental Justice. Several HEICET project members are considering the uses of participatory action research in the context of their work in Grahamstown framed by the notion of ‘communicative ecologies’.