Incorporating Engaged Research in Social Development: Exemplars and Guidelines for Social Work and Human Services

Copyright © 2021 Wassie Kebede and Alice K. Butterfield.

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CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1: Overview of Engaged Research and Models of Social Change

Defining Engaged Research

Brief History of Engaged Research

Northern Tradition – Action Research Kurt Lewin

Southern Tradition – Participatory Action Research - Paulo Freire

Miles Horton and Highlander Center – Popular Education and Participatory Research

Community Based Participatory Research

Traditional, Community-Engaged, and Community Based Participatory Research

Action Research Methodology and Process

Embedding Engaged Research within Models of Social Change

Overview of the Book

Chapter 2: Development Issues in Ethiopia: Prospects for Engaged Research

Ethiopia’s Development Agenda

Positive Accounts of Development

Economic Growth

Education

Health

Social Protection

Challenges to Development

Corruption

Political Instability and Ethnic Violence

Migration

Unemployment

Chapter 3: Khairat Muslim Women Empowerment

Framing the Engaged Research

Empowerment of Women

Women in Islam

Muslim Women Scholars’ Views on Family Headship versus Maintenance

Polygamy or Monogamy?

Muslim Feminist Perspective on Women’s Status in Muslim Society

Research Methods

Engagement

The Action Research Process

Findings and Analysis

Perception of Women’s Status in Islam and in the Muslim Family

Verse 4:34 of the Qur’an and Muslim Marital Relationships

Polygamy in Islam and its Actual Practice in Muslim Families

The Intent for Establishing Khairat Muslim Women Empowerment Organization

Strengths, Challenges, and Lessons Learned

Chapter 4: Women and Economic Development

Framing the Engaged Research

Research Methods

Engagement

Implementation

Findings

Strengths, Challenges, and Lessons Learned

Influence on the Author’s Scholarly Direction

Recommendations for Advancing Engaged Research

Chapter 5: Leprosy: Stigma and Discrimination in an Ethiopian Sub-city

Framing the Engaged Research

Stigma and Discrimination

The Meaning of Community

Research Methods

The Process of Action Research

Three Rounds of Engagement

Data Collection

Data Analysis

Findings on Leprosy and Stigma and Discrimination in the Ethiopian Sub-city

Causes of Stigma and Discrimination

Stigma and Discrimination in the Three Regimes

Exclusion, Isolating the Self, and in-Group Solidarity

Strengths, Challenges, and Lessons Learned

Influence on the Authors’ Scholarly Direction

Recommendations for Advancing Engaged Research

Chapter 6: The Iddir in Locality-Based Social Development

Framing the Engaged Research

Iddirs as Agents of Social Change and Development

The Engagement Process

Creating Awareness of Assets

Data Analysis

Project Findings

Tangible and Intangible Assets

Strengths, Challenges, and Lessons Learned

Influence on the Author’s Scholarly Direction

Recommendations for Advancing Engaged Research

Chapter 7: Building Capacities of Iddirs to Assist Poor Older Adults

Framing the Engaged Research

Iddirs as Voluntary Indigenous Organizations

Research Methods

Nominal Group Technique and Appreciative Inquiry

Engagement in the Field

Findings

Assets and Strengths, Limitations and Challenges

Assisting Poor Older Adults

Suggestions to Build the Capacity of Iddirs

Strengths, Challenges, and Lessons Learned

Influence on the Author’s Scholarly Direction

Recommendations for Advancing Engaged Research

Chapter 8: Exploring Assets of Youth for the Prevention and Control of HIV

Introduction

Framing the Engaged Research

Asset-based Approaches and HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control

Research Methods

Engagement

Nominal Group Technique

Focus Group Discussion

Findings

Youth Assets and Concerns

Conventional HIV Prevention and Control Programs and the Role of Youth Assets

Strengths, Challenges and Lesson Learned

Influence on the Author’s Scholarly Direction

Chapter 9: Youth Development in Student Councils

Framing the Engaged Research

Positive Youth Development

Theories on Youth Development

Organized Youth Activities

Research Methods

The Process of Engagement

Implementation

Developing Action Plans

Findings

Sense of Ownership

Taking Initiative

Social Support and Communication Skills

Cultural Competence

Safe Sex Behavior

Strengths, Challenges, and Lessons Learned

Influence on the Author’s Scholarly Direction

Chapter 10: Reclaiming Health Education at Beseka High School

Framing the Engaged Research

Schools as Settings for Health Promotion

School-based Anti-AIDS Clubs as Sources of Health Promotion in Ethiopia

Theoretical Basis for the Settings Approach for Health Promotion

The Engagement Process

Findings

The Anti-AIDs and RH Club Plan and Performance

Challenges and the Development of an Action Plan

Strengths, Challenges, and Lessons Learned

Influence on the Author’s Scholarly Direction

Chapter 11: Student Engagement in Campus-based Community Policing

Framing the Engaged Research

Definitions of Community Policing

Fear of Crime and Crime Reduction

The Engagement Process

Reason for Selecting the Topic

The Process and Steps of Engaged Research

Findings

Student Experiences of Crime

Student Responses to Campus-based Community Policing

Strengths, Challenges and Lessons Learned

Chapter 12: Involving Faculty and Students in Engaged Research

Principles and Characteristics of Engaged Research

Cross-Cutting Themes in the Engaged Research by Doctoral Students

Addressing the Policy Context through Engaged Research

Future Scholarship and Models of Social Change

Implementing Engaged Research in Social Work and Related Disciplines

Using this Book for Teaching Engaged Research

The Challenge to Social Work Education & Human Service Professionals

Appendix 1: An Overview of the Methodological Approach of Action Research

Introduction

What is Action Research?

Definition

The Action Research Process

Principles of Action Research

When to Use Action Research

Situating Action Research in a Research Paradigm

Positivist Paradigm

Interpretive Paradigm

Paradigm of Praxis

Evolution of Action Research

Origins in late 1940s

Current Types of Action Research

Traditional Action Research

Contextural Action Research (Action Learning)

Radical Action Research

Educational Action Research

Action Research Tools

The Search Conference

Role of the Action Researcher

Ethical Considerations

Appendix 2: Sample Action Research Syllabi

Author Biographies

TABLE OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 1A: The Range of Terminologies

Table 1A: Types of Engaged Research

Figure 1B: Conceptual Model of CBPR

Table 1B: Comparing Traditional, Community-Engaged Research, and CBPR

Table 2A: Selected Policies and Strategies and their Development Objectives

Table 2B: Perspectives and Strategic Objectives of HSTP

Figure 3A: Relationship of Allah with Men and Women in the Qur’an and in Society

Table 4A: Accomplishments of the Women’s Group

Table 4B: Microenterprise Challenges of the Women’s Group

Table 4C: Future Plans of the Women’s Group

Table 4D: Prioritized and Ranked Future Plans

Table 6A: Iddirs as Agents of Social Change and Development

Table 8A: Internal Assets of Youth

Table 8B: External Assets of Youth

Table 8C: Ranking of Youth Concerns

Table 12A: Cross-Cutting Themes & the Policy Context of Engaged Research

Table 12B: Common Concepts Used in Engaged Research and Dissertations

Table 12C: Course Segments and Allocated Time/Period for Block Teaching

PREFACE

This book emerges from our years of joint teaching experience as international and local faculty at Addis Ababa University, School of Social Work. In Ethiopia, social work education began as a diploma-level of training program in 1959 at the then Haile Selassie I University (now Addis Ababa University), but closed shortly after the Ethiopian socialist regime came to power in 1974. After an absence of 30 years, there was a revitalization of social work education, the consequence of a serendipitous encounter between Dr. Alice Butterfield, Professor at the Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois Chicago who came to Ethiopia in 2001 as a member of a People-to-People delegation focused on understanding the emergence of HIV/AIDS in the country and the late Professor Seyoum Gebreselassie. Dr. Seyoum held a dual doctorate in social work and sociology from the University of Michigan, and served in a variety of faculty and administrative positions at Addis Ababa University for more than 30 years. Discussions with Department of Sociology faculty, such as Professors Seyoum Gebreselassie and Andargachew Tesfaye who had social work backgrounds, focused on reopening social work education as part of the University’s five-year plan. Their conversations led to a two–year period of investigation and preparation that culminated in the reopening of the School of Social Work at Addis Ababa University. The School launched its MSW program in 2004, and in 2006 a PhD in Social Work and Social Development was initiated through admitting eight students from the first MSW graduating class. Just two years later in 2008, a Bachelors in Social Work program began (Kebede, 2014). Between 2006 and 2020, 1492 social workers graduated from the School of Social Work, Addis Ababa University. This includes 589 that graduated with a Bachelors in Social Work, 863 with a Masters in Social Work, and 40 students earned a doctorate in Social Work and Social Development. Of note, 507 (34%) of those who obtained a social work degree were female.

When AAU’s School of Social Work reopened in 2004 there were few Ethiopian faculty members with expertise in the profession. International faculty played important roles in the School’s early efforts. Unforgettable contributions in the establishment and flourishing of the new social work programs at AAU were Professors A.K Butterfield, Abye Tasse, Melese Getu, Nathan Linsk, James Rollin, Margaret Adamek, Errol S. Bolden, Larry, W. Kreuger, Robert L. Miller, Sandy Wexler, Deborah Zinn, James Scherrer, Valerie Chang, Richard S. Kordesh, Sandhya Jossi, Rosemary Sarri and many others. Students in the newly established PhD program who were employed as faculty members, were assigned as co-instructors with the international faculty in the MSW program. This was done with the understanding that the doctoral students would be mentored to take over full responsibility for the curriculum and teaching. Doctoral students also were involved in the day-to-day academic and administrative affairs of the School. The opportunity to play these leadership roles contributed to a sense of ownership of AAU’s social work education programs that the majority of those who were in leadership continue to feel today. The student leadership role ended in 2011 when Dr. Wassie Kebede, the first to receive a doctorate in the new program, assumed the position of Dean (Johnson Butterfield, Tasse & Linsk, 2009).

Over time, other universities in Ethiopia began to send Lecturers, as either PhD or MSW students from their respective departments, to AAU’s School of Social Work. Many of these graduates have since returned to their home universities and launched social work schools/departments. In about 15 years since social work education was re-established in Ethiopia, a total of 13 universities (11 public and two private) have started social work education programs. Among them, AAU and the University of Gondar now run full programs of BSW, MSW and PhD studies (Kebede, 2019). In line with international social work education and training standards (International Federation of Social Workers, 2019; Sewpaul, 2010), social work research in Ethiopia is well appreciated and incorporated into the social work curriculum at all educational levels. Students are taught its importance for practice and have the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding and skills during the production of their theses and dissertations.

Engaged social work research has been an integral part of social work training. Engagement has been interpreted in a number of ways including university-community partnerships, students’ action research, and in thesis and dissertation projects required for graduation. Social work curriculum requires community-engaged teaching whereby students are exposed to direct practice in community settings while taking courses at various levels (BSW, MSW and PhD). This engagement promoted the establishment of a university-community partnership through Asset Based Community Development in the Gedam Sefer neighborhood (Yeneabat & Butterfield, 2012). Engaged/action research started by graduate student served as a catalyst to initiate the ABCD model (Butterfield, Kebede & Gessesse, 2009). Field practicum at BSW and MSW levels are other components for students’ engagement in community-based learning. Through their practicum, students produced action-oriented reports through direct participation in community projects. Some courses that required students to conduct participatory/engaged research at the MSW level are Integrated Social Work Methods, Models of Community Development and Practice, and Social Development and Models of Change. In some cases, the action research reports produced by students served as inputs to design community development projects. At the PhD level, the course Action Research and Models of Social Change extensively involved students in engaged research in partnership with community groups.

Social work engaged research continues to be encouraged by AAU’s School of Social Work, which has prioritized this model of research. To best prepare students for their future professional careers, the School works diligently to foster MSW and PhD students’ knowledge of and skills in community-engaged projects. Community-engaged research, as a model of social work research, has also been incorporated in the curricula of other Ethiopian social work education programs. Graduates of AAU’s School of Social Work have taken the model to their home universities and have integrated action research as a component of engaged research into their curricula and university-community partnerships.

This book has grown out of our experiences of teaching courses that engaged students and ourselves in different action research projects. We have been teaching courses which are action research oriented and accumulated critical experience in how to engage ourselves and our students with local communities, how to document action research results and link such results to local development initiatives, and influence social development policy at the local levels.

The book is organized in 12 Chapters under three main categories. The first chapter introduces readers to engaged research and models of social change. Chapter two looks at development issues in Ethiopia in view of engaged research. We offer this context of engaged research in Ethiopia as a protype for extrapolating development policies that can be looked at, compared and contrasted, to those in other countries of the world. Chapters 3-11 are presenting the results of the engaged research of former PhD students, now faculty at various universities in Ethiopia. These chapters are dedicated to promoting the scholarship of young researchers, our former students. Without such opportunity, their work would remain unpublished and unable to find a route to their colleagues elsewhere (Butterfield & Abye, 2012, p. 211). In Chapter 12, we present our experience and the importance of involving faculty and students in engaged research. We emphasize the implementation of engaged research through coursework. We believe the book has paramount importance for educators, researchers and practitioners in social work and other human service disciplines who appreciate the contribution of engaged research to social development.

Wassie Kebede, MSW, PhD

Alice K. Butterfield, MSW, PhD

References

Butterfield, A., Kebede, W., & Gessesse, A. (2009). Research as a catalyst for asset-based community development: Assessing the skills of poor women in Ethiopia. Social Development Issues, 31(2), 1-14.

Butterfield, A.K., & Abye T. (2012). Learning from Africa: Publication and research. Journal of Community Practice, 20(1-2), 211-217.

International Federation of Social Workers. (2019). Global Standards for Social Work Education and Training. Available at: https://www.ifsw.org/global-standards-for-social-work-education-and-training/#preamble

Johnson Butterfield, A.K., Tasse, A., & Linsk, N. (2009). The Social Work Education in Ethiopia Partnership. In C.E. Stout (Ed.), The New Humanitarians: Inspiration, Innovations, and Blueprints for Visionaries, Volume 2 (pp. 57-83). Westport, CT: Praeger.

Kebede, W. (2014). Social work education in Ethiopia: Celebrating the re-birth of the profession. In H.Spitzer, J. Twikirize, & G. Wairire (Eds.). Professional Social Work in East Africa: Towards Social Development, Poverty Reduction and Gender Equality (pp. 161-172). Kampala: Foundation Publishers.

Kebede, W. (2019). Social work education in Ethiopia: Past present and future. International Journal of Social Work, 6(1), 1-17.

Sewpaul, V. (2010). Professionalism, postmodern ethics and the Global Standards for Social Work Education and Training. Social Work/Maatskaplike Werk, 46(3).253-262. Available at: https://socialwork.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/156/143

Yeneabat, M., & Butterfield, A.K. (2012). We can’t Eat a Road: Asset-based community development and the Gedam Sefer community Partnership in Ethiopia. Journal of Community Practice, 20(1-2), 134-153.

CHAPTER 1

OVERVIEW OF ENGAGED RESEARCH

AND MODELS OF SOCIAL CHANGE

Alice K. Butterfield, Wassie Kebede

Defining Engaged Research

Engaged research is defined in many ways in the literature. The Irish Universities Association (2017, p.4) define engaged research as:

A wide range of rigorous research approaches and methodologies that share a common interest in collaborative engagement with the community and aim to improve, understand or investigate an issue of public interest or concern, including societal challenges. Engaged research is advanced with community partners rather than for them.

According to James (n.d., p.1) engaged research is committed to making a positive difference in the world. It is engaged ethically and reciprocally with others. …It is a commitment witnessed by others to fulfil the terms of an agreed relationship.

Engaged research methods and approaches go by a variety of different names, including action learning research, action-oriented research, collaborative inquiry, community action research, community service learning, community-university partnership, community empowerment research, emancipatory research, and engaged scholarship. Despite different names, all of these methods and approaches emphasize the active engagement of community members, organizations, and stakeholders in scanning problems, soliciting data/information, analyzing data, proposing action frameworks and participating in the change process, and evaluating outcomes. All anticipate the engagement of stakeholders as active research participants and decision makers, not just as recipients of the findings and outcome of the research.

Community engagement is defined as the process of working collaboratively with and through groups of people affiliated by geographic proximity, special interest, or similar situations to address issues affecting the well-being of those people (National Institute of Health, 2011, p. 3). Thus, community-engaged research focuses on engaging a community as an active partner in all phases of the research process, from problem identification to research design and implementation to data analysis and interpretation to the dissemination of findings (Holliman, 2017). Such research is carried out in order to address community problems and improve community well-being. Figure 1.1 lists just some of the various terminologies that represent varieties of engaged research.

Figure 1A: The Range of Terminologies

Source: Adapted from: Irish Universities Association. (2017, January), page 56.

Community-engaged research benefits the community and the academics who co-create the research with community members. According to Pasika, Oliva, Goldstein and Nguyen (2010, p. 6) regarding the benefits of engaged research to the community, it recognizes community as a unit of identity; builds on strengths and resources within the community; facilitates collaborative partnerships in all phases of the research; integrates knowledge and actions for mutual benefit of all partners; and promotes a co-learning and empowering process that attends to social inequality.

For academics, benefits include facilitating a better understanding of a community’s views of prevailing social problems, learning from a community’s experiences, and strengthening university-community partnerships. Academics and practitioners have identified many types of engaged research. Brief descriptions of some of the more common methods and approaches of engaged research are noted in Table 1A.

Brief History of Engaged Research

Engaged research, also known as engaged scholarship, has emerged and expanded during the 20th and 21st centuries. Although it has a long history since 1860s, in the United States, engaged scholarship reemerged at the time of the New Deal and World War II but dramatically expanded during the Civil Rights Era and the Vietnam War (Willcoxon, 2019, p. 1). Engaged research, as a generic approach was in complete opposition to the positivist and in partial opposition to post-positivist approaches. Epistemologically, engaged research stands in opposition to these traditional approaches. The positivist approach claims that scientific methodology enables scientists to separate personal values from facts (Tekin & Kotaman, 2013, p. 82). In positivist research, the researcher is an outsider who is not experiencing the phenomenon he/she is trying to investigate. Since the 1950s, the reductionist approach of positivist research has been criticized. In contradiction to the positivist approach, the post-positivist approach claims that to study a complex phenomenon, the possibilities, multiple points-of-view and perspectives, and different variables that may affect the proceeding of the whole have to be emphasized (Tekin & Kotaman, 2013, p. 82). In its early days, during the pre-World War II period, action research, which is an alternative name for engaged research began to function as a bridge between scholarly theories and the application of research in real life.

Table 1A: Types of Engaged Research

Source: Irish Universities Association. (2017, January). Selected from Appendix 1: Glossary of Engaged Methods and Approaches, p. 61-66.

Engaged research can be identified by such names as action research, participatory action research, popular education & participatory research, community based participatory research, and so on. The history and origins of these and other engaged research types are attached to their pioneers. For example, the history of Action Research is attached to Kurt Lewin, a German social psychologist (Masters, 1995). Participatory Action Research is attached to Paulo Freire, a Brazilian philosopher (MacDonald, 2012). Antonio Gramsci, like participatory democratic theorists, argued that learning occurs through participation itself (Luckett, Walters & von Kotze, 2017, p. 260). Action research is profoundly a Northern tradition, which emerged mainly from the United States and United Kingdom, whereas participant action research, community based participatory research and others listed above are Southern traditions, originating in Brazil and Italy. Berg (2004) provides an overview of the process of action research, and its use of qualitative research methods. The brief history of each tradition is presented next.

Northern Tradition – Action Research Kurt Lewin

Many scholars agree that the origin of Action Research is tagged to the work of Kurt Lewin, but there is evidence of the use of action research by a number of social reformists prior to Lewin (Masters, 1995, p. 1). Kurt Lewin, however, made action research become popular in 1940s when he constructed a theory of action research, which described action research as proceeding in a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of planning, action and the evaluation of the result of action" (Kemmis & McTaggert, 1990, p. 8). Action research for Lewin was exemplified by a discussion of problems followed by group decision on how to proceed. Marrow (1969, p. 168) reported that Lewin and his co-workers classified their work into four types of action research, namely

1. Diagnostic action research designed to produce a needed plan of action…2. Participant action research in which it is assumed that the residents of the affected community who were to help effect a cure must be involved in the research process from the beginning…3. Empirical action research was primarily a matter of record keeping and accumulating experiences in doing day-to-day work, ideally with a succession of similar groups…4. Experimental action research, called for controlled study of the relative effectiveness of various techniques in nearly identical social situations (Adelman, 1993, pp. 13-14).

Grundy (1988, p. 353) and McKernan (1991, pp. 16-27) as cited in Masters (1995) lists three general types of action research. Type 1 is the scientific-technical view of problem solving. Type II, is practical-deliberative action research, and Type III is critical-emancipatory action research. Philosophically action research can be classified as a post-positivist mode of inquiry due to its conditional nature (Tekin & Kotaman, 2013, p. 86). They further note that action research views being an insider as an advantage rather than disadvantage because the insider is native to the setting and thus better able to establish the connection needed to conduct a study (p. 87). The philosophical viewpoints related to legitimizing action research include its appreciation and adherence to praxis, hermeneutics, existentialism, pragmatism, and phenomenology (Susman & Evered, 1978). Appendix A includes Rory O’Brien’s (2001) detailed report by which defines action research, explains its evolution, and offers tools for carrying out ethical processes in action research.

Southern Tradition – Participatory Action Research - Paulo Freire

It is hard trace the origin of Participatory Action Research (PAR) to the idea of a single person or a group of persons. PAR is associated to the social movement of the 20th century … in particular land reform, anti-colonialism, and need for a new research methodology, occurring simultaneously across multiple continents (Glassman & Erdem, 2014, p. 206). Although PAR is considered as a sub-set of action research, the PAR origin is recognized as the work of Paulo Freire with contributions by Budd Hall in his application of Freier’s concepts in Tanzania (Hall, n.d.). Freire believed that critical reflection was crucial for personal and social change. The PAR approach of Freire was concerned with empowering the poor and marginalized members of society (MacDonald, 2012, p. 37). The uniqueness of PAR to other forms of qualitative research is that it reflects questioning about the nature of knowledge and the extent to which knowledge can represent the interests of the powerful and serve to reinforce their positions in society" (Baum, MacDougall & Smith, 2006, p. 854). In comparison to conventional research, action research pays special attention to power relationships, and involves participants directly in data gathering and reflective analysis. Rahman 1991 cited in Elliott (2011, p. 5) states that

the basic ideology of PAR is that a self-conscious people, those who are currently poor and oppressed, will progressively transform their environment by their own praxis. In this process others may play a catalytic and supportive role but will not dominate.

PAR is also distinguished from conventional research by its emancipatory nature to improve the lives of research participants using an action-oriented approach based on research results. As a principle, PAR democratises knowledge production, secures ownership of the research and improves research quality, leading to a greater likelihood that results will be put into practice (Amaya & Yeates, n.d., p.3). PAR is not a simple research method, rather it is an approach comprised of a set of principles and practices for originating, designing, conducting, analysing and acting on a piece of research. According to Pain, Whitman and Milledge (n.d., p.3) PAR goes through a cycle of planning, action, reflection and evaluation.

Miles Horton and Highlander Center – Popular Education and Participatory Research

As reflected in The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire’s landmark book is acknowledged as a forerunner of popular education. He argued that education is sexist, racist and favours the powerful (Freire, 1971). In its place, popular education required a high degree of participation expected from everyone to raise levels of consciousness, empower class and group interests to organize, with the overall effort evaluated by PAR outcomes.

In the United States, popular education originated in 1932 with the work of Miles Horton in the founding of the Highlander Folk Center in Tennessee (Horton, Kohl, & Kohl, 1997).

The school was a place for the oppressed to gather, learn, organize, and make change. Throughout the Great Depression, the school advocated for the working class by providing training for workers and labor organizers. Eventually, the school shifted its focus to Civil Rights. Throughout the 1950’s, the school organized literacy and voter registration for Blacks all over the nation [Educators Who Tell the Truth].

After many brief encounters at meetings around the world, Horton invited Freire to Tennessee where they shared and critiqued each other’s perspectives and practices on popular education. We Make the Road By Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change—Myles Horton and Paulo Freire is authored