Designing Research for Social Justice: Creating a Community Engaged Research Project

Catalog description

This course will support students in designing or refining a proposal for a community-engaged research project. Unlike "traditional" forms of research, community-engaged research uses a social justice lens to ensure research outcomes benefit communities most impacted by social inequities. This approach to research aims to alter the power relationship between "researchers" and "researched" by ensuring close collaboration with community partners in the design, conceptualization, and actualization of the research process. In this course, students will be guided through each phase of designing a community-engaged research project. This involves forming a successful community partnership, generating meaningful research questions, and selecting means of collecting and analyzing data that best answer the research questions and support community partners. Additionally, the course will support students to develop a grounding in the theory and practice of community-engaged research while also considering the ethical questions and challenges involved. By the end of the course, students will have developed a robust community-engaged research design that can be used to craft a research proposal for various summer funding opportunities, including the Chappell Lougee Scholarship, the Community-Based Research Fellowship, Cardinal Quarter Fellowships, and Major Grants, among others. Please note that while the course prepares students to develop strong proposals, it does not guarantee funding. The skills gained will also benefit students in any academic year, including those who may wish to pursue community-engaged theses or capstone projects.