Participatory Action Research - Feminist Trailblazers & Good Troublemakers

Vanessa Gold is a doctoral student in the Department of Integrated Studies of Education at McGill University, studying pedagogical change processes in secondary and post-secondary schools. Feminisms informs her worldview. The research areas informing her work include student voice, educational leadership, design thinking, and action research. She seeks opportunities for collaboration, innovation, and creativity. Before pursuing her PhD, Vanessa taught internationally for four years.

Shikha Diwakar is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education at McGill University, Canada. She studies the role and impact of Dalit women’s identities on their life experiences in higher education institutions in India. She also works on several projects focusing on women's empowerment, intersectionality, and caste at the Global level. Her research areas include Dalit studies, Dalit feminism, identity, anti-caste discourses, higher education policies, action research, and narrative enquiry.

Kavya Harshitha Jidugu is a doctoral student in the Faculty of Education at Queen’s University, Canada, studying caste experiences of Bahujan international students in North American universities. Her research interests are critical pedagogy, Dalit Christian identity, lived experiences, linguistic registers and caste Indexing. Before pursuing her PhD, Harshitha worked as a Project Associate at Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar on Engineering Education and Inventiveness.

Patricia Maguire, long-time advocate for feminist-informed participatory and action research, initiated this series to amplify and elevate the trailblazing contributions of feminists to the development of PAR.

Patricia Maguire is Professor Emeritus of Education and Counseling, Western New Mexico University. Her book, Doing Participatory Research: A Feminist Approach (1987) was one of the first feminist critiques of PAR. For twenty-five years. Patricia was Chair of the WNMU-Gallup Graduate Studies Center (GGSC), located in Gallup, New Mexico, a border town to the Navajo Nation and Zuni Pueblo. Working collaboratively, the GGSC team served one of the most culturally rich, linguistically diverse, yet economically poorest communities in the USA.

Inspired by bell hooks and Paulo Freire, Patricia believes the classroom is still a space of radical possibilities. Patricia taught feminist-informed Teacher Action Research. She and colleague Julie Horwitz explored what happens for teachers who engage in AR with transformational intentions. In a nod to knowledge democracy, her website, https://www.patriciamaguire.net/ gives open access to many of her writings and presentations.

Jessica Oddy has worked for over a decade in the education in emergencies space for organizations including Save the Children, LWF and War Child. She is an Academic Tutor for the University of East London’s preparation course for refugees and asylum seekers and is pursuing a PhD at UEL’s Centre for Migration, Refugee and Belonging. Using mixed digital and participatory action research methods, her research focuses on diverse young people’s educational experiences in emergencies and how colonial legacies influence the types of programs available for youth in displacement situations. In her early work as a secondary school teacher, she taught Global and active citizenship to support young people to become agents of change within their own communities.

In the international development and humanitarian aid sectors, she designs education in emergencies programs with and for children, young people and adults in situations of displacement, conflict and on the move. Jessica is Director and founder of EiE consulting. Education in Emergencies’ (EiE) mission is to support organizations, institutions, and individuals to design and deliver equity and evidence-based programs and research. See more of Jessica Oddy’s work at https://www.jessoddy.com/jessoddy