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The UCLA Labor Center used a combined participatory action research and research justice approach to study the challenges faced by workers and learners. Workers and learners are students who work while studying throughout their college careers. This research project has been carried out with the assistance of undergraduate students and college part...
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... differed based on the data being analyzed-quantitative (survey) or qualitative (interview) data. Because the Workers and Learners research project has been both multi-year and spanned the entire county, data analysis took place across the different labor studies classes and independent study courses for which participating students received college credit (see Table 3). Analyzing quantitative data has involved various key activities, leading to insightful conversations about the various factors impacting a worker and learner's working, schooling, and personal experiences. ...Citations
... This research approach and methodology involves meaningful collaboration and active participation of the study participants and challenges the power imbalance in the research process with participants substantially involved in all steps of the research, in contrast to traditional research, which tends to be top-down, with the researchers making all the research planning decisions and the researched passively submitted to whatever those decisions entail (Jacobs 2016;McGrath 2022;Tanabe, Pearce, and Krause 2018;White, Suchowierska, and Campbell 2004). This important difference makes PAR research 'emancipatory' in itself (Mathias et al. 2020;Nind 2011) and a democratic research process where participants involved as co-researchers have a voice, a role, and a responsibility in the process (Ángeles et al. 2022;Hawkins 2015;Hemming et al. 2021;Jacobs 2016;Sample 1996). This also corresponds to the research justice framework that endorses the inclusion of the participants' voices and influences in the research process and the right to participate in knowledge production (Ángeles et al. 2022;Mathias et al. 2020). ...
... This important difference makes PAR research 'emancipatory' in itself (Mathias et al. 2020;Nind 2011) and a democratic research process where participants involved as co-researchers have a voice, a role, and a responsibility in the process (Ángeles et al. 2022;Hawkins 2015;Hemming et al. 2021;Jacobs 2016;Sample 1996). This also corresponds to the research justice framework that endorses the inclusion of the participants' voices and influences in the research process and the right to participate in knowledge production (Ángeles et al. 2022;Mathias et al. 2020). This democratic and equitable nature of knowledge production helps increase the validity and quality of the produced data and provides added value to research and its credibility (Kuper et al. 2021;Nind 2011). ...
... With research participants being actively involved in all research steps ranging from determining the research problem to taking part in the planning, data collection, analysis and dissemination (Hemming et al. 2021;Jacobs 2016;Kramer et al. 2011;Nind 2011;Rix et al. 2021;Tanabe, Pearce, and Krause 2018), PAR methodology aims to achieve social change by targeting the problems that affect participants lives and responding to their needs (Ollerton and Horsfall 2013;White, Suchowierska, and Campbell 2004). PAR research brings participants together who tend to grapple with similar problems and who tend to have deep-insight into these problems based on their lived experiences in contrast to the researchers, who are often from different socioeconomic backgrounds with no lived experience of the matter (Ángeles et al. 2022;Jacobs 2016;Ollerton and Horsfall 2013;White, Suchowierska, and Campbell 2004). Through active participation, PAR also empowers participants by building their capacities in research skills and social change (Holt et al. 2019;Liddiard et al. 2019;Minkler et al. 2002;Sample 1996). ...
Nationwide, almost one in two of full-time undergraduate students are employed. As such, this qualitative study investigates how 69 workers and learners, who were full-time students in a Los Angeles County public college or university and who had a job, leveraged the wealth of knowledge and resources embedded in their familial and peer networks to strategically manage the demands of school and work. Informed by the theoretical frameworks of funds of knowledge and community cultural wealth, we illustrate the diverse ways family and peers contributed to the success of workers and learners, including sharing college-specific knowledge, providing financial resources, facilitating access to employment opportunities, and providing job-specific knowledge. Findings shed light on the ways workers and learners strategically manage their worlds of school and work with support from their family and peers.
