Advocacy and Participatory Worldview

Creswell (2009) on page 9, describes this wordview: “An advocacy/participatory worldview holds that research inquiry needs to be intertwined with politics and a political agenda. Thus, the research contains an action agenda for reform that may change the lives of the participants, the institutions in which individuals work or live, and the researcher’s life. Moreover, specific issues need to be addressed that speak to important social issues of the day, issues such as empowerment, inequality, oppression, domination, suppression, and alienation.”

I would position myself with this worldview. When I read about the social constructivist worldview, I thought I would position myself with that one, since “social constructivists hold assumptions that individuals seek understanding of the world in which they live and work” and “the researcher’s intent is to make sense of (or interpret) the meanings others have about the world” (8). However, after reading further, I think there needs to be more of a reason why one would do research. For me, I want the research to contribute to something more than understanding, and the advocacy/participatory worldview is just that.

In my case, the action agenda for reform involves kids. I am a teacher, and I am always interested in anything to do with kids and learning, especially my age group, which is middle school. I feel like there is so much out there about the elementary age group and not as much concerning middle school kids. So, while the social constructivist worldview would seek to understand middle school kids in education, the advocacy/participatory worldview would seek to understand that age group in education AND advocate for changes within the system of institutionalized education.