Exploring Community-based Research Values and Principles: Lessons Learned from a Delphi Study

Main Article Content

Jenny Francis
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7040-7314
Miu-Chung Yan
Hartej Gill

Abstract

Community-based research (CBR) is a relatively new methodology characterised by the co-generation of knowledge. As CBR is integrated into institutional frameworks, it becomes increasingly important to understand what differentiates CBR from other research. To date, there has been no systematic study of CBR values and principles, which tend to be offered as a list of considerations that are taken as given rather than problematised. Similarly, research has not explored the ways in which understandings of CBR's underlying values differ among individual researchers compared to the broader research values of a large university. In this article, we report the findings of a Delphi study which addresses these gaps through a systematic, cross-disciplinary survey of CBR researchers at a large Canadian research university. Our findings indicate diverse and complex understandings of both the potentially political nature of CBR and the perceived values of the respondents' institution.

Article Details

Section
Research articles (Refereed)
Author Biographies

Jenny Francis, University of Victoria

I am a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Public Administration at the University of Victoria in Victoria, BC and an instructor in the Department of Geography at Langara College, Vancouver BC.

Miu-Chung Yan, University of British Columbia

Miu-Chung Yan is a Professor and Director of the School of Social Work at the University of British Columbia. His major research interests include the settlement and integration of immigrants and refugees, critical cross-cultural and antiracist practice, place-based community development and policy, globalization and social development, and North-South social work knowledge transfer. Miu was the PI for the study and co-authored this paper.

Hartej Gill, University of British Columbia

Hartej Gill is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia. She is particularly interested in social justice and leadership and in using research to bridge the gap between theory, practice, and social activism by provoking critical dialogues about identity, power, systemic oppression, colonialism, patriarchy and modernity. Hartej was the co-PI for the study and co-authored this paper.