Angela Booker

Participatory Design Research as a Practice for Systemic Repair: Doing Hand-in-Hand Math Research with Families

ABSTRACT Success and failure in formal mathematics education has been used to legitimize stratification. We describe participatory design research as a methodology for systemic repair. The analysis describes epistemic authority—exercising the right or the power to know—as a form of agency in processes of mathematical problem solving and learning. We asked: What will aid families in advocating for their childrens math learning, particularly when they expressed concern about their ability to do so? Participatory design research provided a collaborative and iterative method to work with people who shape math learning: parents, children, teachers, community organizers, researchers, curriculum developers, and mathematicians. Data from four years of participant observation involved the design, facilitation, and dissemination of workshops and take-home materials and family case studies. As participating families claimed epistemic authority, institutional barriers became more visible. This tension maps where participatory design methodology can evolve to address systemic change.

Ethical Commitments in Community-Based Research with Youth

ABSTRACT This article offers an ethnographic account of a formally organized group of students who worked to influence policy in their schools and the adults they encountered in this activity. I also address my role as an observant participant to highlight a series of emergent “ethical opportunities” that created contexts for mutual human development. This account is intended to contribute to a discussion of the developmental role of contradictions highlighted in cultural-historical activity theory. In particular, I seek to highlight opportunities afforded by community-based research for all involved to respond to contradictions as learners, rather than arbiters of ethical practice.