Tensions and Lessons Learned

Abstract

One of the ways doctoral students can engage in powerful learning that makes a difference is via community-engaged research. In this chapter, the authors describe the tensions experienced by a team of university researchers (doctoral students, staff, and a faculty member) conducting community-engaged research with a local charter school deemed underperforming by the state. Tensions explored in this chapter include honoring principles of community-based research while quickly getting the charter school the report it needed, balancing the importance of service to community and doctoral student learning, centering social justice by resisting deficit notions and pressure to report on school level problems when the state-level system needed to be changed, and constantly checking our assumptions as a team of privileged scholars working with an under-served community. The chapter concludes with recommendations and implications for practice and suggestions for future research.