Our project work is supported, empowered, and constantly developed through an international, interdisciplinary, world-class research framework know as Participatory Action Research (PAR). Etymologically, that means ‘Participatory’ as in ‘Participatory Democracy’, ‘Action’ as in ‘Social Action’, and ‘Research’ as in continually connecting and reconnecting theories and practices. The historical foundations of PAR center around the sociogenesis of language, mind, and meaning-making as articulated by the Russian Semiotician Lev Vygotsky and the American Pragmatist John Dewey. PAR is being currently recreated and revitalized in, for, and through innovative educational technologies and social media, culminating in nothing less than a profound paradigm shift in, for, and through the social sciences.
Core Literature:
Vygotsky, L.S. (1934/1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and Education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. New York: Macmillan Press.
Vogt, T. (2013). University-Community Links: Developing Participatory Action Research in, for, and through local and international learning communities. Marburg, Tectum Verlag.
See also http://uclinks.berkeley.edu
For more information, please contact tom.vogt@phil.uni-augsburg.de