A Model of Action Research for Advancing Community-University Partnerships

This article describes a four-phased action research project that emerged over a six-year period, eventually leading to a $600,000 investment by local government in a new neighborhood park. We demonstrate, through our community-university partnership, how we built on each phase of action research initially by establishing and developing relationships, increasing participation levels in the neighborhood organization and neighborhood sponsored events, and building long-term participation, which enabled the establishment of a collective vision. This ultimately led to increased social capital and strengthened local power through political voice. We argue that by connecting four phases of action research, we were able to achieve significant community change in partnership with local neighborhood residents and that this form of a long-term and multi-based approach can address some of the common challenges inherent to community-university partnerships.