The dialectics of collective and individual transformation: Transformative activist research in a collaborative Learning community project. By Vianna, E., Hougaard, N., & Stetsenko, A. (2014). In A. Blunden (ed.), Collaborative Projects (pp. 59-87). Leiden, the Netherlands: Brille Publishers. (original) (raw)

In this chapter we describe the implementation of a transformative activist research project (PALC) designed and carried out in collaboration with students in a community college in the New York City metropolitan area. The inspiration for this project was the critical need to expand current educational approaches for community college students, many of whom struggle in college. Guided by ideals of democracy and social justice, our aim was to move beyond instrumentalist conceptions of higher education that seek to only prepare students to fit in with existing social structures by meeting the expected demands of the job market. Inspired by cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT, see Leontiev, 1978; Vygotsky, e.g., 1997, 1998a, b) expanded by the transformative activist stance (TAS, Stetsenko, e.g., 2008), we collaboratively implemented a project in which both students and faculty/researchers endeavored to move beyond the goals of adapting to the world to instead develop activist projects of social transformation in college and beyond. The specific goal was to work in solidarity in striving to break away from a narrow, commodified educational agenda focused on utilitarian learning outcomes geared toward future employability. Our method was based on co-constructing with students, based on critical-theoretical pedagogy (Vianna & Stetsenko, 2011), a collaborative space and tools for activist learning and development to expand active engagement in transforming alienating and oppressive educational practices in the college and in their community practices. Thus, this project consisted in bringing together students and researchers to collaboratively investigate and promote the development of their transformative activist stance, through the tools of learning, by expanding the contribution of each participant to a widening range of community practices, sociocultural practices and discourses.