Community-Engaged Research. How IUPUI faculty engages the community in research activities

Abstract

Academic researchers who conduct research with and in the community use different approaches that reflect the richness of epistemologies and disciplinary backgrounds that inform community scholarship. Although there is extensive literature explaining the principles and methods of “community-engaged research”, there seem to be different understandings of how these principles translate into the research practice. This work describes how IUPUI faculty members that claimed in a survey to be community-engaged scholars involve the community in research activities. We analyzed the narratives of fifty-one tenured and tenure-track faculty members who were interviewed to explore their lived experiences in their work with communities on research or creative activity projects. Four predominant practices of engagement were identified in their narratives. These practices reflect differences in their research paradigm, the expected research outcomes, and their conceptualization of the participant community.