Practice of Participatory Action Research (PAR)
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this graduate-level course on participatory action research (PAR) and case study methods in applied social science. Students learn techniques for co-producing knowledge with partner communities, focusing on place-specific research where success is measured by how communities use the findings to address real challenges they face. The course covers methods of data collection and analysis suited to collaborative, community-engaged research rather than conventional academic study. Materials include the syllabus, readings, and assignments as published on MIT OpenCourseWare, free to access with no certificate offered. The course sits within MIT's Urban Studies and Planning curriculum and suits students interested in social change work, community organizing, or applied research methods that treat local knowledge as a primary source of evidence rather than an afterthought.