Community-Based Research and Higher Education: Principles and Practices (review)

In his oft-quoted examination of higher education, Ernest Boyer (1990) advocated a wider conception of scholarship. He reframed this aspect of faculty work into a three-part conception of the scholarships of discovery, integration, and application. In relation to the latter, Boyer characterized the scholarship of application by asking the question, "'How can knowledge be responsibly applied to consequential problems?'" (p. 21). The authors of Community-Based Research and Higher Education propose a reform of higher education through a research approach that meets Boyer's challenge.

The objectives of Community-Based Research in Higher Education are clearly and consistently articulated: Community-based research (CBR) can address "higher education's disconnection from communities and growing concern about the professorate's exceedingly narrow definition of research" (p. 1). The authors promote this method to "develop students' civic capacity and prepare them for active democratic citizenship" (p. 1). In a style that advocates but does not preach, the authors urge collaboration, social change, empowering community members, and creating self-sustaining communities.

Prevailing criticisms of higher education are addressed through the authors' primary point: CBR, founded upon the principles of social justice, collaboration, and service learning, can effect social change, reestablish public trust, better distribute publicly granted resources, and share expertise in the cause of the public good. The authors, well versed in the literature of higher education, link these goals to the historical goal of effecting social change in higher education (Brubacher, 1990; Rudolph, 1962/1990). In an enviable attempt to urge widespread social change, they advocate the use of CBR in the cause of social justice and higher education reform.

Strand, Marullo, Cutforth, Stoecker, and Donohue make an important contribution to the admittedly new area of CBR. They define this method as "a partnership of students, faculty, and community members who collaboratively engage in research with the purpose of solving a pressing community problem or effecting social change" (p. 3). Higher education, they argue, should share expertise and resources with community-based organizations, effect social change, and collaborate with local communities. From a social justice perspective based on Paulo Freire's liberation theology (1970), the authors discuss a research process in which research problems are defined by the community in which that research occurs, community members are equal research partners, and all community members, participating students, and faculty have knowledge and expertise to share. The authors debunk the myths that university-based expertise is the most highly valued skill in a research endeavor, that community-based members have less valuable expertise, and that students are simply apprentices in the research process.

In a respectful tone, the authors candidly discuss the strengths and weaknesses of CBR, painting a picture of the value gained from a truly collaborative research process. Modeling this collaboration, the five authors offer a seamless writing style to discuss CBR's underlying principles, teaching methods, the establishment of programs and centers, and the incorporation of undergraduate service learning. Their review includes realistic discussions of the pros and cons of this method's application. The plethora of examples, boxed illustrations of practice, and well-written prose make this book worthy reading. The foundational and philosophical perspectives are sound and well integrated. Whether this book is used as a textbook or as background reading on this new approach to research, graduate and undergraduate students, community members, faculty, and those involved in research will find it valuable.

The authors offer an argument for CBR centered on practicality and action. Advocating action through imperfect results rather than no change with technically correct methods, the authors pursue a less stringent approach to some methodological controls (e.g., representativeness and sample size). They urge this approach in the name of the "more practical concerns" (p. 106) of social change. While some...