Meghan McGlinn Manfra is an Associate Professor in the Department of Teacher Education and Learning Sciences in the College of Education at North Carolina State University. She attended Elon College as a North Carolina Teaching Fellow and began her career as a high school history teacher. She completed a master’s degree (MA) in history at the University of North Carolina -Greensboro and received her doctorate (PhD) in education at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on social studies teacher education, teacher professional learning, and the integration of digital technologies into instruction. She is the editor of the Handbook of Social Studies Research and author of Action Research for Classrooms, Schools, and Communities. She lives in Raleigh with her husband and two daughters where she loves running the trails in nearby Umstead State Park. Relevant Publications Manfra, M.M. (2019). Action research for classrooms, schools, and communities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/action-research-for-classrooms-schools-and-communities/book246644 Manfra, M.M. (2019). Action research and systematic change in teaching practice. Review Vof Research in Education, 43, 1, 163-196. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.3102/0091732X18821132 Manfra, M.M. (2009b). Critical inquiry in the social studies classroom: Portraits of critical teacher research. Theory and Research in Social Education, 37(2), 298-316. Manfra, M.M. (2009c). Action research: Exploring the theoretical divide between practical and critical approaches. Journal of Curriculum & Instruction, 3(1), 32-46.

I spoke with Ben Rayder and Brittni MacLeod, director and associate director for the Office of Undergraduate Research and Major Awards at the University of Houston. They talked about the newly-created "Action Research in Communities (ARC) program, which was designed to merge service learning and research into a program where undergrads are paired with a faculty mentor.  The Action Research in Communities (ARC) Program at the University of Houston is a collaborative effort supported by the Cougar Initiative to Engage and the Office of Undergraduate Research and Major Awards. ARC offers exceptional undergraduates the opportunity to conduct faculty-mentored action research based on service projects in the Greater Houston community. Selected students receive a $1,500 scholarship and spend the academic year researching issues facing their community in order to develop actionable steps for improvement.

In this episode, I talk with Mara Richards Bim, the founder of the youth theatre company, Cry Havoc Theater. Cry Havoc is located in Dallas, Texas. Mara speaks about the power youth have to observe and enter deeply traumatic conversations about current events happening in this world, and what happens when youth ask the questions and create meaning from their work (in the form of award-winning theatre). Under Mara's direction, Cry Havoc Theater has developed several award-winning plays written from first-person interviews including Babel about gun violence and Crossing the Line about the immigration crisis. In 2019, Cry Havoc was named “Best Thing to Happen to Local Theater” by D Magazine and the company’s production of Crossing the Line received three D-FW Theater Critics Forum Awards including Best New Play or Musical, Best Performance by an Ensemble, and Best Directors (Mara Richards Bim and Tim Johnson). In 2018, Cry Havoc received three Forum Awards including Best New Play or Musical (Babel), and a special citation to Mara for “conducting thorough research and creating compelling verbatim drama.  You can learn more about the life-changing work these teens and Mara are doing by visiting their website: https://www.cryhavoctheater.org/

Dr. Meagan Call-Cummings is an Assistant Professor of Research Methodology at George Mason University’s School of Education. Dr. Call-Cummings’ work most often takes participatory action research forms. For her dissertation she worked with 52 undocumented Latinx students and their White teacher in rural Idaho on an 18-month YPAR project that asked the question, Why are our teachers racist? Over the past three years she has worked with a core group of ten high school students and teachers on a YPAR project they called Courageous Conversations, which attempted to help students value their own voices, experiences, and expertise on issues that are important to them but often silenced in classrooms. By engaging in arts-based inquiry including Spoken Word Poetry, Theatre of the Oppressed, Photovoice, and narrative methods, students created art to tell their stories and have their voices heard. Dr. Call-Cummings’ publications are most often methodological and grapple with issues of power, validity, and ethics in the context of PAR and YPAR. She is currently writing a book on critical participatory inquiry with Giovanni Dazzo and Melissa Hauber-Ozer, scheduled for publication in 2023.

In this episode, I have a conversation with Lonnie Rowell, former faculty at the University of San Diego, former program chair of the Action Research SIG, and former president and co-founder of the Action Research Network of the Americas. Lonnie and I discuss his current work with the Social Publishers Foundation, as they seek to disseminate the work of practitioners around the globe. This work is critical to a thriving democracy and social justice, as communities participate in creating new knowledge for the common good.

In this episode I ask Margaret about her work in action research throughout her career, and what led her to create a public action research tutorials website and Facebook page, which she has dedicated to helping visitors learn about action research and how to connect with a global community of action researchers.

In this episode, I talk with Craig Mertler, professor and action research author. Craig talks about his passion for action research as a vehicle through which practitioners can empower themselves to solve problems in context.