Community-based Research Methods – Putting Ideas into Action

This article explores how we can more fully engage our students in research and social problems by creating community-based research methods courses. I describe a course I created in which students learned qualitative research methods and then conducted the majority of the interviews for a homelessness prevention program evaluation project. Showing how we worked closely with the community organization and the students were fully engaged in using their sociological imagination, I explain the details of the course and the project. I provide specific feedback from both the students and the organization, as well as explain areas of limitation and complication in conducting these types of courses.

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