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BJSW Advance Access originally published online on March 21, 2005
British Journal of Social Work 2005 35(4):425-434; doi:10.1093/bjsw/bch189
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The British Association of Social Workers. All rights reserved.

Research as Social Work: Participatory Research in Learning Disability

Dorothy Atkinson

Professor of learning disability in the School of Health and Social Welfare at The Open University.

Correspondence to Professor Dorothy Atkinson, School of Health and Social Welfare, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA. E-mail: D.M.A.Atkinson{at}open.ac.uk

The social-work literature has already made links between social work and research, and has argued in favour of practitioner–research. This paper turns the argument around and looks at how research can come to look and feel like social work. This happens particularly, but not exclusively, in participatory research in the learning-disability field, especially in auto/biographical or life-story research, where long-term research relationships are more in evidence. Drawing on the participatory research methodology literature, and her own oral and life-history research, the author explores the areas in which research comes to emulate social-work practice. There are, of course, practical and ethical issues to be addressed and, as the author concludes, safeguards are needed to clarify roles and foster openness in research relationships.

Keywords: Learning disability, participatory research, life stories, oral history


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