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This chapter explores the use of three different approaches to capturing other perspectives in lesson study: lesson artefacts, pupil voice and pupil participatory approaches. Lesson artefacts and pupil voice appear to be the more common, whereas pupil participatory approaches are more recent initiatives in a lesson study context. Observation of pupils provides one perspective, but is limited because, among other things, it does not include the pupils’ perspectives. These approaches, especially when used together in triangulation, can provide a broader and potentially deeper understanding of pupil learning.

This chapter explores the potential for involving the public in planning healthy urban mobility using a case study of two neighbourhoods in Oxford, UK. We draw specifically on lessons learned from the UK case of a large-scale international study entitled Healthy Urban Mobility (HUM). The HUM project was based on the need to address health inequalities within urban areas by implementing new approaches to planning and health that use novel research methods to encourage active dialogue with a wide range of stakeholders. The two principal objectives of the research were firstly, to understand the impact of everyday (im)mobility on health and wellbeing within different social groups, and secondly, to explore the potential for participatory mobilities planning with local communities to support and develop solutions for healthy urban mobility.

The chapter is organised into six parts. Following the introduction, we highlight the theories behind the need for public participation in urban mobility planning and calls for active dialogue and mutual learning between practitioners and communities for effective action on improving urban health. Then in the third and fourth parts, we provide an overview of the approach to participatory mobilities planning with local communities in the UK as part of the HUM project. In the fifth part, we report the outcomes of the project and critically reflect on the overall approach and lessons learned that may be of use to practitioners and communities. Finally, we conclude with the significance of the study and implications for public participation in planning healthy urban mobility. The research demonstrates the significant potential of participatory methods in transport infrastructure project but also highlights the complexities of public engagement and points to the need for a continual, long-term process to build trust between partners.

We argue that by conducting systematic research with communities rather than on communities, community-based research (CBR) methods can both advance the study of human interaction and strengthen public understanding and appreciation of social sciences. CBR, among other methods, can also address social scientists’ ethical and social commitments. We recap the history of calls by leading sociologists for rigorous, empirical, community-engaged research. We introduce CBR methods as empirically grounded methods for conducting social research with social actors. We define terms and describe the range of methods that we include in the umbrella term, “community-based research.” After providing exemplars of community-based research, we review CBR’s advantages and challenges. We, next, summarize an intervention that we undertook as members of the Publication Committee of the URBAN Research Network’s Sociology section in which the committee developed and disseminated guidelines for peer review of community-based research. We also share initial responses from journal editors. In the conclusion, we revisit the potential of community-based research and note the consequences of neglecting community-based research traditions.

Participatory geographic information systems (PGIS) have been increasingly employed for decision-making in planning, environmental conservation, zoning, and development. This research explores the use of PGIS and its significant role for environmental zoning plans (EZP). PGIS methodology intends to incorporate local knowledge, increase data access, multiple realities, and bottom-up decision-making in EZP in a very sensitive water body in Southern Sri Lanka.

This research presents the lessons learned from a case study of Madu Ganga estuary in Galle District, Sri Lanka. Madu Ganga is an extraordinarily stretch of water body (an estuary) with abundant natural resources and beauty. In recent years, Madu Ganga has faced serious environmental threats due to increase in human activities leading to overexploitation of natural resources. To protect and manage this valuable environment, a team of geographers from the Center for Environmental Studies, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka was invited by the Coastal Resource Management Project to undertake the zoning study. Various participatory methods including PGIS applications were adopted and affected communities were also involved in developing a zoning plan. The study illustrates that the use of PGIS approach is effective in incorporating local people into environmental planning, and it also supports affected people to be actively involved in development activities in their own communities.

Participatory Action Research, or PAR, draws on the paradigms of critical theory and constructivism (Whyte, W. F. (1989). Advancing scientific knowledge through participatory action research. Sociological Forum, 32(5), 499–623) and aims to influence the design and outcomes of behaviours occurring in a case study (Woodside, A. G. (2010a). Case study research: Theory, methods and practice (p. 13). Bingley, UK: Emerald). In tourism studies, this methodology is relevant for renewing research orientation and paradigms for stakeholder collaboration, as the approach focuses on the principle of empowering local actors in community-based development processes.

This chapter explores PAR with an exploratory case study in a rural area of Piedmont, Italy. The case study demonstrates that PAR is a valid approach when the research purposes are not only to produce a deep understanding of forms of collaborations but also to create a co-operative climate by planning actions with local actors. The research approach involves evaluating deliberated actions and thereby stimulating strategic thinking in resource allocation processes.

In 2020, UNICEF Canada released Report Card 16 revealing that Canada ranks in the bottom tier compared to other wealthy countries in terms of child and youth well-being. The Report Card highlights that promoting participation is required to improve this ranking. Recognising the connection between child well-being and participation, this chapter explores youth-serving institutions in Canada to understand how participation materialises in these settings. Through interviews with provincial and territorial Canadian child and youth advocates, this chapter first explores advocate offices that serve young people facing challenges. These are the only group of child and youth advocates in Canada that have formal legal mandates to implement children's rights at the provincial and territorial level. Comparatively, through interviews with justice-involved youth we analyse the youth justice system. By adjusting the setup of the court space and attempting to minimise power imbalances, we discuss how Canada's first and only Aboriginal Youth Court (AYC), promotes participation and engagement. Through a comparative case analysis, this chapter explores where barriers exist in terms of conceptualising and implementing participation rights, and where opportunities and best practices may be leveraged across child and youth serving institutions in Canada.

This chapter describes a participatory case study undertaken at a museum in New Zealand, involving a varied range of museum stakeholders. The research investigated aspects of museum performance assessment in the context of public accountability from the perspectives of different communities of interest, including Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand. The complex research design involved identifying key stakeholders, and then conducting focus groups with a diversity of stakeholder types. Through a brainstorming process, these groups co-created texts which formed the raw data for the study. The stakeholder-generated texts were interpreted at various stages to produce ‘Possible Performance Statements’ which reflected the understandings and concerns of the various stakeholders in relation to the case museum's performance. Adopting the concept mapping approach developed by Trochim, the focus group participants then sorted the statements into conceptual constructs which made sense to them, and also rated the statements according to their relative importance as criteria for assessing their museum's performance. Proprietary software that is used to analyse the sorting and rating data produced concept maps and pattern matches which facilitated interpretation of the participants’ perspectives. The visual representations of the quantitative analyses enabled qualitative consideration leading to the development of a framework for museum performance assessment which would be more holistic and locally relevant and which would address stakeholder concerns.

The application of this intricate hybrid research design provided lessons which suggested other ways to gain richer data and deeper insights from the concept mapping approach, especially in a cross-cultural context. Participatory approaches which allow collective, as opposed to individual, interpretation of the co-created texts may be more suitable in certain cultural contexts, in this instance among Maori participants. The approach adopted was resource-intensive, requiring tight organisation and flexibility, greatly assisted by piloting the processes and using a professional editor to prepare the texts for interpretation by the participants. To maximise the insights from the focus groups, audio-recording of the research participants’ discussions as they generated their texts relating to museum performance assessment should be considered, as well as involving participants in the interpretation of the concept maps.

Although gender dimensions have been widely discussed in social research, many disaster relief and recovery programs still ignore gender needs and gender discrepancies. Specially, in a disaster situation, certain cultures and governments have a lack of mind-set and skills to focus on women's needs adequately although it requires much more investigation. During natural disasters, females face unprecedented challenges than men, because they are vulnerable and marginalized – socially, culturally, economically, and politically. To overcome these challenges, it is strongly suggested that a multifaceted decision-making process is practiced.

This chapter explains challenges for women in a natural disaster situation and discusses how to overcome difficulties and rebuild livelihoods of a vulnerable population in Sri Lankan society. The 2004 tsunami claimed over 40,000 lives, displaced about 1.0 million from their homes, and caused severe damage to the physical infrastructure and the damage estimated was well over US $1.5 billion. As the female population face unprecedented challenges, it is suggested that gender needs and gender discrepancies require thorough investigation. This chapter presents a study based on needs assessment carried out in tsunami impact communities in East and South Sri Lanka in 2005 and outlines the lessons learned on how women and men operate and anticipate post-disaster relief and recovery. Using participatory mapping methodology (e.g., narratives, ethnographic observations, community mappings, key informant interviews, focus group interviews, and other qualitative methods) this study suggests effective techniques to incorporate gender needs in a natural disaster situation.