Action research on residents' meeting for drafting policies for the disabled people and discussion of the methodology involved

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to examine the ideal way of managing the residents' meeting-for drafting policies for the disabled people-as an action research step and to consider methodological issues. This is a case study of a residents' meeting in a certain municipal city. The author is a key member who established and managed the meeting. The intervention of the author in all the processes was structured in the form of remarks, handouts, and e-mails. Most of the initial aims of the meeting were not met. The major causes for this failure were lack of sharing of the aims among members, insufficiency of resources, and lack of coordination between the local officer, the chairman, and the author. The key learning here was that the aims and the main member's role should be clearly defined, and the person in charge should know the method of conference management. The role of the researcher is to encourage the residents' meaning about their issues. For example researcher should collect opinions and explicitly communicate even the obvious ideas or those that the members cannot describe clearly. The methodologically, researchers should keep contact record to the field. This will help in clarifying the context of the fieldwork, and social circulation of practice record. Moreover, it also helps in reducing the research time and narrowing the scope of the research such that knowledge gained from this can be utilized in other contexts.