At the beginning of this year, we talked about community-based research and everyone wanted to learn more! During this session, we will dive deeper into this topic. We’ll explore the questions: How to involve community members in research in ways that are genuine, not extractive? What does it take to break down the power dynamics?
You’ll learn about real, in-progress research projects, including our Hartford Data Youth Data program, where Hartford youth design and lead their own research, and our partnership with the Hartford Votes/Votas Coalition, which is researching why people do and don’t vote in Hartford in order to strategize to increase engagement. These examples will help us explore what this work looks like in practice.
This is the first part of our community-based research discussion. Next time, we’ll hear directly from the community members who were involved in these projects to discuss their experience, including what worked, what they learned, and what was challenging.
About this group:
We are a group of data users in Connecticut who are supporting one another as we work toward more equitable data practices. We focus on racial equity explicitly but not exclusively.
Some of the topics we talk about include:
How can we make sure we don't make certain groups invisible through how we disaggregate our data?
How can we learn to focus our attention on the strengths, rather than the deficits, of groups we are seeking to serve or support?
How can we learn from the people who we hope will benefit from our products or services about what their data means to them?
How can we help the institutions that we are part of to be trustworthy so that people will trust us with their information/data?
You can read more about our past events here.
Please feel free to check out the group. And if it is helpful, please share it!