Critical Education for Participatory Research

Abstract

This article takes the form of a case study of a master's course for health and development professionals working in the field of primary health care. It argues the need for health professionals to critically examine research paradigms and the assumptions that inform them, considering their appropriateness to primary health care, a health strategy based on a recognition of the relationship between inequalities and health status. Conventional training of health professionals does not encourage health workers to reflect critically on their research practice. This can be facilitated through an educational strategy that emphasises issues of inequality as central to health and addresses issues of power and purpose in research activity.