Academics and Advocates: Using Participatory Action Research to Influence Welfare Policy

University students on welfare, working with academic researchers, successfully lobbied for a state policy in Wyoming to define postsecondary education as work under the 1996 welfare reform law. This article describes the researchers' use of participatory action research (PAR) in the policy arena. Consumer researchers are encouraged to consider using PAR to help make postsecondary education more available to low-income parents. New PAR studies could assist low-income consumers in analyzing the use of surplus welfare funds and new federal regulations, which now make postsecondary education a more viable option for state welfare reform policies. A decade ago, in his Colston E. Warne lecture, Stephen Brobeck urged consumer researchers to address the reality that they "have little influence on public policy making" (1988). Scholars in consumer science are not alone; scholars in policy science also have expressed concerns over the limits of their influence (deLeon 1994). Brobeck described two key reasons for the lack of policy influence by consumer researchers: over-involvement in theory or methodology, with consequent irrelevance to policy, and the frequent failure to address the most pressing public policy issues. Because consumer researchers possess knowledge and expertise that can improve the well-being of consumers, especially low-income consumers, Brobeck's call for greater involvement by consumer researchers in policy studies should be heeded. The study described here addresses a pressing policy issue of interest to consumer researchers-- welfare reform and the college option--and introduces a methodology that can make research more relevant to policy studies. During one state's actions related to welfare reform, undergraduate university students who had been trained in advocacy education, as defined by Pratt (1995) and illustrated by Quoss (1992), engaged in direct advocacy. These students, most who were welfare recipients, successfully lobbied the state legislature to define postsecondary education as a form of work under their state's new welfare law. The students' legislative success cannot be understood apart from the context of the participatory action research (PAR) study that facilitated their actions. University researchers in family and consumer sciences supervised a PAR thesis study of the students' advocacy activities; both the policy issue and the study are reported here. Because PAR is unfamiliar to many researchers, it is described in some detail in terms of its philosophy, methods, risks, and benefits. The concluding discussion returns to the policy issue of a college option in welfare reform, with suggested activities that consumer specialists in academia can promote to increase the lifetime economic well-being of many low-income consumers. THE DEVOLUTION OF WELFARE POLICY AND STUDENTS' ADVOCACY Welfare Policy Devolution The current transfer of federal welfare policymaking to state and local levels--a transfer process known as devolution -- has expanded consumer researchers' opportunities to influence state-level policy-making and implementation. The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (PRWORA) represents the first major reform of welfare policy since President Franklin Roosevelt's 1930's New Deal social welfare programs (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 1997). PRWORA replaced the entitlement approach of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), which limits program participants to a maximum of five years cash assistance over a lifetime and requires participants to work or enter job training. The PRWORA also changed a number of welfare-related policies: (1) emergency funds are available for a maximum of one month per year; (2) the children's Supplemental Security Income program was redesigned, reducing coverage for medical diagnoses; (3) fu nding for the Title XX Social Service Block Grant was reduced; (4) a number of separate child care grant programs were consolidated under the Child Development Fund; (5) food programs were reduced; and (6) stronger child support sanctions were provided. …