Resources for Courses and Research
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Whether you’re looking for additional materials to support a course assignment or starting to think about future research and thesis topics, the following resources have been curated to help you learn more about the guiding principles of Engaged Scholarship.
MPES Student Handbook
This guide is especially helpful at the beginning of your project planning phase by providing reflection questions that connect the who (community partnerships, defined audiences, etc.) with the what (the format, rhetoric, and content of your final deliverable) while centering equity and asset-based approaches to research. This document also includes logistical guidance such as project planning templates, instructions for how to format materials for printing at the Media Lab, and more.
Read the handbook (requires Harvard Key)
MPES Digital Library
MPES Digital Library indexes engaged scholarship readings and materials and is fully integrated with Hollis.
- Browse curated collections of academic literature in the fields of Engaged Scholarship and Engaged Pedagogy
- Search by keyword
- Includes curriculum development guides, research and teaching toolkits drawn from publicly available materials
Practices of Engaged Scholarship
Asset-Based Approaches to Community Work
An asset-based approach to community work begins with the strengths, skills, experiences, knowledge, and priorities of local communities. Students and faculty engage with people and communities on their own terms, as equal partners in the process of learning and social transformation, and as collaborators bringing perspectives and expertise that are as valuable and vital a resource as academic scholarship.
Active Listening
How do you build trust in your relationships? How do you listen to what a community member is saying, and perhaps hear what they’re not saying? How can you prepare yourself to engage seriously and respectfully with someone who has different life experiences, perspectives, or opinions from your own? Active listening is an important (and often underappreciated) skill that is essential for engaging in civic work.
Identity and Challenging Assumptions
Your intersecting identities and experiences necessarily impact how you view the world and how you’re viewed by the world. The following resources are meant to help you consider your own identity in order to better explore your understanding of and relationship to the communities you work with. Close reflection can be a useful way to identify and challenge any assumptions or stereotypes you may unintentionally hold before entering a community space.
Understanding Power and Privilege
In some cases, your social location as a Harvard student may create power dynamics within the community spaces in which you work. As an engaged scholar committed to ethical research and collaborations, your responsibility is to understand and strive to mitigate those power dynamics. What kinds of questions and practices can you create for yourself to regularly check in about how power and privilege shape your experience?
Reflection as an Ongoing Practice
Reflection is an intentional activity in which you challenge yourself to analyze your own experiences, to make meaning out of what you notice, to ask questions about what puzzles you, and to learn and grow personally and intellectually. Reflection around community-based work is an ongoing practice, it takes time, and it’s always worth it.
Additional Resources
The University of Kansas Community Tool Box: An all-around good practice resource devoted to ethical community engagement. We particularly recommend the following sections: Creating and Maintaining Coalitions and Partnerships; Analyzing Community Problems and Solutions; Developing an Intervention; Justice Action Toolkit.
Racial Equity Tools: Tools, research, tips, curricula, and ideas for people who want to increase their own understanding and to help those working for racial justice at every level—in systems, communities, and the culture at large.