Participatory research methodologies and popular education: reflections on quality criteria

The paper, a consequence of the author's research experience and the evaluation of research in popular education, discusses the criteria for quality and validity of participatory methodologies, which since their origin in Latin America present significant affinities with popular education. The following topics are discussed in the perspective of participatory methodologies: the social relevance; the quality of description and interpretation; the collective reflexivity; the quality of the relations among the stakeholders in the research process; and the practicability of the produced knowledge. In the conclusion it is pointed out that the discussion about the quality of research in education and popular education can contribute to confront the academic productivism, where qualitative and quantitative criteria are confused, to be able to overcome the dichotomization between producers and consumers of research, thus enhancing the area's theoretical density.