Researching Together

To be empowering, the research must be designed with a group of people who have decided to obtain power, and then must be conducted so that the group learns how to do the research as well as decides what research needs to be conducted. (Sample, 1996: 320) This article describes a project in which Bristol Self Advocacy Group members visited similar groups in their area, and carried out group interviews based on their own research questions. Some academic researchers appear to question the genuine research involvement of people with learning difficulties and I attempt to answer some of these views. The group has already published, in their own names, their views about the process of doing research and their findings (Palmer & Turner, 1998; Palmer et al. , in press), and have produced a booklet aimed at other self advocacy groups ( Finding Out , 1999). However, in view of the importance of such a group expressing their own viewpoint directly, a word of explanation is in order about the authorship of the present article. It arose originally from my attempts to summarise for the Research Group some of the literature mentioned in this paper, which resulted in an ‘alternative paragraph’ article, in which I wrote one point, and one group member responded in the next paragraph. That project is still in progress, but in the meantime, the group members wanted me to write the present article. I include their own words and writings at several points, but this remains essentially my account of what has happened.