This paper reviews Participatory Action Research (PAR) as an approach to Physics Education Research (PER). It briefly describes the history of PAR as a subset of Action Research, a research methodology that involves the simultaneous investigation and solution of an issue, discusses the advantages and disadvantages that have been identified by other researchers in using PAR approaches in education research, and provides a few exemplar cases where a PAR research approach seems best suited for PER. Further, it argues that using the PAR approach may advance PER's overall goals such as broad participation in physics, enhanced student learning, and improved teaching skill/knowledge better than other existing curriculum design and dissemination models. Finally, the history of PAR in PER is explored via a literature search, and reasons are presented for the lack of PAR terminology use in PER despite the significant overlap with the principles of PAR in common PER innovations.