Counter-storytelling: toward a critical race praxis for participatory action research

Abstract

As university-based educational researchers who have engaged in participatory methods with marginalized populations, we have rising concerns about how interpersonal and institutional power dynamics affect co-researchers from racial and ethnic minority groups. In this manuscript, we use critical race and critical whiteness theory and counter-storytelling methodology to examine three experiences of the same event, which occurred in the context of an ongoing participatory action research project with youth of color, from the perspectives of three female, early career scholars: an Asian American doctoral candidate, a Black doctoral candidate, and a White junior faculty member. Our goals are to encourage increased reflexivity about racial dynamics in participatory research and to grapple with the ways in which educational institutions often subtly perpetuate colorblind ideologies and prop up White privilege. We conclude with considerations for enacting a critical race praxis in intergenerational and multiracial educational research.