Creative Expressions of Agency: Contemplating Youth Voice and Adult Roles in Participatory Action Research

Abstract

In this chapter, we examine youth voice within intergenerational collectives where youth and adults are in consultation with each other about school and community issues. The three projects discussed in this chapter reflect the use of participatory action research (PAR) to address educational policies and practices viewed as counterproductive by youth within poor and working class neighborhoods. The use of PAR to inform policy makers and establish alternative educational approaches reflects a critical theoretical framework in that it considers the complexity of experiences and social identities among youth who are positioned differently in relation to educational and opportunity access. The use of the arts as a strategy for inquiry and action is discussed as a way to identify alternative frames of analysis—ways of seeing from different angles the explanations offered by decision makers for the use of particular educational policies. The chapter outlines strategic planning for public engagement at significant junctures of the PAR projects to ensure youth voices are heard and prevailing discourses and theories of action challenged, thus bringing into clear focus the imperative for more equitable and humanizing conditions within education.