How Participatory Action Research Can Promote Social Change and Help Youth Development

Abstract

As a part of its collaboration with the Born This Way Foundation, the Berkman Center is publishing on this website a series of papers that synthesize existing peer-reviewed research or equivalent scholarship and provide research-grounded insight to the variety of stakeholders working on issues related to youth empowerment and action towards creating a kinder, braver world. This series, called the The Kinder & Braver World Project: Research Series (danah boyd, John Palfrey, and Dena Sacco, editors), is presented by the Born This Way Foundation & the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, and supported by the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. This set of papers involves topics related to the Role of Youth Organizations and Youth Movements for Social Change.Participatory Action Research (PAR) is a process through which people investigate meaningful social topics, participate in research to understand the root causes of problems that directly impact them, and then take action to influence policies through the dissemination of their findings to policymakers and stakeholders. Like other types of youth organizing, PAR promotes youth’s involvement in their communities and the development of leadership skills. It emphasizes the development of young people’s knowledge, skills, and abilities to be experts on issues of importance to them, and catalyze systemic change in collaboration with their peers and supportive adults. Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) is a tool for increasing youth involvement in social movement organizing that can generate renewed enthusiasm for social change and create new opportunities for youth leadership. Educators, philanthropists, activists, and community leaders (young and old) work together on all PAR projects. YPAR specifically employs a youth development lens to the process of PAR in order to ensure that young people have a direct role in shaping policies that impact them. As a method, YPAR offers a new tool for those working on social justice issues with youth to meaningfully engage in community change and personal leadership development. In YPAR projects, young people help determine issues of importance to them and their community. Adults help elicit youth’s unique perspectives and skills for understanding and addressing the problems. PAR integrates research and action and is useful for working with youth who are interested in broad issues and want to identify specific pathways to action. It is less useful when there are already clearly defined goals and objectives. Through research, youth participants learn how to make claims and create new knowledge about existing social conditions. Young people use their findings to consider alternatives and identify points of “opening” where they can help change the status quo. YPAR leads to social change through actions ranging from educational outreach to political lobbying. It can involve creative campaigns that take advantage of young people’s unique experiences and skill with digital media.