Youth Participatory Action Research Research Articles

Critical Multilingual Language Awareness: Reflections on a YPAR Program in Teacher Education

ABSTRACT This paper examines how two language educators of color developed critical multilingual language awareness (CMLA) in a combined youth participatory action research and teacher education program. Specifically, as a multilingual and diverse group of educators, we chose to use Latin@/o Critical Theory (LatCrit) as our methodology to align with the epistemological framework of YPAR. By sharing the lived experiences and insights of the two educators over the course of the program, our reflexive study demonstrates how multimodal ways of meaning making supported them in challenging deficient perspectives of minoritized languages and in changing their pedagogical practices to be more equitable. By implementing YPAR programs with a clear focus on CMLA, we become aware of our own language ideologies and grow to understand the socio-political discourses that inform our interactions with youth. Implications include the significance of incorporating multimodality and participatory pedagogies into teacher education and thereby facilitating opportunities for teacher candidates to gain awareness of the power dynamics in multilingual education.

Youth experiences of co-designing a well-being intervention: reflections, learnings and recommendations

ABSTRACT Co-design and youth participatory action research are promising methodologies for increasing youth engagement in well-being interventions. The current study included 10 recent high school graduates employed as youth advisors to co-design a youth-friendly positive psychology intervention targeting the post-school transition. The youth advisors received foundational training in positive psychology, psychological needs theory and emerging adulthood. They held regular meetings to develop a Positive Transitions programme (PTP) text messaging intervention, informed by discussion of key themes, issues and relevant practical tips. This paper aims to examine the co-design process from the perspective of the youth advisors. Each youth advisor completed a survey, and six of the advisors also participated in a focus group exploring their co-design experiences. Youth advisors noted a range of personal benefits from the co-design experience including learning, enjoyment, teamwork, achievement, and pride. Areas for improvement included clarity of the project scope and the provision of support and feedback. Insights from this process are discussed, with the aim of guiding future work seeking to design youth-friendly well-being interventions.

Youth Science Learning as/for Community Participation: Examples from Youth Participatory Action Research

Youth development programs often provide young people with science learning experiences. We argue for reframing youth science learning from a focus on individual scientific literacy to an emphasis on collective scientific literacy—community science—to support young people in using science to address issues in their lives and communities. We provide examples from youth participatory action research (YPAR), one community science pedagogical approach. The YPAR model supports youth in deciding upon an environmental, economic, or social issue; designing and implementing research; and using their research findings to improve their community. We implemented YPAR with eight cohorts of youth over three years at five schools in Northern California. Using data generated from educator interviews and youth focus groups and analyzed with inductive thematic analysis, we explored what youth and educators reported about science engagement and learning. While YPAR projects offered opportunities for youth to strengthen scientific literacy, youth did not join a YPAR program because it was science education. Instead, as youth selected a personally meaningful topic, they began to see how they might affect community change. Engaging learners in relevant educational experiences situated in authentic community issues may improve motivation for deeper and sustained participation in science learning. Our YPAR example demonstrated an approach to learning STEM in youth development programs by ensuring relevancy and connection to community.

Making the case for youth participatory action research opportunities to enhance social developmental scholarship

AbstractYouth are capable agents with the capacity to engage with and shape issues pertinent to their lives. In the field of social development, we are witnessing an exciting increase in children and adolescent involvement in the research process. Youth‐led participatory action research (YPAR) is one such method, encompassing youth participation in identifying pressing issues within their own communities, collectively gathering, and systematically analyzing data to understand the root causes of such issues, and organizing for social change informed by rigorous empirical evidence. YPAR provides an opportunity to strengthen our understanding of social development processes. Using three illustrative case studies from YPAR projects engaging elementary, high school, and college‐age children and adolescents, I discuss the connections between YPAR as a mechanism for enhancing social developmental research designs, an intervention in and of itself fostering key social‐emotional competencies, and a process for facilitating more equity‐oriented scholarship. The paper concludes with strategies for how researchers new to YPAR may incorporate this practice into their research and key training considerations.

"Roses have thorns for a reason": The promises and perils of critical youth participatory research with system-impacted girls of Color.

Scholarship on girlhood-especially for girls of Color-is often relegated to studying risk and emphasizing individual deficits over humanizing girls and centering their voices. This approach to generating scholarship renders oppressive systems and processes invisible from inquiry and unaddressed by practice, with particularly insidious consequences for youth in the legal system. Critical youth participatory action research (YPAR) is acknowledged as an antidote to these conceptualizations because it resists deficit-oriented narratives circling systems-impacted youth by inviting them to the knowledge-generating table. In this paper, we present an empirical analysis of the promises and perils that emerged as we conducted a year-long critical YPAR project alongside five system-impacted girls of Color. Our thematic analysis of process notes (30 meetings, 120 h) documents the stories posited by girls, in a democratized space, about the injustices of interconnected institutions, and unearths a complicated tension for both youth and adult coresearchers around the promises and perils of engaging in YPAR within the academy. These findings underscore the importance of using intersectional, collaborative research to challenge perceptions around how we legitimize knowledge. We describe lessons learned in conducting YPAR in academic settings and highlight recommendations to grow youth-adult partnerships within oppressive systems to share power.

Youth participatory action research: schooling, learning, and entangled lines of flight

ABSTRACT This article focuses on an out-of-school youth participatory action research project to better understand both how schooling emerged and was challenged in a liberatory space. This project explores the entanglement of schooling, learning, and youth in a youth participatory action research (YPAR) setting. There were six youth and one academic researcher involved in the project which spanned two years, 2018–2020. This work was driven by the research questions: if schooling is a non-human agent, how does schooling manifest in an afterschool YPAR space, and how, if at all, was schooling interrupted/challenged? This project utilized ethnographic methods, interviews, cognitive maps, and posthumanist theorizing to explore the entanglements of human, nonhuman, and discursive agents. Findings illustrated that within the afterschool space, the participants were constantly in tension of holding to and pushing against those agents buttressing schooling – hierarchical relationships, adultism, prescriptive entanglements, and internally disciplining and surveilling themselves. When it came to the learning lines of flight that emerged within the YPAR space, participants created community by making and holding space for one another. The group rejected linearity and embraced the unpredictability of learning. By centering democratic collaboration, youth knowledge/experiences, and learning, the collective demonstrated how YPAR can be a tool of resistance to the dominating forces of agential schooling.

Shifting ground or moving furniture around: Youth participatory action research in Kakuma Refugee Camp

AbstractThis reflection is drawn from a youth participatory action research (YPAR) collaboration set in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. It explores the ways youth co‐researchers employed YPAR tools to both critique and uphold their limited educational opportunity structure. It also questions the limits of transformative methodologies that embolden young people to critique the structures that govern their lives, especially for stateless peoples whose survival depends on continued access to those same structures.

Engaging Youth and Young Adults in the COVID-19 Pandemic Response via the "It's Our Turn" Crowdsourcing Contest.

As the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic continued to progress into 2021, appeals were made to take a stronger focus on the perceptions and practices of youth and young adults (YYAs) regarding COVID-19 mitigation, as well as the impact of mitigation strategies on the overall wellbeing of YYAs. In this paper, we describe our efforts to increase YYA engagement in Arizona's COVID-19 response by pairing embedded values from youth participatory action research (YPAR) with a crowdsourcing challenge contest design. The research protocol and implementation are described, followed by a thematic analysis of YYA-led messaging portrayed in 23 contest submissions and reflections formed by 223 community voters after viewing contest submissions. The authors conclude that a YYA-led crowdsourcing contest presented an opportunity to (a.) investigate the perceptions and behaviors of YYAs and their networks regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and mitigation efforts and (b.) amplify the voices of YYAs in the pandemic response. Perhaps even more importantly, this approach also offered insight into the exacerbated impact of the pandemic on YYA mental health and wellbeing, and the utility of YPAR in raising awareness of these effects among the contexts and social networks of YYAs.

Youth Participatory Action Research as School Counseling Praxis: A Scoping Review

In a systematic scoping review, we analyzed empirical and conceptual writings on youth participatory action research (YPAR) in schools. YPAR has emerged as an empowering and youth-centered approach to group work whereby school counselors and students collaborate on researching, creating, and sharing projects about social ills impacting their lives. Reviewing YPAR literature, this article identifies knowledge gaps regarding the use and benefits of YPAR in school counseling practice.

The Purple Room: A YPAR-Designed Healing Space Grounded in Community-Engaged School Leadership

This article explores how a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) team and adult co-conspirators in varied school leadership positions became partners, an unusual pairing as urban schools do not often prioritize young people as leaders. The school leveraged the district's community-engaged mission and their collective power to increase youth organizing and mental health in an urban-based community school. Drawing from community engagement and social justice, the authors use the concepts of sharing power and engaging healing to better understand the development of this YPAR project, a youth-designed healing space called "The Purple Room." Findings show that multiple levels of school leadership can set the conditions with youth researchers to build trust and to support the justice-oriented work that students know is needed.

Youth for Youth: Raising the voices of children of incarcerated parents and implications for policy and practice.

The aims of our study were (1) to explore the impact of having an incarcerated parent on youth (ages 10-18) wellbeing; and (2) to identify recommendations from the youth based on their needs which address the challenges of having an incarcerated parent and promote individual and community flourishing. We utilized a Youth Participatory Action Research approach, including semistructured interviews, focus group discussions, storytelling, and photovoice with 20 participants, ages 10-18. Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis and organized into five thematic categories: (1) youths' perceptions of their communities; (2) incarcerations' impact on families and communities; (3) incarcerations' influence on mental health and flourishing; (4) incarceration as a solution for community safety; and (5) addressing the impact of incarceration on children, families, and communities. Findings provide important implications for practice and policy with children of incarcerated parents and for promoting flourishing individuals and communities.

Nepantleras-in-training: Using testimonios to unravel the tensions and transformative moments of YPAR.

Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) classrooms can work to shift the dialog and structure of schools to better fit the needs of students and disrupt dominant narratives that have marginalized students of Color. As scholars have shown, this work is not devoid of tensions. This paper examines the tensions that arose during the first 2 years of a high school PAR class. Written from the perspective of the 23 students in Soy Yo, the students use testimonios to narrate their collective experience as they analyze three tensions that could have ended Soy Yo and their YPAR project before it began. As a decolonial method, testimonios allow students to reclaim their stories by shedding light on their struggles, tensions, and transformative moments that adult collaborators might overlook. These testimonios illustrate the potential for YPAR classrooms to becoming a third space that allows for campus change and personal transformation. The paper concludes with lessons learned for future scholars and educators to explore.

Ethical challenges in participatory research with children and youth

The growth of relational, participatory, collaborative and emergent research approaches in recent years has brought new ethical challenges for research with children and youth. These approaches require greater consideration of the specific social and cultural contexts of the research, along with the greater emphasis on researcher–participant relationships that often occur over sustained periods of time. Very few tools are available to help researchers think through the everyday ethical dilemmas such research can raise. In this article, we review the theoretical underpinnings of feminist and indigenous research methodologies that have encouraged these emerging approaches. Through examining an 18-month Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) project case study, we critically review ethical moments relating to negotiating consent over a sustained period of time, enhancing co-design and navigating power issues between adult and youth researchers. We conclude with a number of questions to ‘think with’ when reflecting on ethical research with children and youth.

“Community Envelops Us in This Grey Landscape of Obstacles and Allows Space for Healing”: The Perspectives of Indigenous Youth on Well-Being

This paper presents Indigenous youths’ perspectives on well-being. Using Indigenous youth participatory action research with the Indigenous youth advisory committee of the Québec Youth Research Network Chair (Canada), community care emerged as the central feature of well-being and was then visually presented in the form of a postcard. We discuss the meaning given to community care, the factors that support it, and the role that a visual illustration can play in promoting change. The article is informed by the co-creation of the postcard, an online luncheon conversation, and several debriefing/reflexive sessions with the Indigenous youth co-authors. Emphasis is placed on cultural continuity, relational agency, and solidarity, offering an alternative point of view to the prevalent and damaging decontextualized, deficit-based, and individualized approaches to well-being.

Fostering Youth-Enabling Environments: A Participatory Affordance-Capability Framework for the Development and Use of Youth-Engaged Environmental Assessments

This paper proposes a new conceptual approach to the development and utilization of youth-led environmental assessments to inform the planning of youth-enabling environments. Interdisciplinary research has established the influential effects of the physical environment on children and adolescents’ well-being and development, yet there is a gap in our understanding of how to create everyday environments for youth that speak to their needs and interests and provide opportunities for them to flourish. Engaging youth through participatory action research to both develop and conduct environmental assessments can have positive implications for youth empowerment and well-being while also altering research and planning practices to effectively integrate youth voice. The proposed approach integrates elements from affordance theory, the Capability Approach, and positive youth development within a youth participatory action research framework to create a process that encourages capability formation, fosters positive development, and improves our understanding of what constitutes a youth-enabling environment.

Research with and by children: A systematic literature review

AbstractThe choice to conduct research projects done with or by children is a political one. It reflects a standpoint that appreciates children's position as agentic beings and acknowledges their expertise. There are complex questions for academics and practitioners engaged in such research projects. This paper reports on a systematic review of peer‐reviewed research relating to children as researchers. The scope of the analysis is limited to children aged 15 and under, who were involved in at least one component of a research project. Twenty‐five published articles are included, and they demonstrate varied methods of engagement. The theoretical perspective the studies adopted may focus on one of three: (a) child‐led research, (b) children as co‐researchers, or (c) youth participatory action research. Not all studies included child researchers in all aspects of a research project, with participation influenced by the adopted theoretical perspective as well as reported barriers and challenges. This review presents the results of a systematic examination of the included papers, including approaches and methodological considerations as well as the socio‐cultural contexts within which projects are carried out. We discuss situational tensions that might inhibit the capacity of adults and children to partner in co‐creating new knowledge and developing robust ways of working together. Finally, we draw attention to three significant dimensions within the findings: the influence on the children‐as‐researchers paradigm of hierarchical structures inherent to academic institutions; the importance of engaging with specific historical, political, and social contexts; and challenges for inclusion and diversity.

An emerging youth-centered model of community resilience in communities impacted by gun violence: Power through Black Community and Unity.

Studies commonly examine resilience as an outcome by way of measuring the degree to which protective factors maintain individuals' well-being despite the presence of significant risk. In this study, we developed a model of community resilience that centered the voices of Black youth. Using data collected as part of a 3-year, youth participatory action research project, we developed a model that focuses on what 11 Black youth perceive and believe contributes to community resilience through their investigation of problems and solutions related to community gun violence. Findings from a constructivist grounded theory analysis of multiple data sources (e.g., field notes, transcribed group discussions, youth photovoice activities) revealed our developing model of community resilience: Power through Black Community and Unity. Specifically, Power through Black Community and Unity was a core category that reflected the importance of care, support, and safety as strengths in the community's current response and resilience to gun violence, and future aspects the community could develop to increase community resilience to gun violence. This core category emerged in three subsequent ways: Collective Care, "Seeing Beyond the Bad," and Supportive Teen Spaces. This study illustrates potential pathways that youth service agencies and community practitioners can consider enhancing in their programming to promote resilience in their communities.

Youth engagement in research and policy: The CO‐CREATE framework to optimize power balance and mitigate risks of conflicts of interest

Including youth in the co-creation of policies that affect them has proven to be particularly impactful in public health. Using youth participatory action research methods, the CO-CREATE project engages European youth 16-18 years old in the co-creation of obesity prevention policies. To discuss the feasibility and implications of the policy, youth are invited to engage in an intergenerational dialogue. Given the youth-adult dynamic and policy discussion, conflicts of interests (COIs) can arise and impact the quality of the dialogue. COI frameworks are a tool that can help identify, mitigate, and address COIs. This paper presents a novel framework to mitigate COIs in intergenerational policy dialogues, with a focus on power imbalance. Following a series of youth consultations, interviews, and examination of existing frameworks, our findings suggest that safe, participatory, and empowering dialogues can take place if appropriate measures are integrated into all phases of a dialogue. The selection of stakeholders, use of accessible language, and youth moderation are all factors that can impact COI risks. Measures that promote mutual empowerment, such as equal representation of youth and adults, were deemed important. This framework provides a roadmap to ensure that youth participation in the formulation of policies is safe and empowering.

Stories of hope created together: A pilot, school-based workshop for sharing eco-emotions and creating an actively hopeful vision of the future.

The climate and ecological crises challenge all communities across the world, with the greatest impact upon the most vulnerable and the youngest. There are multiple impacts on mental health, including the psychological burdens that arise with increasing awareness of the loss, threat and injustice caused by these crises. Large numbers of young people globally are understandably concerned and distressed about these crises, whilst simultaneously reporting that their concerns are regularly dismissed and ignored, particularly by those in power. This can increase feelings of isolation and distress, particularly if they have no recourse to effect change. This pilot project sought to explore how a schools-based, co-created workshop for school pupils aged 16 to 18 years could use a community-oriented space to explore their eco-emotions, address feelings of isolation and engender a sense of realistic, active hope, using storytelling and images of possible futures. A 3-h workshop for delivery in schools was co-designed with young people, researchers, educators and clinicians, using principles of Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR). Six school pupils aged 16-18 years consented and four completed the workshop, which involved a range of group-based activities to explore their understanding of the climate and ecological crises, support emotional expression related to these and engage in storytelling about hopeful and realistic futures. A live illustrator in attendance created shared images of the participants' fears and hopes. The workshop was recorded, transcribed and analysed using Thematic Analysis and sentiment analysis. Feedback was sought from participants at 1 and 4 weeks after completion and analysed using content analysis. Results indicated that participants reported a range of painful and positive emotions about the crises. They highly valued having space to express their experience alongside others. Storytelling and creativity appeared to help them articulate their feelings and hopes for the future, and gave them greater motivation and confidence in talking to others about these topics. This innovative pilot study suggests that a school-based youth participatory group could offer a novel way of helping young people to engage more with the climate and ecological crises in a way that supports their wellbeing. It provides strong support for future, larger-scale projects in this area.

Case Studies of Effective Learning Climates for Civic Reasoning and Discussion

While the national media continues to highlight the tensions of cultural politics in education, there is a need for young people and educators to be equipped for the daunting local, national, and global challenges that mark their everyday lives. Many educators and young people alike are interested in engaging youth in civic reasoning and discourse that prepares them to meet those many challenges. This article highlights applications of civic reasoning and discourse in three contexts: a traditional high school social studies classroom, a hybrid school-community action project, and an out-of-school Youth Participatory Action Research program. We argue that these case studies show a path forward for developing students’ civic reasoning and discourse skills because the students turn toward and lean into what we define as moments of critical dissonance: in each case, the students and educators work together to engage, rather than avoid, complex sociopolitical realities, even while holding a variety of racial, ethnic, political, and cultural identities.