Youth Participatory Action Research in the Classroom: Striving for Critical Civic Learning in U.S. Social Studies Classrooms

• In Event: Critical Approaches to Civic Education: International Perspectives

Abstract

Background: In the US, social studies classrooms are seen as pivotal sites for citizenship education, yet the pedagogies and curricula of most social studies classrooms do little to stimulate students’ interest in civic life or commitment to civic action. Schools serving low income youth and youth of color provide the least innovative and most ineffective forms of civic education, and youth in these settings frequently experience classroom-based civic education as alienating and irrelevant.

When youth have opportunity to engage actively with investigation and analysis of civic problems that directly concern them, they develop more active and empowered identities as citizens. Youth participatory action research (YPAR) invites underserved youth to explore issues that impact their lives through the pursuit of critical inquiry projects. This approach has yet to be effectively integrated into social studies classrooms.

Purpose: This paper describes a collaborative effort to integrate practices that further critical civic engagement into social studies classrooms. It describes the efforts of a team of public high school teachers and university researchers to construct, implement, and analyze the results of a curriculum that creates opportunities for youth to investigate issues directly affecting their communities. This paper presents some of the results of this attempt to bring critical civic learning into US social studies classrooms.

Study Design, Methods, Data Sources: This was a design-based research project; such projects create new forms of learning based on specific ideas about teaching practices, allowing researchers to study, analyze and refine in actual educational settings in order to produce models of successful innovation. The team of researchers and teachers co-developed a curriculum designed to move students through the civic inquiry process over the course of an academic year.

Over 200 students and 13 teachers in one urban and one suburban school participated. Data included: 40 classroom observations, focus groups with over 50 students and all teachers, interviews with 20 students, and project team meetings. The project team analyzed the data using a grounded theory approach, employing Saturate to code the data set and record analytical memos.

Results: This paper uses this data to consider the complexities, opportunities, challenges and rewards of integrating critical inquiry projects into social studies courses. The focus here is the struggle for authentic engagement amid the constraints of the school setting. Conflicts emerging over the course of the project included: time constraints, pre-existing curricula demands, assessment concerns, teacher inexperience with critical inquiry, and conflict between the compulsory frame of institutional learning and the method’s empowerment frame. However in many cases, the public forum at the end of the project provided a powerful lever for authentic engagement.

Significance: These results are significant for social studies researchers and educators concerned with integrating critical civic learning into social studies classrooms. Transforming institutional settings into spaces for critical civic learning is a fundamental challenge for educators who aim to provide meaningful civic learning opportunities to diverse students. This paper contributes to discussion of this key issue, highlighting both challenges and successes to inform future work.

Authors

• Beth C. Rubin, Rutgers University

• Mayida Zaal, Montclair State University