Using Youth Participatory Action Research to Challenge Stereotypes and Affirm Identities as Young Parents

• In Event: 66.042 - "We're Not Just Changing Diapers, We're Changing the World!" Young Parents Transforming Their Communities

Abstract

Objectives
The purpose of this paper is to discuss and examine Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) projects completed by young parents attending an alternative high school in Chicago. These projects focused on developing materials and campaigns to challenge deficit-oriented portrayals of young parents, providing young parents the opportunity to employ their lived experiences to participate in discourses and debates related to teen parenthood.

Perspectives/background

Teen pregnancy prevention initiatives proliferate and advertising campaigns aimed at curbing teen pregnancy often feature depressed looking young parents, portraying young parents as having ruined their lives with little hope of academic or professional success because of their “bad” choices. Advertisements include statements such as “College will just have to wait” and “I had hoped to go to parties with my friends, to graduate high school, to enjoy being young! I did not hope to get pregnant.”
A body of mostly qualitative research has focused on the perspectives of teen parents, and revealed how motherhood can serve as a site for reconstruction for young parents, often helping them develop new goals and purposes (Proweller, 2000; SmithBattle, 2007). A growing strand of scholarship has applied critical lenses towards better understanding the myriad ways that youth resist deficit-oriented discourses about their possibilities to be successful (Solorzano & Bernal, 2001).
Methods/Data sources
This study utilized Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) which entails academic researchers collaborating with youth as co-researchers to investigate issues of importance to them (Cammarota & Fine, 2008). Youth researchers are involved in all aspects of the research process, from design to dissemination. Dissemination of findings can take many forms, such as lobbing and advocacy efforts and social media and advertising campaigns.

The YPAR projects took place at the Family Learning Center, an educational support program of an alternative high school serving the needs of student-parents, aged 16-21, as part of a parenting class at the school. Most of the parents are Latina (Puerto Rican and Mexican), but the program also serves a number of African American parents. Data sources for this study included observation notes from class sessions, research project materials, such as interview guides and surveys, interviews conducted by youth researchers, and final projects.

Results
In class discussions, students frequently expressed their frustration at the ways that young parents were depicted in the popular media, complaining that programs such as “16 and Pregnant” only show “the bad.” As one young father in the class expressed: “they ain’t showing mothers doing good. There are a lot of teen mothers here [in the community] that are doing good.” Research activities completed for the class included analysis of teen pregnancy prevention campaigns and advertising materials. For their projects students designed Public Service Announcements and media images that challenged pejorative discourses about them, participated in hashtag campaigns, and created surveys to gather community attitudes about young parents.
Scholarly significance
This project provides examples of how YPAR can be used to provide opportunities for young parents to participate in advocacy efforts and media initiatives and challenge negative discourses about them.

Author

• Laura Ruth Johnson, Northern Illinois University