Schools as Contexts for Youth Participatory Action Research: Compliance or Criticality?

• In Event: Working Within the Tensions: Exploring Dilemmas in Participatory and Humanizing Research With Young People

Abstract

The literature on youth activism outside of school demonstrates numerous examples where young people from marginalized communities organize collectively to challenge inequality and shape public policy (Conner & Rosen, 2016; Ginwright, Noguera, & Cammarota, 2006). More difficult to find, however, are examples where schools serving youth of color nurture critical forms of civic engagement and voice (Irizarry, 2010; Levinson, 2013).
This paper presents results of a project called Critical Civic Inquiry (CCI), which supported teachers in facilitating students to carry out Participatory Action Research (PAR) in their academic classes (Torre & Fine, 2006). Our objectives are to a) surface the tensions and dilemmas associated with doing critical or transformational work within schools and b) share promising results for student learning and engagement.
CCI draws on theories of transformative resistance (Solorzano & Delgado Bernal, 2001), sociopolitical development (Watts et al., 1993), and school-based PAR (Cammarota, 2007; Ozer & Wright, 2012). Consistent with the symposium theme, in this paper we explore how schools operate simultaneously as sites for social reproduction and sociopolitical development; for academic learning and political activism. Such an approach is consistent with the session theme that emphasizes the importance of exploring tensions and dilemmas that challenging either/or binaries.
We analyzed data from CCI implementation, including qualitative field notes and survey data from nine secondary school classrooms taught by six teachers. CCI classroom observations were documented through weekly narrative field notes and video recorded by graduate researchers, who also interviewed a subset of students from each class. Survey data were collected at three time points from CCI participants and comparison students (n=177). Survey analyses focused on academic engagement and civic self-efficacy.
Student experiences of tensions or contradictions fueled the development of PAR projects that challenged the existing social order at their schools. For example, students at one school expressed frustration that school staff communicated ubiquitous college-for-all messages but did not address the barriers for undocumented students who were not eligible for in-state tuition or financial aid. Students at another school were motivated to improve school facilities after visiting a school in an affluent neighboring district with superior facilities. Both projects took place in charter middle schools that utilized a “no excuses” approach to student behavior. These examples show how tensions (between compliance and criticality, between rhetoric and reality) fueled student activism. In addition, surveys showed evidence of changes in perceived civic agency and academic engagement. Whereas the CCI group reported increases in academic engagement and civic agency over three time points, the comparison group declined in academic engagement and civic agency.
Few studies have examined how classroom PAR can integrate academic content instruction with critical school change projects. Results show that classroom PAR can be enacted in constrained formal education contexts while still preserving transformative elements. Such evidence bolsters arguments for educational approaches that engage young people from historically marginalized groups as partners rather than as targets of remedial services.

Authors

• Ben Kirshner, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Shelley Zion, Rowan University

• Carlos Porfirio Hipolito-Delgado, University of Colorado - Denver