"It's Everybody's Job": An Intersectional Analysis of Youth and Adult Constructions of Responsibility in Participatory Action Research

• In Event: 47.095 - MTCC Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: 47.095-1 - Engaged Youth, Activist Youth: Perspectives for Youth-Centered Praxis

Abstract

Youth of color engaged in participatory action research (PAR) embody agency in advancing social justice, but they hold less institutional power than adults and face forms of oppression that extend beyond the youth-adult binary. For these reasons, when youth of color conduct research and take action, they may not be in a position to enact change without the collaboration of adults. Hence it is important to consider youth and adult conceptions of who holds responsibility for taking action in response to evidence generated through PAR with youth. This paper explores this area, investigating a PAR project involving junior high youth. We examine the youth and school adults’ constructions of responsibility and how these constructions shaped possibilities for collective transformative agency.

Authors

• Melanie Bertrand, Arizona State University

• Sarah Marie Salinas, Arizona State University - Phoenix

• Dawn M. Demps, Arizona State University

• Roberto Rentería

• E. Sybil Durand, Arizona State University