Youth Participatory Action Research

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: Pin@y Educational PARtnerships: Ethnic Studies Students, Teachers, and Leaders as Scholar Activists

Abstract

Theory
YPAR is a project that allows youth to become “critical action researchers,” and allows youth to develop “a positive youth identity, develops critical consciousness and empathy for the struggles of others, and engages youth in social justice activities informed by students’ lived experiences,” (Tintiangco-Cubales et al, 2014; p. 12). YPAR comes from Participatory Action Research (PAR) but also incorporates key principles of critical pedagogy in which the youth themselves are the ones at the forefront of the research. It is through their interrogation and analysis of a social problem relevant to their lives that students begin to “read the world” to “transform the world” (Freire, 1970). YPAR allows students to challenge traditional research paradigms. Students are able to develop their critical consciousness and decentralize the power dynamic in research through challenging objectivity and the relationship between researcher-researched. In addition, PEP’s YPAR project also incorporates Ethnic Studies principles of self-determination, agency, social justice, equity, healing, and love. YPAR allows students to connect their education and lived experiences to address problems in their communities. Through Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR), PEP students learn to become critically conscious as they have an opportunity to see themselves as knowledgeable, intellectual, capable, and empowered (Ginwright and Cammarota, 2007).
Since 2001, at the end of each school year, PEP puts together a community show with a collaboration between PEP teachers and students. The community show is presented in an interactive and creative way to help the schools and broader communities understand the problems and issues that youth face. It is also presented to our communities as a call to action. This unique project offers students the opportunity to apply what they have learned during the school year through a cultural production that integrates the artistic talents of students and teachers.
Methods/Data Sources
To examine our research topic, we combined a case study approach with grounded theory to understand and make meaning of the experiences of PEP students as they learned, interrogated, and critically examined how YPAR can bring life to issues they face on a day to day basis in their community, with family, and in the classroom. Doing a case study on Pin@y Educational Partnerships (PEP) YPAR process explores the details and meanings of experience and investigates a contemporary phenomenon within a real life context. (Merriam, 1988,Yin, 1994)
Results and Significance
As mentioned by Dimitriadis (2008) , YPAR “provides young people with opportunities to study social problems affecting their lives and then determine actions to rectify these problems.”(2008) In PEP, students learn agency and self-advocacy at a very early age. The purpose of YPAR, which is to teach students the skills not only to “read the world,” but also to take action to “transform the world.”

Author

• Maharaj Desai, University of Hawaii - Manoa