Let’s Do This: Youth-Led Research and the Potential of Fast Methods

• In Event: Youth-Led Research on the Effects of Racial Microaggressions in U.S. High Schools: Processes and Findings

Abstract

Objectives or purposes: In our experience working as the Youth Research Council (YRC) in Northern Virginia, USA, youth co-researchers have expressed desires to conduct “fast” research using “rapid” research methods like hallway interviews, text messaging, and social media narrative techniques to gather data from peers who are not interested in filling out long surveys or speaking to anyone at length about their personal lives. In this article, we argue that methods which can be deployed quickly, nimbly, and responsively can actually open up time for rest and reflection and unlock creative potential by being attuned to the life-rhythms of young, creative intellectuals.

Modes of Inquiry: Here, we are specifically interested in how “fast methods” can be used within the context of YPAR in order to facilitate youth-driven research that is in sync with the pacing of many young people’s lives. Doing so is aligned with the ethos of YPAR as a methodology, which centers the lived experiences and unique perspectives of young people as they critically investigate and tackle insidious social problems ranging from racial injustices to educational inequities (Caraballo & Filipiak, 2020; González Ybarra, 2021). Because YPAR epistemology demands that youth voices and experiences are centered as expertise throughout the lifetime of a research project, this paper aims to do that by centering narrative descriptions of the “fast” methods our research collective used written by the youth researchers.

Conclusions and Significance: While we used some traditional research methods like surveys for our study, we also took into consideration what we already knew about our high school student peers and their/our overall lack of interest in data collection for unknown purposes. As high school students, we are over-surveyed. We are asked to fill out surveys so often many of us just do not care about them anymore. We have in our minds old men, writing out survey questions in little, sterile offices in some large building we will never see, collecting survey responses and then not doing anything with them except checking a box to say that they did, indeed, send out the surveys. But we all know that is far from the truth. And so, no, we are not interested in sitting down for 30 minutes to be recorded about our experiences with (fill in the blank). We all already know what is going on.
And so, we created our own “fast” research methods. We used fast methods because they fit into our schedule and into the schedules of our friends. Also, they fit into our comfort levels. No one would tell us the truth about how they experience discrimination if I sat down with them carrying a recorder and a page with questions on it. So, we changed things up so that our friends would feel more comfortable and would be more likely to share their thoughts and experiences. We think these fast methods are significant because they are each built on our own experience gathering and analyzing data everyday in our own lives.

Authors

• Giovanni P. Dazzo, University of Georgia

• Amy Best, George Mason University

• Jeffery Keller, George Mason University

• Natale Gray, Youth Research Council

• Widad Khalid, Youth Research Council

• Oaklen Kalinichenko, Youth Research Council