Rural Black Brilliance: The Power of Podcasting as Truth Telling in Youth Participatory Action Research

• In Event: Youth Participatory Action Research: Community of Practice, Catalyst for Resistance, Podcasting, Speculative Fiction, and Ownership

Abstract

At the center of community driven research is the power of truth telling, specifically considering rural Black youth’s engagement in youth participatory action research (YPAR) who were deeply involved in all aspects of the research processes. This study supported rural Black youth as experts of their own lived experiences in shaping their access to higher education considering the role of the broader community. Further, the YPAR project provided the youth in the study with the autonomy to be the drivers of their own narratives in the literature. Hence, this paper will unpack how the seven rural Black youth serving as co-researchers chose to have their narratives included in the literature as podcast episodes through their engagement in YPAR.

Author

• Jenay Willis, University of Mississippi