“History in school never taught me about where I fit”: Asian American Youth Disrupting Curriculum Violence Through Youth Participatory Action Research

• In Event: Youth Participatory Action Research with Asian American Communities: Methodological Innovations and Transformative Possibilities

Abstract

Objectives or Purposes
This article examines how youth participatory action research (YPAR) entailing oral history collection can disrupt curriculum violence and reposition Asian American youth as researchers, educators, and storytellers (Caraballo et al., 2017). Drawing from a larger research project in Michigan, we examine how 10 Asian American high school students documented family and community migration narratives, developed critical consciousness about systemic erasure, and reimagined their capacity to produce knowledge and publicly disseminate it. This study focuses on a central research question: How has being involved in conducting oral histories as part of YPAR with Asian Americans shaped the youth’s understanding of themselves as storytellers and educators?

Theoretical Framework
We draw on three frameworks: Asian critical theory (AsianCrit), which centers the racialized conditions of Asian Americans within systems of White supremacy and foregrounds experiential knowledge through counter-storytelling (Iftikar & Museus, 2018; Kim & Hsieh, 2021), Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR), which positions youth as co-researchers (Ozer, 2017); and oral history methodology, which creates bottom-up histories by foregrounding marginalized voices. Our approach challenges methodological nationalism by situating Asian American experiences within transnational networks of migration, diaspora, and cultural connection.

Modes of Inquiry
This study is part of a larger ongoing YPAR project aimed at engaging Asian American youths in Michigan as co-researchers, educators, and storytellers. The broader project seeks to address the persistent curricular erasure of Asian American histories and experiences in K-12 education by empowering youth to document family and community oral histories and develop curriculum resources with PK-12 teachers. The multi-year initiative consists of three interconnected strands: (1) oral history collection and curriculum development, (2) research and analysis of how oral histories inform transformative pedagogy, and (3) knowledge mobilization through presentations, digital archives, and community engagement. This article focuses specifically on the first phase of the project, which centered on preparing youths to conduct oral histories and understanding how their involvement in the process of doing so shaped their understanding of themselves as storytellers and educators.

Data Sources
This article draws on data relevant to understanding how conducting oral histories shaped the youths’ identities as storytellers and educators. While the larger project generated multiple forms of data, we focus here on data sources from the first phase that show the participants’ learning processes, reflections, and evolving understandings. These sources include application materials, individual interviews, fieldnotes, and recordings of workshops and meetings.

Findings
We found that engaging in YPAR and conducting oral histories enabled youth participants to reconceptualize research and teaching and to recognize themselves as researchers and storytellers. By collecting, curating, and disseminating oral history narratives, youth participants underwent a transformative shift from experiencing curricular erasure to asserting their identities as knowledge producers and educators. Our study demonstrates how oral history documentation reshaped participants’ epistemic and historical consciousness. It illustrates how integrating AsianCrit, YPAR, and oral history creates a robust approach for epistemic resistance and historical (re)construction and offers a pedagogical strategy for Asian American youth to challenge invisibility and reclaim their identities as knowledge creators. These findings contribute to scholarship on participatory and humanizing research methodologies, Asian American educational experiences, and transnational approaches to understanding race and racism in educational contexts (Paris, 2012; Kwon, 2013; San Pedro & Kinloch, 2017).

References
Caraballo, L., Lozenski, B. D., Lyiscott, J. J., & Morrell, E. (2017). YPAR and critical
epistemologies: Rethinking education research. Review of Research in Education, 41(1),
311-336.
Iftikar, J. S., & Museus, S. D. (2018). On the utility of Asian critical (AsianCrit) theory in the
field of education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 31(10), 935–949.
Kim, J., & Hsieh, B. (2021). The racialized experiences of Asian American teachers in the US:
Applications of Asian Critical Race Theory to resist marginalization. Routledge.
Kwon, S. A. (2013). Uncivil youth: Race, activism, and affirmative governmentality. Duke
University Press.
Ozer, E. J. (2017). Youth‐led participatory action research: Overview and potential for enhancing
adolescent development. Child Development Perspectives, 11(3), 173-177.
Paris, D. (2012). Culturally sustaining pedagogy: A needed change in stance, terminology, and
practice. Educational Researcher, 41(3), 93-97.
San Pedro, T., & Kinloch, V. (2017). Toward projects in humanization: Research on co-creating
and sustaining dialogic relationships. American Educational Research Journal, 54(1), 373-394.

Authors

• Roland Sintos Coloma, Wayne State University

• Jungmin Kwon, Michigan State University

• Wenyang Sun, University of Utah

• Min Yu, Wayne State University

• Pyeongeun Kim, Michigan State University

• Seungwoo Hwang, Michigan State University