Preparing and Supporting Youth for Meaningful Research Involvement: Recommendations from Community-Based Participatory Research

• In Event: Critical Issues in Action Research: Immigrant & Refugee Education, Ethnic Studies, Teacher Quality, Community, and Indigenous Youth

Abstract

Participatory researchers and scholars have, for decades, called for the inclusion of community members, including youth, in research projects to increase the validity and applicability of findings. Despite these calls, youth researchers (YR) remain excluded from most research teams perhaps in part because few best practices for training and supporting YR have been articulated, leaving even those scholars committed to YR involvement with limited guidance. In this presentation our interdisciplinary team of researchers, practitioners, and youth will share the specific strategies used to prepare and support six YR involved in a two-year community-based participatory research project. By providing this information, we aim to provide scholars with meaningful guidance on how to prepare and support youth as YR.

Authors

• Amanda Sommerfeld Case, University of Iowa

• Yiheng Zhou, University of Iowa

• Shahnaz Safitri, Purdue University

• Yinmayue Tang, University of Iowa

• Viviana Piceno, Purdue University

• Remi Napier, Downtown Boxing Gym

• Keenan Cain, Martin Luther King Jr. High School

• Garrett Simmons, University of Detroit Jesuit High School

• Jamarion Berry, University of Detroit Jesuit High School

• Aleena Watson, Regina High School