Beyond Fidelity: Enacting YPAR through a Decolonial Feminist Praxis

• In Event: Unapologetically Centering Youth in Theory, Practice, and Praxis

Abstract

This paper challenges conventional notions of fidelity in the implementation of Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) in urban high schools. Drawing on teacher interviews from a district-wide initiative, we argue that "fidelity" must be reimagined not as technical adherence to a model, but as a relational, ethical commitment to liberatory values. Using a decolonial feminist lens, we analyze how educators navigate school-based constraints and reconfigure their roles to support youth agency. We offer a framework for "fidelity with integrity" that centers relationality, critical love, and pedagogical disobedience as vital to sustaining YPAR's transformative potential in institutional contexts.

Authors

• Rosalinda Godinez, Cleveland State University

• Taylor Zepp, Cleveland Metro Schools