Composite Narratives as Method in Intergenerational Community-Based Research

• In Event: Disrupting Deficit Logics: Centering Community Knowledge in the Design of Educational Research

Abstract

In this paper, we share our use of what we term community-led composite narratives as an ongoing method of engagement and intergenerational dialogue during a years-long participatory action research (PAR) (Vaughn & Jacquez, 2020) project on post-secondary readiness with Latinx families. This work emerged within a collaboration between a university and a nonprofit community organization serving bilingual and bicultural Latinxs on the East coast of the U.S. While researchers have engaged in community-based work in intergenerational Latinx spaces (Alvarez Gutiérrez, 2016), tensions within these projects, particularly between adults and youth, remain understudied. Our paper explores the nuances of intergenerational participatory research and the method of community-led composite narratives as solidarity-work.

In 2024, after a year of establishing trust among research group members and identifying research questions, we launched a pilot study to better understand the experiences of Latinx youth and their parents in relation to post-secondary preparedness. Over the course of data collection and analysis, despite our hopes for a collaborative intergenerational space, we realized that underlying adultism (Bell, 2010) often led to inadvertent ways of undervaluing youth and their contributions. Additionally, because our group includes Latinx middle and high school-aged youth, community adults (including parents of three youth researchers), university researchers and organization staff, familismo and other hierarchical cultural ideologies also impacted our work. Establishing separate adult and youth research sub-groups proved a partial, though restrictive solution. Although this separation resulted in a safer space for youth to share their experiences, blurred lines between researcher-participant roles and concerns about sharing stories related to family conflict continued to raise questions about intra-group confidentiality.

Consequently, this paper details the co-creation process that resulted in our development of community-led composites—narratives combining qualitative data from multiple participants into a unified, contextualized, and cohesive storyline featuring real life details and experiences (Willis, 2019; McElhinney & Kennedy, 2022). Youth and adult composites authored by each respective group served as vehicles to express the challenges each experienced in relation to post-secondary readiness. For youth researchers, these challenges included preparing for life after high school, managing parent’s expectations, and the pressure of career choice. For adult researchers, challenges related to familial economic stability, providing guidance and support to teenage children, and navigating unfamiliar school cultures and systems. For both groups, this was an iterative process in which personal experience and expertise became inlaid into final products.

In conclusion, we describe how community-led composite narratives built through a PAR methodological lens allowed us to 1) address issues of adultism and intra-group anonymity within intergenerational participatory research 2) co-author authentic stories that facilitated deep reflection on tension between family members when discussing dreams, sacrifice, career choice, and expectations of success, and 3) initiate conversations to intentionally develop empathy and reflexivity among adult and youth co-researchers. Finally, we discuss implications for other community-engaged work, in which intergenerational tension may still be present, adding to the growing body of work interested in more equitable youth-adult partnerships in participatory education research (Bettencourt, 2020; Bertrand, et al., 2023).

Authors

• Guadalupe Barrientos, University of Pennsylvania

• Jancarlos Montoya Mejia, University of Pennsylvania

• Nelson Flores, University of Pennsylvania