“We're Making Other People’s Future Educations Better”: Youth Transforming Teacher Learning Through YPTE Pedagogies

• In Event: Towards Youth Participatory Teacher Education

Abstract

Purpose
This mixed-methods study examines one session of a secondary social studies methods course that positioned youth as knowers and stakeholders in teacher education through the YPTE pedagogies of panels (Brown & Rodriguez, 2017; Author, 2020) and rehearsals (Lampert et al., 2013; Authors, 2025). Building on Paper 1’s conceptual foundation, this work empirically examines how 24 youth participants experienced being positioned as experts in teacher education.

Theoretical Framework
We draw on situated and critical perspectives to conceptualize youth participation in teacher education (Author, 2021; Figure 1). While situated perspectives frame the teacher education classroom as a bounded community of practice (Wenger, 1998), critical perspectives, including Critical Youth Studies (Ibrahim & Steinberg, 2014) and critical race theory (Yosso, 2005), underscore how youths’ lived experiences represent “precious knowledge” that can inform TCs’ learning (Cortés-Zamora et al., 2020). At their intersections, youth participation via peripheries into the community of practice can produce novel perturbations to shape TC learning (Wenger, 1998).

Methods
Table 1 includes demographic information for the 24 youth participants, 14 of whom identify as Black, indigenous, Latinx, or multiracial, and half of whom are multilingual. Data sources included videos of panels and rehearsals; surveys of youths’ experiences in each pedagogy (N=48); and focus groups (N=3) debriefing youths’ experiences. Flexible coding approaches (Deterding & Waters, 2021) resulted in two findings, below.

Results
From being “helpful” to “surprisingly specific feedback”
Responses to survey questions affirmed that youths (and TCs, too) believed their participation was helpful for teacher learning (Figure 2). Qualitative analysis echoed these perceptions. Sophia explained that the panels were “super helpful because we got to tell [TCs] what helps us learn.” Annelise noted the rehearsals produced “surprisingly specific feedback.” Yasmin added that since rehearsing TCs were “giving a lesson that they would give,” youth feedback was “more precise” and “more helpful specifically to them in their teachings.” Youth specifically looked forward to the impact of their contributions, as when Zoe stated: “I feel like we’re making other people’s future educations better.”

Participating in teacher learning in ways not “embedded in the general education system”
Multiple youths highlighted how open TCs were to learning from them. Livvy explained, “It’s important for us to know that there are teachers out there who care and want to grow and learn.” Still, many stressed this “opportunity” was not frequent in K-12 settings. Aidan stated, “I’m glad that everyone’s opinions were equal. I feel like it hasn’t been that way for the past 12 years with my teachers.” Agreeing with Aidan, Asher surfaced the wider systemic issue: “It isn’t that embedded in the general education system,” necessitating “chang[ing] the culture to allow more student feedback to be structured into education.”

Scholarly Significance
The interlocking forces of adultism, Eurocentrism, and monolingualism can all conspire to reproduce oppressions in K-12 schools and university-based teacher education. From Zoe to Asher, youth embraced the project of shaping TCs’ learning– positioning themselves as agentic stakeholders imagining what teaching and schooling could and should be.

Authors

• Acelynn C. Perkins, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Daniela Harton, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Laura Meinzen, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Andrew J. Schiera, University of Colorado - Boulder