Fostering Joy And Liberation: The Healing Path of Youth Participatory Action Research

• In Event: Revolutionizing Education, Revitalized: The Rise of Creative Resistance in Youth Participatory Action Research

Abstract

This presentation draws on findings from Phase One of the Youth and Young Adult Wellbeing Measures Project—a national, multi-year Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) initiative housed at the Aspen Institute and launched during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The project was rooted in a critical question: Who gets to define and measure youth and young adult (YYA) wellbeing? In response, our intergenerational research collective sought to co-construct wellbeing frameworks informed by the lived experiences, values, and cultural knowledges of youth themselves.
The primary objective of this project was to engage youth as co-researchers in the development of alternative wellbeing measures—grounded in their distinct identities, histories, and communities. We aimed to challenge deficit-based models and external metrics by privileging youth-led knowledge production and healing-centered inquiry. The project centered three culturally grounded affinity groups: Latine Bienestar (LB), Black Expressions (BE), and American Indian and Alaska Natives (AIAN).
Our theoretical framework draws from Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR), decolonial theory, and feminist epistemologies, emphasizing collective meaning-making, relational accountability, and the centrality of youth voice. The project was supported through training in CPAR provided by the Public Science Project at the CUNY Graduate Center, which included sessions on community-building, qualitative methods, and data analysis. Our approach was also guided by Indigenous and culturally sustaining research paradigms that resist settler colonial notions of knowledge, wellness, and measurement.
Methodologically, we employed a mixed-methods, arts-integrated approach across three national affinity groups. Youth researchers co-developed and implemented diverse data collection tools, including nominal group technique (NGT) sessions, semi-structured interviews, community-based surveys, narrative writing, and painting. Each affinity group adapted the YPAR model to reflect their community’s needs, histories, and ways of knowing. Over 250 youth participated across the three groups during Phase One.
Our data sources include transcripts from interviews and focus groups, field notes, coded qualitative data from collaborative analysis sessions, and a wide array of arts-based artifacts. These were interpreted both individually and collectively, with youth researchers playing a central role in analysis, interpretation, and presentation.
Findings from Phase One challenge universalist notions of wellbeing and underscore the importance of community, cultural identity, safety, joy, spirituality, and connection to land in youth-defined models. The process itself emerged as a form of healing and resistance, affirming that wellbeing is both an outcome and a methodology. Intergenerational co-research teams found that engaging in shared storytelling and artistic creation produced not only robust data, but also a sense of belonging and political clarity.
The scholarly significance of this work lies in its contribution to reimagining both measurement practices and research relationships. By centering youth as experts of their own experience, the project destabilizes conventional hierarchies of knowledge and offers a replicable model for community-led evaluation, particularly within historically marginalized groups. This presentation uses a multi-vocal, story-centered format to reflect the collective ethos of the project and concludes by inviting participants into an experiential Body Mapping activity—extending the inquiry into their own journeys toward wellbeing.

Author

• Jennifer Ayala, Saint Peter's University