Disrupting Architectures of Adultism in Participatory Research

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 3:45 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Participatory Action Research for Educational Justice

Abstract

With critical urgency, youth express needs, navigate and share perceptions of self, and convey agency. Yet such youth learning and action-taking is scarcely taken up as knowledge to be learned and passed on in public and policy discourse and educational research. We examined our understandings of such youth instantiations in a dataset of 68 reflection memos, authored by adult research-team members across two sites in our Youth Participatory Action Research initiative in the U.S. Midwest. We draw attention to what we conceptualize as architectures of adultism ever present in research, examining adult researchers’ understandings of how youth navigated and shared perceptions of self; expressed needs; and conveyed agency across the YPAR initiative. We conclude with productive implications for educational researchers.

Authors

• Vaughn W.M. Watson, Michigan State University

• Katie Tasch Bielecki, Michigan State University

• Joanne E. Marciano, Michigan State University

• Akinkunmi Ibrahim Oseni, Michigan State University

• Sandra Boateng, Michigan State University

• Beth A. Herbel-Eisenmann, Michigan State University