Teaching in Solidarity: Toward Critical Youth Research Literacies

• In Event: Supporting Youth Activism in Hostile Times: Case Studies in Deepening YPAR Practices

Abstract

1. Purposes: This presentation reflects on the design and facilitation of an undergraduate Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) project conducted during a semester marked by intensified campus surveillance, political unrest, and global calls for Palestinian liberation. My goal is to share how YPAR-informed pedagogies can support secondary and undergraduate students in critically investigating social injustices, navigating institutional barriers, and sustaining research collectives grounded in care, community, and solidarity.

2. Theoretical Framework: Drawing on foundational YPAR research (Cammarota & Fine, 2010; Mira et al., 2015), I frame YPAR as an epistemological orientation, and a commitment to humanizing and decolonizing research (Paris & Winn, 2014). This approach challenges dominant knowledge hierarchies while supporting young people as agents of change. I engage Baldridge’s (2020) concept of the youthwork paradox to critically examine the tensions that arise when adult researchers function as both co-conspirators and de facto gatekeepers in institutional spaces. Said’s (1979) writing on the repression of Palestinian voices and knowledge further anchors the work within a decolonial framework.

3. Methods: This YPAR project emerged from a semester-long undergraduate course titled “Equity, Ethics, and Education.” The project was grounded in participatory co-inquiry (Mirra et al., 2015) and humanizing and decolonizing research methods (Paris & Winn, 2014). Students designed their own studies and employed qualitative methods including semi-structured interviews (Galletta, 2013), surveys (McIntyre, 200), and policy analysis (Ball, 1993). My role was to act as a co-learner and facilitator in alignment with collaborative authorship and youth-led inquiry practices (Cammarota & Fine, 2010; Winn & Ubiles, 2011). This approach positioned undergraduate students as researchers of their own educational experiences.

4. Data Sources: The data informing this presentation includes field notes from class sessions, students’ research artifacts, action plan presentations, and critical reflections from both students and myself. Additionally, I draw from institutional policies and public university statements made during campus protests to contextualize our inquiry within a historical and sociocultural context.

5. Results: The YPAR model proved transformative for student engagement, not only in terms of academic learning but also in cultivating sociopolitical consciousness, ethical research practices, and cross-cultural solidarity. However, the work was also constrained by institutional barriers ranging from fear of retaliation to administrative silence. My findings suggest that YPAR projects must be informed by pedagogical approaches that are simultaneously critical, reflexive, and responsive to the local context. Intergenerational collaborations in which faculty and students work together as co-researchers offers a model for educational justice that resists hegemonic academic structures.

6. Scholarly Significance: This presentation contributes to research on grassroots community-based methodologies in secondary and higher education. It explores how pedagogical commitments to solidarity, critical consciousness, and community care can shape curriculum and coursework. It also complicates narratives of youth empowerment by naming the contradictions and constraints of youth-adult collaboration (Baldridge, 2020). The presentation ultimately calls for a vision of education where young people and adult educators act together in pursuit of social justice and collective liberation.

Author

• Brian Mooney, Fairleigh Dickinson University