Beyond Methods and Modules in (Y)PAR: Lessons for Caretaking Pedagogies

• In Event: AERA Poster Session 1
  In Poster Session: Action Research: Engaging Across Diverse Interests and Fundamentals (San Diego)

Abstract

This paper emerges from an ongoing participatory action research (PAR) collaboration between university researchers and career equity-oriented youth workers in California.Too often, the incentive structures of the neoliberal university and its hegemonic social science regimes have reduced participatory action research to a discrete collection of methods and prescribed modules, which mutes PAR’s continuities with emancipatory social movements. As a consequence, the relationships between adults and youth interlocutors are rendered ancillary and less important within “skill-based” PAR paradigms which focus on imparting research competencies to youth . The purpose of this conceptual paper is to argue for participatory researchers to more rigorously interrogate what it means to “build relationships” within PAR projects that include youth interlocutors.

Authors

• Miguel N. Abad, University of California - Los Angeles

• Phebe Chew, University of California - Irvine

• Xitlali Cabadas, Digital Nest

• Fatima Gutierrez, Bresee Foundation

• Maddie Deegan Davenport, New Door Ventures

• Valentina Velasquez, Digital Nest