Our Wellbeing, our Research: Youth Researchers Surfacing Insights on the Journey to Employment

• In Event: Research Localization: Methods for Promoting Meaningful Youth-Led Research

Proposal

While millions of youth worldwide are facing challenges during their transition from school to work—conditions exacerbated by concurrent circumstances associated with conflict, climate change, COVID-19, among other socio-political factors—they are also facing challenges related to their mental health and overall well-being (IREX, 2022). Moreover, youth often continue to be objects of research, and participants in employment or well-being programming, rather than engaged meaningfully as leaders throughout all stages of the research lifecycle—from the program design phase through the dissemination of findings.

Critical Participatory Inquiry argues that ordinary people can and should be included as co-creators of knowledge and retain ownership of this knowledge. Scholars who champion this approach (ex. Fals-Borda, 2001; 1987; Appadurai, 2006), argue that democratizing the research process requires viewing historically marginalized individuals and communities as experts in their own worlds and meaningfully including them in the decisions that affect them.
To center youth’s perspectives and experiences surrounding well-being throughout their school to work transition, IREX, in collaboration with local partners in Kenya, Malawi, and Ukraine, supported a Youth Well-being, Learning to Earning (L2E) research study. The youth researcher's role throughout each stage was critical as they provided nuanced insights and local knowledge into the complex challenges their country's youth populations were facing that could not have been replicated by IREX staff to the same level of detail. The data collection was co-designed with diverse youth and focused specifically on youth’s lived experiences related to employment (job-searching, self-employment, temporary opportunities, informal work, full-time employment, etc.) and their well-being throughout all periods since graduating (completing secondary or higher education including certificate and/or vocational training programs).


Youth researchers prompted focus group participants to reflect on how their identities as well as socio, economic, and political factors have shaped their L2E journeys and influenced their well-being. Youth were also invited to share examples of how they have sought out support in these conditions—generating initial recommendations for programmatic design oriented towards development practitioners and donors. Throughout this process the youth researchers became well-versed in facilitating focus groups discussions, collected data on youth’s personal L2E experiences by creating brave and spaces, learned to use emerging AI technologies to conduct thematic analysis and interrogate findings, developed facilitation skills to engage with stakeholders in their community on the issues, and disseminated their findings through local institutional stakeholder workshops.


Research opportunities like these work towards breaking down the barriers that have barred youth’s active participation and perspective on issues that will impact them, their peers, and their communities. This paper will explore the Youth Well-Being, Learning to Earning study’s process for co-constructing new knowledge in tandem with local youth-researchers while considering the benefits, challenges, and opportunities that participatory research methods have on building a platform for youth’s vital voices.

Authors

• Maxie Gluckman, IREX

• Isabella Petros-Weber, International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX)