Prioritizing program design and pedagogical impact in community-engaged research with youth

• In Event: Pedagogies that amplify youth voice and compel social action

Proposal

Community-engaged scholarship (CES) refers to mutually benefiting partnerships whereby communities and universities come together to address critical community issues while also collaboratively creating new scholarly knowledge (Gordon da Cruz, 2018). Broadly speaking, CES is discussed in terms of its benefits if carried out well, such as improved quality of research (Nathan et al., 2023), positive participant impact, and improved social impact (Cook and Soria-Donlan, 2019). Yet, what is often lacking in the literature is an honest reflection of the lessons of the operational and relational complexities that emerge when embedding a research project in a community-based youth program.

This paper analyzes the processes through which an interdisciplinary and community-engaged research team reconciled discordance among research design and program implementation throughout the two year time-span of a study that sought to understand and further develop the impact arts-based pedagogical strategies in youth programs. Analysis of researcher memos, program observations, and transcripts of team reflection meetings, show that this project team was guided by “program first” philosophy. This required that research design, and timelines be adapted. The project team also ran up again funding structures and university policies that disrupted and slowed the process. Data suggest that this ultimately led to greater program impact and sustainability, but the process created conditions of discordance, confusion, and professional frustration among various team members. Additionally, findings explore how the team considered points of what Boudin et al. (2022) name “epistemic justice” by considering power dynamics around the co-production of knowledge among researchers, the youth-serving organization, and community stakeholders.

The implications of these findings point to opportunities for improved organizational thinking and structures for university, large organizations, and funders supporting smaller-scale, localized, and high-quality youth programming using participatory pedagogies.

Authors

• Joanna A Tzenis, University of Minnesota

• Joan Dejaeghere, University of Minnesota

• Erma Mujic, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

• Heidi Ione Fahning, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• Zhuldyz Amankulova, University of Minnesota

• Ashley Purry, University of Minnesota - Minneapolis, MN (06940)

• Michael Winikoff, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities