Research Localization: Methods for Promoting Meaningful Youth-Led Research

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Youth-led research has become increasingly popular as an approach that ensures meaningful engagement of youth and captures key insights on the issues that matter most to them. It maximizes young people's leadership potential and focuses on strengthening their capacity to conduct systematic research that ultimately aims to improve their lives, their communities, and the policies and institutions that affect them. Placing youth in significant leadership roles addresses systemic issues of power dynamics and social equity, and integrates key principles of the positive youth development approach, which advocate for the engagement of “youth along with their families, communities, and/or governments so that youth are empowered to reach their full potential” (Hinson et al., 2016, p15). Existing research provides evidence that the involvement of youth in research (and in participatory action research more specifically) can foster their engagement in civic and political matters, cultivate valuable research and advocacy skills, instill positive attitudes towards schooling, and create avenues for adolescents to influence and tackle disparities in health, education, and other societal systems (Ozer and Piatt, 2017).


Engaging young individuals in leading research roles can challenge colonial structures within the research process. Youth-led research can be viewed as “an ethical commitment to creating conditions for social change to be used by the community for their own purposes …. [and] a response to exploitative research practices of outsiders who have used communities as laboratories” (Cahill, 2007). Actively involving youth whose narratives have historically been marginalized in decision-making spaces empowers them and allows their voices to shape matters that directly influence their lives. Fundamentally, youth-led research is about shifting power, where youth take the role of experts and knowledge generators.

This panel will explore designs and methods for youth-led research that place youth in central roles – moving beyond the engagement of youth purely as data collectors – to meaningfully involve them throughout the research process. Panelists will share experiences of engaging youth in co-creation of research design, data collection and analysis, and dissemination of findings to influence decision-making and recommendations for programmatic and policy change.


Cahill C. (2007). Doing research with young people: Participatory research and the rituals of collective work. Children’s Geographies, 5(3), 297–312.


Hinson, L., Kapungu, C., Jessee, C., Skinner, M., Bardini, M. & Evans-Whipp, T. (2016). Measuring Positive Youth Development Toolkit: A Guide for Implementers of Youth Programs. Washington, DC: YouthPower Learning, Making Cents International.


Ozer, E.J, & Piatt A.A. (2017). Conducting Research with Adolescents in Low- and Middle-Income Countries. UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti.

Sub Unit

• Youth Development and Education SIG

Organizer

• Fernanda Soares, University of Notre Dame

Chair

• Fernanda Soares, University of Notre Dame

Individual Presentations

• Putting youth’s voices at the center of the decision making process: the Youth-led Barrier Analysis in Guatemala - Fernanda Soares, University of Notre Dame; Bethany Little, Notre Dame Pulte Institute for Global Development

• Our Wellbeing, our Research: Youth Researchers Surfacing Insights on the Journey to Employment - Maxie Gluckman, IREX; Isabella Petros-Weber, International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX)

• Youth-Led Evaluation of Most Significant Changes: Findings and Lessons Learned From Implementing Participatory Methodologies Zambia - Ania Chaluda, FHI 360