Unlocking hidden barriers: Youth-led participatory innovation for equity and peace in higher education

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Citizenship, Communities and Justice in Southeast Asia

Proposal

Purpose
For decades, governments, educators, and researchers around the world have grappled with the persistent challenge of inequitable access to higher education. Despite countless studies, policies, and interventions designed to close opportunity gaps, exclusion remains deeply entrenched. In Thailand, the situation reflects broader global trends: financial constraints, family obligations, academic underperformance, motivation, and institutional barriers are consistently identified as primary causes. Policies such as tuition subsidies, scholarships, and social support mechanisms have sought to address these issues, yet inequality continues to widen. Such inequality has also been recognized as a significant driver of youth-led protests in several countries, including Thailand.
This study argues that part of the problem lies in how inequity has been framed. Conventional approaches often reduce the issue to affordability or individual motivation, resulting in limited, surface-level interventions. Crucially, the perspectives of those most affected marginalized youth have been largely missing from both research and policymaking. Without their voices, policies risk addressing symptoms rather than root causes.
This research responds to that gap by exploring how youth-led participatory innovation can generate new problem framings and inclusive solutions. Through a Social Innovation Hackathon, we applied Design Thinking methodologies to co-create solutions with disadvantaged youth and analyzed the outcomes using Bacchi’s “What’s the Problem Represented to Be?” (WPR) framework. By amplifying the voices of those traditionally excluded from decision-making, we aim to understand educational inequity differently and act on it more effectively. It is expected that this research will contribute not only to equity in higher education but also to peacebuilding through inclusion, recognition, and social cohesion.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopts a participatory, multi-phase research design that combines Design Thinking with critical policy analysis. The Social Innovation Hackathon brought together approximately a hundred marginalized youth, many of whom face systemic barriers such as financial instability, caregiving responsibilities, social stigma, and limited institutional support.
The hackathon followed the five iterative stages of Design Thinking: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test.
Empathize: Participants engaged with real-life narratives from national peers excluded from higher education (interview results from the earlier phase of the research). Using emotional response tools and guided reflections, they surfaced unspoken dimensions of inequity—feelings of invisibility, shame, and resilience.
Define: Through collaborative exercises like the “5 Whys,” participants traced exclusion back to overlooked systemic causes: institutional rigidity, limited mental health support, stigmatization of non-linear educational paths, and inadequate services for youth balancing multiple roles.
Ideate: Leveraging AI-assisted visualization, participants envisioned inclusive futures where inequity could be redesigned not just compensated for.
Prototype & Test: Using LEGO models and scenario-based simulation, youth teams proposed tangible solutions, including: (i) Safe Zones: integrated childcare and flexible learning spaces for young mothers; (ii) Community for Chance: a digital platform connecting scholarships and social resources through multi-sector partnerships; (iii) E-Sport Next Gen: redefining gaming as a pathway to digital entrepreneurship.
By centering youth agency, the hackathon transformed participants from “policy recipients” into co-creators of systemic change.
Findings
Applying Bacchi’s WPR framework reveals why existing policies on educational equity have consistently struggled to produce meaningful change. Policymakers have historically framed inequity primarily as a financial problem, resulting in scholarship-driven solutions that fail to address deeper, intersecting layers of exclusion. However, youth perspectives from the hackathon uncovered a far more complex reality, where financial barriers interact dynamically with social, cultural, emotional, and institutional factors. This expanded understanding enabled participants to generate innovative solutions that move beyond traditional, surface-level interventions, advocating instead for holistic, ecosystem-based responses. For instance, rather than focusing solely on financial aid, youth prioritized integrated mental health services, flexible learning pathways, and community-driven platforms that simultaneously support academic and personal development.
Moreover, the WPR analysis highlights how dominant policy narratives in Thailand—and similar contexts—have long positioned marginalized youth as passive recipients of assistance rather than active agents of change. By critically unpacking these underlying assumptions, the study exposes how existing policy frameworks inadvertently perpetuate deficit-based perspectives while obscuring systemic inequalities and instead reframes youth as agent of social change. Through the participatory hackathon process, youth participants challenged these narratives by redefining exclusion on their own terms, emphasizing dimensions often overlooked in mainstream policy discourse, such as identity, dignity, aspirations, and belonging. This shift underscores the transformative potential of integrating youth voices into policymaking. Ultimately, the findings demonstrate that achieving educational equity is not simply about designing better intervention, it requires reconceptualizing the very nature of the problem itself. It also implies that equity-driven educational reform can serve as a foundation for peace in divided societies.
Research limitations/implications
While the hackathon generated rich insights, findings are context-specific and require careful adaptation to broader contexts. Implementing youth-driven solutions at scale demands institutional flexibility, intersectoral collaboration, and sustained political commitment.
The study also highlights the importance of comparative perspectives: educational inequity manifests differently across countries, but the methodological integration of Design Thinking and WPR analysis provides a transferable framework for examining diverse contexts.
Practical implications
For policymakers, educators, and institutions, the study underscores the need to reframe educational inequity by: (i) Engaging youth not only as beneficiaries but as partners in defining problems and designing solutions;
(ii) Addressing emotional, cultural, and social dimensions alongside structural and financial factors; (iii) Building multi-level collaborations between schools, higher education institutions, local communities, and private sectors; (iv) Embedding Design Thinking methodologies into policymaking processes to encourage co-creation and experimentation.
These practices enable stakeholders to move beyond fragmented policies and foster sustainable, systemic approaches to inclusion and equity.
Originality/value
This research contributes to international and comparative education scholarship by integrating participatory innovation and critical policy analysis to address longstanding challenges of educational inequity and youth protests. It demonstrates that tackling persistent exclusion requires more than refining existing interventions, it demands redefining the problem itself.
By amplifying youth voices and embedding their lived realities into design processes, this study offers a replicable model for advancing inclusion globally. It also challenges policymakers and educators to rethink their roles, shifting from designing solutions for marginalized youth to designing solutions with them.

Authors

• prompilai buasuwan, Kasetsart University

• Wanwisa Suebnusorn Klaijumlang, Kasetsart University