Innovative Student Research for Teaching and Learning

• In Event: The Youth Shall Lead Us: Student-Conducted Research as the Ultimate Educational Innovation

Abstract

This paper explores the possibilities of youth participatory action research (YPAR) as an innovative and reciprocal pedagogy by addressing the following question: How does YPAR as a pedagogy inform the teaching and learning experiences of youth participants and adult facilitators?

Research demonstrates that YPAR humanizes young people as experts of their experiences and as critical research-activists who can work towards the liberation of themselves and all people (Cammarota & Fine, 2008; Duncan-Andrade & Morrell, 2008). YPAR positions urban youth as “transformative intellectuals” (Duncan-Andrade & Morrell, 2008). In the last few decades, corporate and business leaders have asserted themselves as the transformative intellectuals of public education reform, placing an emphasis on standards, assessment, accountability, and even evaluating and determining the pay of teachers based on student assessment performance (Fabricant & Fine, 2012). YPAR seeks to disrupt the current trend in educational reform and discourse.

YPAR draws on three principles “(1) the collective investigation of a problem, (2) the reliance on indigenous knowledge to better understand that problem, and (3) the desire to take individual and/or collective action to deal with the stated problem” (McIntyre, 2000). Our paper examines these YPAR principles through a pedagogical lens. As a pedagogy, YPAR involves youth and adults deliberately working towards praxis—reflection and action—to address educational and societal inequity (Cammarota & Fine, 2008; Duncan-Andrade & Morrell, 2008; McIntyre, 2000). In addition,YPAR has also developed student academic literacy and identity (Morrell 2006; Rogers, Morrell, & Enyedy, 2007). This study focuses on pedagogy, specifically the reciprocal teaching and learning that occurs between youth and adults through action research.

This study was conducted in four high schools in East Los Angeles, downtown Los Angeles, and South Los Angeles over a yearlong period. The high schools were connected through an YPAR approach that focused on structural analysis and change within the different schooling contexts. For this study, the sample included both the experiences of the youth participants in the program as well as the adult facilitators.

Through qualitative methods such as ethnographic interviews, field notes, and student-created digital stories, this paper explores the impact of YPAR as pedagogy. Coding and analysis focused on the teaching and learning experiences of youth participants and adult facilitators as novice, emerging, and expert learners.

Previous research suggests that YPAR develops student academic literacy and identity (Morrell 2006; Rogers, Morrell, & Enyedy, 2007). Our findings complement this by examining the learning processes of adult facilitators and the impacts that YPAR has on their pedagogical philosophies and practices. This study suggests that both youth participants and adult facilitators are transformed by YPAR. Youth articulated a feeling of empowerment when presenting to adult stakeholders (i.e. school administrators, local politicians, educational researchers, other teachers) and to other youth in their school. Adult facilitators expressed that the reciprocal teaching and learning process allowed students to teach adults from a youth-centered research perspective. Lastly, adults and students expressed a growth in political consciousness using an YPAR approach to teaching and learning that aspires for social and educational transformation.

Authors

• Mark Bautista, The University of Texas - Arlington

• Oscar Navarro, University of California - Los Angeles

• Elexia Reyes McGovern, University of California - Los Angeles

• Mary Candace Full, University of California - Los Angeles