Youth Will Speak: Youth Participatory Action Research as a Vehicle to Connect an Ethnic Studies Pedagogy to Communities

• In Event: 29.058 - To Build a Better World: Enacting Ethnic Studies as Power, Pedagogy, and Praxis

Abstract

Objective and Theoretical Framework
In this paper, we will examine the ways the Council of Youth Research (CYR), a youth research program, challenged the deficit ways in which dispossessed communities are portrayed in traditional education research and reform. We examine how young people develop a deeper understanding about themselves and their communities through an Ethnic Studies pedagogy as they engaged in a youth action research (YPAR) project to address issues in their communities and schools. This presentation will answer the following research questions: Given that YPAR and Ethnic Studies are both learning spaces to develop civic engagement of students and teachers, how does YPAR mirror and even extend our understanding of Ethnic Studies pedagogy and research? How does Ethnic Studies scholarship and epistemology ground students’ development of critical consciousness?
Through an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary lens, this paper examines the social, cultural, political, and economic expression and experiences of ethnic groups in the United States (Tintiangco-Cubales, Kohli, Sacramento, Henning, Agarwal-Rangnath, & Sleeter, 2014). This paper draws from YPAR as an epistemological challenge to traditional research that opens the door for youth to engage in resistance to create the conditions for systemic change and self-actualization (Cammarota & Fine, 2008). Drawing from the original intent of Ethnic Studies grounded in a notion that the community should be collaborators in conducting research (Fong, 2008; Loo & Mar 1985-1986), we see YPAR as the vehicle to engage communities in research to address their most pressing needs.

Methods and Data Sources
CYR is a YPAR program and partnership between a university in southern California and five local, urban public high schools. The Council of Youth Research was made up of approximately twenty-five high school students that attended weekly and monthly meetings across five after school sites in South Los Angeles. Drawing from a critical ethnographic approach (Carspecken, 1996), we explored the activities, interviews, print, and new media texts produced by participants. We probed video footage of student presentations, artifacts, and extensive field notes from across the five YPAR sites. The themes for the 2010–11 CYR research projects were related to the multiple dimensions of what constitutes an “adequate” education for California students as it relates to the Williams v. State of California 2004 settlement.

Findings and Significance
The analysis for this paper is focused on the research and experiences of the CYR students and teacher teams from large comprehensive high schools, specifically Langston Hughes, Panther, and Hooks High Schools. Our findings examine how CYR students fostered and enacted their power as students and engaged citizens in various settings, from the classroom to a community presentation to a professional development for teachers. Specifically, we will discuss how YPAR through an Ethnic Studies pedagogy can be situated within the processes of (1) developing critical consciousness, (2) fostering agency, and (3) moving toward collective action. Throughout our study, we learned that YPAR emulates and extends what Ethnic Studies research intended to do; more than just collaboration with community members for research, community members conduct research and develop recommendations for local change.

Authors

• Mark Bautista, The University of Texas - Arlington

• Dani O'Brien, University of Massachusetts - Amherst