School-based YPAR: negotiating productive tensions of participation and possibility

ABSTRACT

YPAR seeks to position youth as experts on their worlds, investigating issues that affect their lives and then taking action to create solutions. As such, one of the key epistemological principles underpinning YPAR is the robust participation of youth throughout the knowledge creation process. A growing body of literature examines what youth participation looks like in the context of YPAR that is enacted in school settings. Building on this recent work, this paper drills down on the concept of participation as the authors examine the tensions around adult and youth participation that we faced as we engaged with youth and teachers in different participatory studies in urban Ireland, urban USA, and suburban USA. We conclude that, while those who engage in YPAR should seek collective action throughout the process, more often than not YPAR is a dance of intra-action, always shifting and flowing to respond to and take up the evolving and entangled needs, knowledges, and understandings of those involved.

KEYWORDS:

• Youth participatory action research
• participatory research
• action research
• adolescents
• teacher research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Because we identify our inquiry as youth participatory action research, throughout this manuscript we identify those with whom we engage, across a large spectrum of ages from 5 years to 18 years old, as ‘youth.’ That said, we see that identifying young people as somehow different than people who have lived longer on this planet than them can be problematic and can be seen as ‘othering’ them. We acknowledge that this may happen. We hope it does not. We continue to push ourselves to call into question our own assumptions about people and knowledge and know that sometimes our attempts fall short.

2. Everyone who participated in all of these YPAR studies were informed and recruited according to appropriate institutional ethics boards in each of our contexts. All participants gave consent as did legal guardians of minors.

3. All names used in this manuscript are pseudonyms.

4. For example, Gloria’s students had about six weeks to undertake and complete their YPAR projects.