Collaborative inquiry: Youth, social action, and critical qualitative research

Abstract

Youth participatory action research is part of a revolutionary effort in educational research to take inquiry-based knowledge production out of the sole purview of academic institutions and include those who most directly experience the educational contexts that scholars endeavor to understand. Seeking to extend the robust legacy of participatory action research in schools and communities, in this article, we focus on the pedagogical contributions of youth participatory action research collaborations for the teaching of critical qualitative research. We discuss strategies developed and implemented in an after-school youth participatory action research seminar in order to highlight how collaborative educational spaces can contribute to teaching and engaging in critical qualitative research. We also reflect, in our role as educators and researchers, on the possibilities and limitations of teaching qualitative research critically and reflexively, particularly at the intersection of qualitative action research, critical literacies, and youth social action. We conclude with a discussion of the broader implications of collaborative inquiry for the teaching of qualitative research in education and beyond.

A charge to educational action researchers

“…Familiar themes in action research such as the democracy of power and knowledge are highlighted. With youth, this looks like intentionally embedding youth pop culture in processes as a challenge to academic culture and using it as a vehicle for equitable distribution of power amongst youth and adults (Caraballo & Lyiscott, 2018). Educational action researchers can shift the lines of power, point out the implicit historical circuits of power existent between youth and adults, and challenge unfavorable power dynamics in order to call for change and reciprocity in roles (Call-Cummings et al, 2019).…”

Growing Together: Literacy and Agency in an Early‐College Research Collaborative

“…Specifically, the intergenerational collaborations foregrounding multimodal literacies helped reveal new ways for establishing care and respect in the YPAR space. As an example, during a literacies workshop that culminated in a hip‐hop cypher, each research group performed rap bars inspired by their selected research topics (Caraballo & Lyiscott, ). In one instance, a group of preservice teachers decided to remix the task by forging their own piece that would offer, as one teacher expressed, “a message of love for the students.” Another contributed to the cypher as follows: “Future teachers in the making / encouraging students in participating / young minds thriving / our team is shining / kings and queens that I keep finding.” After a somewhat nervous delivery, hands shaking and faces red, he was met with high‐fives, shouts of “bars, yeah!” and joyful laughter over the thumping beat.…”

“…Specifically, the intergenerational collaborations foregrounding multimodal literacies helped reveal new ways for establishing care and respect in the YPAR space. As an example, during a literacies workshop that culminated in a hip-hop cypher, each research group performed rap bars inspired by their selected research topics (Caraballo & Lyiscott, 2018). In one instance, a group of preservice teachers decided to remix the task by forging their own piece that would offer, as one teacher expressed, "a message of love for the students."…”

“…Moreover, there is mounting evidence that Generation Z—those born between the mid‐1990s and the mid‐2000s—are perhaps savvier than any generation prior in using a range of rhetorical modes to communicate a message. From the leveraging of media and digital literacies to document movements across social media platforms to the assertion of cultural literacies such as hip‐hop and spoken word to express and affirm knowledge of one's own culture (Caraballo & Lyiscott, ; Mirra, Filipiak, & Garcia, ), many young people today are sophisticated communicators equipped with an arsenal of tools to assert their voices and offer effective responses to injustices of the world. Nevertheless, mainstream conceptions of academic success tend to overlook young people's experiences, understandings, and literacies as viable sources of knowledge.…”

Sustaining Multilingual Literacies in Classrooms and Beyond

“…The co‐constructed curriculum introduces high school students and preservice teachers to traditional research methods and explores opportunities to report and act on research results using a range of rhetorical modes, from digital literacies to hip‐hop and spoken word. Cyphers for Justice collaborators conceptualize these situated literacies as critical tools with which to address the power relations outside and within the YPAR space, and employ critical and media literacy as lenses for understanding social injustice (Caraballo & Lyiscott, ).…”