Education Commons^™

Participatory Action Research In Schools: Unpacking The Lived Inequities Of High Stakes Testing, Tiffany A. Dejaynes, Tabatha Cortes, Israt Hoque

Publications and Research

Purpose – This paper aims to examine a school-based Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) project on educational inequity and high stakes testing.

Design/methodology/approach – A former high school teacher (currently a university professor) and two former students (currently research assistants and university students) take up a youth studies framework to collaboratively resee multimodal artifacts from a tenth-grade course in qualitative research.

Findings – Findings illustrate the power of finding allies in peers and educators; the transformative power of deep participation; and the longitudinal nature of social change and action. Thus, this research demonstrates that when students are positioned as researchers, …

Transforming School Hallways Through Critical Inquiry: Multimodal Literacies For Civic Engagement, Tiffany A. Dejaynes, Christopher Curmi-Hall

Publications and Research

The authors examined the research and activism of 10th graders (ages 15–16) involved in a youth participatory action research project in a course in qualitative research at their small public school in New York City, New York. The authors, a classroom researcher and a high school teacher, looked closely at how the youth researchers used photography, collage, and videography to transform their school hallways into a space for critical conversations about race and gender. The authors examined how the hallways became a civic space shaped by collective youth resistance, multimodal counterstories, and negotiated civic engagement.

Youth Researchers Wrestling With Gender And Sexuality, Tiffany A. Dejaynes

Publications and Research

Working in research teams, public school students in New York approaches questions about gender identities and sexualities and then, based on their findings, advocated for institutional reforms.

Insiders Doing Par With Youth In Their Schools: Negotiating Professional Boundaries And Healing Justice, Kathryn Herr

Department of Educational Foundations Scholarship and Creative Works

In this essay, I explore my experiences as a practitioner researcher collaborating with my students on a participatory action research project aimed at institutional change. I take up two areas: blurring the boundaries of professionalism in working toward authentic collaborations with students, and secondly, incorporating perspectives of ‘healing justice’ into school-based youth participatory action research (YPAR). I first provide a framework by delineating the emancipatory aims of YPAR and how these may be at odds with much of the research teachers/practitioners currently conduct in their school sites. While ultimately acknowledging the risks in taking up emancipatory change efforts as insiders, …

Youth As Cosmopolitan Intellectuals, Tiffany A. Dejaynes, Christopher Curmi

Publications and Research

Two high school teachers examine classroom moments that position youth as cosmopolitan intellectuals and invested community members as opposed to disengaged and disaffected adolescents.