learning to be activists with Kristen Goessling

Feminist participatory youth scholars center relationships and care by working with young people in collective inquiry and action (Cahill et al., 2010; Fernández, 2018; Pech et al., 2019). From here, relationships are sites of tension and possibility where power, privilege, and oppression are examined and negotiated throughout the research process. The goal is not to ‘solve’ power inequities – especially across race, class, gender identity, etc. – rather it is to grapple with their relationality, mutuality, interdependence, and in-between nature within a nexus of power (Cahill, 2007). Further, power-sharing is integral to research design, ensuring young people’s ownership and decision-making power and to avoid reproducing oppressive environments that commonly exist in adult–youth partnerships with particular attention to ageism and adultism (Johnson & West, 2022; Pech et al., 2019).

The field of PAR has grown significantly in the past 20 years and with it has come the increased recognition of YPAR (youth participatory action research) as a legitimate approach for knowledge production reflecting the significant shift from viewing children and young people as subjects of research to co-researchers with valuable expertise (Jacquez et al., 2013; Johnson, 2017; Johnson & West, 2022).