Youth Involvement in Participatory Action Research (PAR)

Abstract

Participatory Action Research (PAR) has been increasingly viewed as an effective strategy to enhance youth, community-based organizations that serve youth, and broader communities. However, young people have not been frequently involved in research and evaluation efforts as co-researchers or partners. This paper explored major challenges and barriers to the active engagement of youth identified in previous PAR projects. This critical literature review revealed relational, scientific, and ethical challenges. The relational challenges included a lack of trust and unequal power relationships between youth participants and adult researchers. The scientific issues were significantly associated with the major components of the PAR, such as transformative purposes, iterative processes, and flexible methods. Finally, significant ethical issues are identified in terms of potential risks to youth, confidentiality, and informed consent. This paper concludes with specific recommendations for effective strategies to deal with the challenges and barriers identified and possible directions for future research.

Keywords

• participatory (action) research
• community-based participatory research
• youth involvement
• youth empowerment
• research ethics