Youth-Led Participatory Action Research (YPAR)

In the context of prescriptive, exam-focused curricula and a dearth of opportunities for active citizenship development, there is a pressing need for spaces where youth empowerment, collaboration and active citizenship can flourish in UK schools. This study hypothesises that Youth-Led Participatory Action Research (YPAR), where students are trained to critically research social issues they care about and advocate for change, offers a promising potential solution. Scholars have evidenced numerous benefits of school-based YPAR in the USA. This research seeks to establish how and whether YPAR in a UK urban secondary school context fosters active citizenship and youth empowerment.

By theorising a youth-led framework for active citizenship development, this study re-frames citizenship education as a participatory process through which students can effect meaningful social change. Foregrounded by critical and inclusive approaches to active citizenship and empowerment, this study will build on existing scholarship by evaluating the impact of school-based interventions on students' critical agency and perceptions of their civic and political participation.

Within the project, I will facilitate YPAR with Key Stage 3 pupils in a school where significant numbers receive Free School Meals or speak English as an Additional Language. I will employ a mixed methods approach to data collection, involving ethnographic methods, questionnaires and student co-researchers. The project will benefit from the supervision of Professor Riley, an expert in school-based inquiries with student-researchers, and Dr Higham, whose research explores student leadership.

Overall, by revealing how students relate to these participatory spaces, this study will help teachers, leaders and students to co-create spaces that cultivate collaboration and critical agency. Evaluating active citizenship development will show how YPAR participation affects students' perceptions of democratic systems, citizenship, governance and identity. This project therefore offers a unique child-centred perspective on the ESRC priority 'Trust and global governance in a turbulent age'.