Practitioners and scholars have argued that youth participatory action research (YPAR) challenges systemic injustice in education, as youth and adults research mechanisms of oppression and propose recommendations. However, oftentimes YPAR does not lead to new policies, as institutional decision-makers ignore youth's moral pleas and empirical…

Participatory action research (PAR) with youth holds potential to spur social justice-oriented change due to its explicit orientation to transform systemic inequity. Whereas youth in PAR projects embody agency in their actions, they hold less institutional power than adults in positions of authority. In addition, youth who have been marginalized…

The importance of schoolwide visions is widely accepted and emphasized across the educational-leadership literature. The visioning process and resulting written vision and mission statements can have consequential impacts on the daily life of schools, particularly decisions related to instruction, curriculum, budget, and other key issues. For…

This article reimagines the social justice educational leadership field, highlighting the leadership of youth, parents, and community. We examine widely cited social justice educational leadership publications, in addition to critical research on youth voice, parent engagement, and community organizing. Our analysis reveals that the field often…

In this article, Melanie Bertrand explores the potential of using the concept of intertextuality--which captures the way snippets of written or spoken text from one source become incorporated into other sources--in the study and practice of youth participatory action research (YPAR). Though this collective and youth-centered form of research…

This article explores decision makers' responses of surprise or amazement to Students of Color engaged in youth participatory action research (YPAR). To address this topic, I draw upon data collected from a yearlong qualitative study of a YPAR group, applying the theoretical aspects of critical discourse analysis. The findings indicate that the…

This article seeks to illuminate the complexity of youth participatory action research (YPAR) through the use of two concepts: (1) transformative agency, a collective initiative to address conflicts and contradictions in activity systems, and (2) role re-mediation, the disruption of power relations. We demonstrate that these concepts, in…

This chapter explores the influence of a youth participatory action research group, viewing the group's efforts as challenges to racial inequality in education. The authors examine how individuals in positions of relative power--teachers, school administrators, and public officials--responded to the group's advocacy efforts.

This article explores the pedagogical practices employed in the critical learning community of the Council of Youth Research in the 2010-2011 school year and seeks to articulate the ways in which the use of youth participatory action research (YPAR) supported problem-posing education, conscientization, and critical reflection. In reviewing the use…