“How We Think, Who We Are, and Who We Want to Be”: Authentic Participatory Action Research for Social Studies

Two high school students interviewed their peers to understand what they perceive to be the benefits and challenges of having cross-cultural backgrounds and shared these findings at an academic conference. Analyzing the qualitative data through the frameworks of Authentic Intellectual Work (AIW) and Participatory Action Research (PAR), I demonstrate that while the project was well-aligned with the key characteristics of both frameworks—that students constructed social studies knowledge, learned research and other skills, took a central role in a research project, and presented their findings through elaborated communication—the project could have been more powerful if I had guided the youth to more deeply explore social studies concepts such as bias and stereotypes and more explicitly highlighted justice-oriented goals. Through the above analysis, I provide a case study of what AIW and PAR look like in K-12 social studies education and how they can support social studies learning, teaching, and research. Further, as the AIW and PAR frameworks complement each other, I propose their synthesis as Authentic Participatory Action Research (APAR), which can guide high-quality, justice-oriented social studies instruction and research. APAR can be especially effective when it is offered with focused mentorship and when students leverage existing opportunities/events in their immediate communities to share their research findings with relevant stakeholders. Given that our world and nation are increasingly polarized and fraught with social and political conflicts, high-quality, justice-oriented social studies education can support our diverse children and youth to understand and confront issues of equity, power, and opportunity. This research is a case study of such high-quality, justice-oriented social studies.