Examining Youths’ Culturally Sustaining Peer Interactions in a Community-Based Participatory Research Initiative

This paper examines how youth enacted culturally sustaining pedagogies in their interactions with peers as participants in a multi-year, community-based participatory literacy initiative in a subsidized housing community. Data include transcripts from 53 weekly Zoom sessions held with youth participants in The Youth Voices Project from March 2020 through June 2021, as youth navigated the multiple crises of the COVID-19 pandemic, systemic racism, and racial violence. Findings provide illustrative examples of youths’ culturally sustaining peer interactions as they shared from their identities and cultures, sought to make sense of current events unfolding around them, and envisioned more just social futures.