“It is Power for Young People”: Enacting Hope by Amplifying Youth Research for School Change

Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) is an epistemology and a growing field in youth leadership, youth organizing, and liberatory education spaces. YPAR’s commitment to justice is supported by a component of social action because without action, too many YPAR initiatives close with tepid change and dreams deferred (Bertrand & Lozenski, 2023). In one suburban school community, a cabinet-level district leader with a deep commitment to youth of color built a youth research team into her budget line and her district’s strategic and race-equity based plan, effectively replacing “social action” with adult accountability. Within this manuscript, a high schooler and two university researchers reflect on the ways in which a group of youth data analyst interns learned the impacts of youth research on school change. Using artifacts from the summer such as written reflections, as well as semi-structured interviews of three YDA members, we explore nuances of justice-oriented adult-youth research partnerships. We discuss how youth leadership is discussed, concealed, and denied in learning communities; our active hope is that these partnerships offer transparency and trust to do more work together.