Oral Presentation Session

Reviewed by: Council on Anthropology and Education

Of interest to: Practicing and Applied Anthropologists, Teachers of Anthropology in Community Colleges, Students, Those Involved in Mentoring Activities

Primary Theme: Teaching

Secondary Theme: Identity and Equity

(4-0120) Imagining Social Change through Participatory Action Research with Students

This panel explores the relationships between student learning and identity when using participatory action research (PAR) as not only a research method, but also a pedagogical approach (Kahne and Sporte 2008; Levinson 2005; Whitman 2007). Each of the papers begins with the premise that PAR must fundamentally engage in research with students, rather than solely conducting research about students or for students (Paris and Winn 2014). Thus, a second aim of this panel is to add to a growing body of research theorizing the pedagogical implications of using PAR with minoritized youth, including an analysis of the politics of representation (Tuck and Yang 2017). Guided by this year’s theme, this panel of researchers considers how PAR can best provide young people opportunities to analyze and engage with inequitable distributions of power and resources (Cammarota and Fine 2008; Clements 2005). Moreover, this panel will look at how PAR fosters the collective imagining of different possible futures vital for community and social change (Ginwright 2008). Ultimately, the panel seeks to advance PAR as a way of of engaging with students to reshape a more just and equitable world.

Liu’s paper will explore an afterschool program and consider how students use science to reimagine their schools and communities. The focus will be on analyzing how students think about the academic communities they will inhabit as future scientists. Tokunaga’s paper reflects on the development of an afterschool program at a part-time high school in Tokyo, which aims to empower immigrant youth and co-create ibasho (places where one feels comfortable, safe, and accepted) with young people. Tokunaga explores the possibilities and challenges of community engagement and collaboration among high school, NPO, and university participants. Evan’s paper is based on a critical literacy picture book analysis conducted with a group of six diverse teenage girls. Through their analysis, the girls found personal and community insights, galvanizing them to undertake a further examination of representation in popular culture. Abad’s paper focuses on how Latinx and Vietnamese youth and youth workers engage with the notion of “college and career readiness.” Specifically, Abad interrogates how the interlocutors come to understand, grapple with, and resist notions of respectability politics as they engage with practices associated with college and career readiness. Lucko’s paper considers the possibilities and challenges of using PAR with Latinx youth as a pedagogical approach to promote civic engagement with middle school students in schools. In her paper, Lucko considers the intertwined demands teachers face as they grapple with the complexity of teaching academic content standards while also striving to prepare students to become democratically engaged citizens. Vasudevan’s paper examines how the co-creation of youth-led spaces shifted youths’ positioning within an urban public high school and gave rise to opportunities for student leadership. In doing so, Vasudevan explores how youths’ relationships with peers, educators, and the school community shifted. Together, these papers will examine how both students and panel members make sense of their worlds thorough PAR as we work together to reinvent places of learning.

Presenter(s)

• Tomoko Tokunaga

  Lecturer
  Gunma Prefectural Women's University

• Miguel Abad

  PhD Student
  University of California, Irvine

• Jennifer Lucko

  Associate Professor
  Dominican University of California

• Veena Vasudevan

  Postdoctoral Fellow, Children and Family Learning
  American Museum of Natural History

• Sarah Evans

  Assistant Professor
  Texas Woman's University

Organizer(s)

• David Liu

  PhD Student
  University of California, Irvine

Chair(s)

• David Liu

  PhD Student
  University of California, Irvine

Presenter(s)

• David Liu

  PhD Student
  University of California, Irvine

Discussant(s)

• Andrea Dyrness

  Associate Professor
  University of Colorado, Boulder

Presentations:

• 8:00 AM - 8:15 AM

  Exploration of Collaborative Ibasho Creation Project with Youth in Tokyo: Using Participatory Action Research
  Tomoko Tokunaga – Gunma Prefectural Women's University
• 8:15 AM - 8:30 AM

  Engaging with the Hidden Transcripts of Equity Focused Educational Sites
  Miguel N. Abad – University of California, Irvine
• 8:30 AM - 8:45 AM

  Positionality and Power in PAR: Exploring the Competing Motivations of PAR Stakeholders with Latinx Middle School Students in Northern California
  Jennifer D. Lucko – Dominican University of California
• 8:45 AM - 9:00 AM

  Organizing In School: How an ethos of Youth Development Can Catalyze Social Change
  Veena Vasudevan – American Museum of Natural History
• 9:00 AM - 9:15 AM

  We Need People to be Woken Up and See This! Teens Learning Through Critical Textual Analysis
  Sarah Amber Evans – Texas Woman's University
• 9:15 AM - 9:30 AM

  What problem is in our ecosystem? Participatory Action Research through Using and Producing Scientific Practice to Improve the Community
  David D. Liu – University of California, Irvine
• 9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

  Discussion
  Andrea E. Dyrness – University of Colorado, Boulder