Raza Studies: The Public Option for Educational Revolution

6. The Social Justice Education Project: Youth Participatory Action Research in Schools

107 chapter six The Social Justice Education Project Youth Participatory Action Research in Schools Julio Cammarota Youth participatory action research (YPAR) offers great potential as a methodology for investigating and improving educational practices (Cahill 2007; Cammarota and Fine 2008; Fine et al. 2005; Kirshner 2007; McIntyre 2000; Morrell 2006; Torre 2009; Tuck 2009). Research in which young people are both the researchers and the focus of the study can provide critical insider perspectives into how schools produce success or failure . Young people are arguably the most important stakeholders of education inasmuch as their everyday school experiences provide a wealth of knowledge , ranging from the obvious to the subtlest interactions. This knowledge allows students and other stakeholders (teachers, families, and education researchers) to take action to improve various aspects of education, including teacher effectiveness, pedagogy, service learning, school counseling, school safety, student-teacher relationships, school climate, and student engagement , to name a few (Akom 2009; Berg, Coman, and Schensul 2009; Krueger 2010; Ozer, Ritterman, and Wanis 2010; Smith, Davis, and Bhowmik 2010; Schensul and Berg 2004). However, rarely do adults listen to the recommendations and conclusions offered by youth who conduct their own original education-based research. Some have documented how adult audiences for YPAR projects often dismiss or challenge young people’s research findings on the basis that juveniles are supposedly too young to generate knowledge worthy of attention (Fine et al. 2005; Torre 2009). Those adults who dismiss YPAR 108 · Julio Cammarota findings fail to understand that effective educational change requires the voices and ideas of students. The most important voices, and unfortunately the ones most often missing in the dialogue, are surely those of students who represent possibly the best critical evaluators as a result of their daily and long-term exposure to schooling. Education is one of the only institutional processes in which those most affected by it have the least say in its design and function. When it comes to school, the opposite should be true. Those who have the most at stake should be empowered to take part and lead in decision making. The empowerment of students through research is the basis of YPAR, thereby bringing young people into the fold of evaluating, analyzing, and ultimately changing education to better meet their needs. This chapter discusses a YPAR program in Tucson, Arizona, called the Social Justice Education Project (SJEP) and students’ research analysis of disparities between different educational tracks. The SJEP is a senior-year government course with a YPAR component built into the curriculum. Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) offered six of these specialized social science course at four high schools.1 For this chapter, I focus on one SJEP course during the 2009–2010 school year that was offered at one of TUSD’s high schools, Mountain High. I select Mountain High for this discussion because of its unique magnet structure that divides the campus into two separate and unequal schools. Mountain High offers the regular curriculum primarily for students of color. Scholastic High, a college prep school on the same campus, serves primarily white students. This overarching disparity of educational experiences establishes the premise for myriad other disparities that run through Mountain High’s “regular” curriculum. Therefore, students’ YPAR projects include an analysis not only of the differences between Mountain and Scholastic but also of the inequities within their own educational context. Before discussing the students’ research at Mountain High, I provide a brief explanation of the principles of YPAR, focusing on its potential as a research methodology. A discussion of the origins and purpose of the SJEP follows. Then the chapter reports on the students’ YPAR project at Mountain High through an analysis and discussion of field notes taken by them throughout the school year. Field notes are the primary source of data for the students’ research. Finally, I conclude with students’ recommendations for improving their educational experiences and thus fostering greater equity in school outcomes for students of color. The Social Justice Education Project · 109 YPAR Principles Rodriguez and Brown (2009) state that YPAR has at least three important principles. The first is that YPAR projects should be situated in young people’s lives so that they can understand and address the problems negatively influencing their experiences. Situating the research in young people’s experiences allows for the opportunity to use findings and research products to engender qualitative improvements in their lives. In other words, YPAR projects should...