From Being a Workforce to Agents of Change: An Interpretive Meta-ethnography of Different Approaches to Participatory Research With Young People

A growing amount of educational research employs participatory methods in which young people actively gather and analyze data in collaboration with the investigators. Considering the diverse use of the label “participatory,” we examined participatory studies with young people to understand how researchers justify using this approach and conceptualize its purposes and goals, as well as these studies’ contributions to scholarship and youth’s civic learning. We conducted an interpretive meta-ethnography of 95 studies, identifying four distinct types of participatory studies with youth: technical, capacity building, justice-oriented, and transformative. We conclude that research that labels itself “participatory” but does not benefit the participants and their communities puts the approach’s credibility at risk. To challenge structural inequalities and power relations between participants and researchers, academic studies should better align with the transformative approach that has the potential to support youth in becoming agents of change by engaging them in self-directed civic learning and activism.