Healing through YPAR transportation projects

Stickney, Dane, Makooi, Milahd, Moralez, Emilleo, Adler-Eldridge, Ashera, Burns, Caleb and Mcpartlan, David ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1445-8613 (2024) Healing through YPAR transportation projects. In: 18th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS 2024), 10-14 June 2024, University at Buffalo, NY, US.

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Abstract

Rationale: In Denver, Colorado, the streets aren’t safe and youth have been noticing and taking action in response. Eighthgrader Emilleo, for example, often spent his lunch meeting with his peers and even grilling city council members as part of a research project aimed at making a deadly local street safer. Ash, a high school senior, led her classmates in another transportation-related research project: an examination of the lack of school and city bus routes serving the growing school. In both cases, the transportation focus, emerging from youth participatory action research (YPAR) proved to be generative and healing for students. The more they understood how local transportation services oppressed them, the more they could devise solutions and actions that eventually proved empowering and healing.

Theoretical perspective: Unlike other papers in this symposium, these projects did not set out to explicitly implement healing practices. Instead, we focused on implementing YPAR, an emergent epistemological approach that positions youth to name problems, conduct their own research around them, develop equitable policy solutions, and work with adults to implement them (Ozer & Douglas, 2015; Fox & Fine, 2013). In this case, both youth teams implemented YPAR projects that dealt with transportation inequities. Emilleo’s class launched their YPAR project after their teacher’s friend was hit and killed by a car while crossing a notoriously dangerous street. Ash’s class explored their past negative lived experiences with transportation to and from school. Through later individual and collective reflection with university researchers—via writing, video testimonials, and online group discussions and presentations—youth described the YPAR work as healing.

Methods: After completing the projects, the youth met online with a group of university researchers to develop a reflection process. The intergenerational group, with members ranging from 13 to 64 years old in the US, United Kingdom, and Greece, developed two research questions. The first looked at what external changes the youth made. By external, we meant “outside of yourself,” like using YPAR to change school lunch offerings. The second examined internal changes or shifts occurring in students’ “heads or hearts.” Students, and one teacher, wrote and filmed video responses to those prompts, and the intergenerational group collectively analyzed the findings and engaged in regular online video discussions about their implications.

Findings: In terms of external changes, the young people noted the tangible things they had achieved. Emilleo’s group had worked with elected officials to reduce lanes of traffic on a street from four to three and pilot pedestrian-only hours. Ash’s group secured the promise of a city bus line to their school. Progress is underway but not complete. In terms of internal changes, intergenerational analysis revealed a pattern of healing outcomes. The youth felt safer, more powerful, and able to use YPAR to mediate problems inside and outside of schools. Specifically, they described interactions with powerful adults as important. The young people in these cases interacted with adults ranging from school district administrators to the state’s governor, who listened, gave feedback, and even enacted some level of change. The youth said this political progress helped alleviate the immediate anguish of the transportation problems they faced and actually induced pride. “It was so healing to have adults sit down and be like ‘Wow, you’re passionate and committed,’” Ash said.

Discussion: The two YPAR projects, while not explicitly designed with a healing justice framework, proved generative and reparative for young people. The transportation focus allowed young people to do the “both/and” work that Ginwright (2015) described: finding collective well-being in their school-based groups while also working to alleviate social oppression, in this case, the transformation of local transportation systems.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Journal / Publication Title:	Proceedings of the 18th International Conference of the Learning Sciences - ICLS 2024
Publisher:	International Society of the Learning Sciences
ISSN:	1819-0138
ISBN:	9798990698000
Departments:	Institute of Health > Social Work, Children and Families Centre for Research in Health and Society (CRIHS)
Additional Information:	Dave McPartlan, Youth Participatory Research Assistant, University of Cumbria, UK.
Depositing User:	Anna Lupton
Date Deposited:	04 Jul 2024 15:29
Last Modified:	17 Jul 2024 15:15
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/7789

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