Abstract
There is a growing argument that without including the voices of youth in the policies and programs that are directed at supporting and improving their health and well-being, the efforts made by adults to support their development and promote positive life outcomes will fail (Combe, 2002; Ford, Odallo, & Chorlton, 2003; Gaunle & Adhikari, 2010; Hallett & Prout, 2003; Kirk, Mitchell, & Reid-Walsh, 2010; MacKinnon & Watling, 2006; Wallerstein & Duran, 2006). Given the role of research in informing programs and policy, how research is conducted with youth and how youth are included in the entire research process are therefore of key concern (Alderson, 2000; Alparone & Rissotto, 2001; Camino & Zeldin, 2002; Cunningham, Jones, & Dillon, 2003; Fielding, 2007; Mitchell & Reid-Walsh, 2008). This is especially true for youth living in contexts of socioeconomic marginalization and/or intergenerational trauma (Absolon & Willett, 2005; Chandler & Lalonde, 2004; Hartt, 2010; Shea, Poudrier, Chad, Jeffery, Thomas, & Burnouf, 2013). When research findings more accurately reflect the priorities of youth, together with their lived realities, the services and polices built on these findings will be better able to support the life outcomes of young people (Kana’iaupuni, 2005; Krenichyn, Schaefer-McDaniel, Clark, & Zeller-Berkman, 2007). When we integrate youth perspectives into what we research and how we do research, our research findings will be more closely aligned with youth priorities and experiences, increasing their impact and success. Yet despite continued calls for the meaningful engagement of especially marginalized youth in the research process, respecting young people as experts on their lives, research overwhelmingly continues to relegate youth to research subjects where adults remain the experts (Holland, Renold, Ross, & Hillman, 2010; Vromen & Collin, 2010). Similarly, despite the increasingly multicultural nature of our communities, we continue to privilege and draw on service and practice models that emerge from global North or minority world settings and knowledge frameworks (Cox & Webb, 2015). In doing so, we ignore the value of traditional cultural practices and/or the innovative practices and knowledge systems emerging from the global South or majority world settings.
This special edition of the International Journal of Qualitative Research contributes to the youth engagement movement, informing how we approach especially qualitative, participatory action research (PAR) and mixed methods research with youth, contributing to the theory and practice of adolescent development-focused research. It builds on a workshop held in June 2015, focused on Understanding Meaningful Engagement of Youth in Research and Evaluation (funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada). These concerns regarding youth engagement necessarily draw attention to the ways in which we generate the knowledge that informs theories and practice. This collection of articles contributes to our understanding of the models of research required for the cocreation of knowledge and related policies and programing that will enable youth to flourish. The authors include youth, community research partners, and researchers, who share their experience of how to meaningfully engage youth in research from planning, ethics, and fieldwork through to analysis and dissemination. The goal of this edition on Understanding Meaningful Engagement is to facilitate knowledge sharing between a diverse group of actors engaged in research (i.e., researchers, community partners, and youth research participants) and to disseminate new knowledge about how to meaningfully engage youth in research and evaluation so as to reverse the flow of knowledge from youth who are often silenced to adults in positions of decision-making power. In bringing together leading and emerging experts in research with youth, and drawing on their experiences of meaningfully and successfully engaging youth in research and evaluation, our hope is that innovative practices and knowledge systems are amplified.
The edition begins with Woodgate, Tennent, and Zurba’s astute reflection on the limitations of Institutional Ethics Review Board guidelines in conducting research with youth. In Navigating Ethical Challenges in Qualitative Research With Children and Youth Through Sustaining Mindful Presence, they draw on their experiences from a 15-year multicomponent study of youth and health-related experiences. They argue for an expanded and mindfulness-based approach to research ethics that can better account for “moments that demand moral considerations and ethical choices that arise as a part of a researcher’s daily practice” (Rossman & Rallis, 2010, p. 379). Through their discussion of approaching everyday ethical challenges with a mindfulness framework, they highlight the role of especially relational approaches in better accounting for interactions with youth and their lived realities. Furthermore, their argument for a mindfulness framework encompasses safety and care of both participant and researcher, a necessary yet seldom considered aspect of research ethics. Finally, their argument for what they call “richer ethical approaches” through mindfulness and enhanced relationality necessitates youth engagement in the design of ethics protocols.
In Ceremonies of Relationship: Engaging Urban Indigenous Youth in Community-Based Research, Bird-Naytowhow, Hatala, Pearl, Judge and Sjoblom reflect on the engagement of aboriginal youth living in Canadian urban contexts in a PAR project. Specifically, they discuss their experiences foregrounding youth voices, drawing on Indigenous knowledge systems and Indigenous research paradigms to ensure culturally appropriate and respectful ways of doing research with Indigenous youth. Central to their argument is the use of relationships and acts of ceremony with both youth partners and their community. Through these relational acts, they were able to establish respectful working environments that honor youth perspectives and insights in addition to their experiences. Their article extends Woodgate, Tennent, and Zurba’s discussion, highlighting the importance of partnerships and shared responsibility in effective research approaches. Hatala and colleagues give specific attention to the integrating of Western and Indigenous knowledge systems and the strategies their team used to achieve this.
Sanders and Munford continue this theme of relational accountability in Hidden in Plain View: Finding and Enhancing the Participation of Marginalised Young People in Research. Drawing on their experiences in a 6-year longitudinal mixed methods study with youth living in New Zealand and confronted by chronic risks, Sanders and Munford share their PARTH model as a means of maintaining contact with and engagement of a group of highly mobile participants over this lengthy span of time. Central to their successful retention of participants was again ensuring that the research team respects the realities of participant’s lives and acknowledges the positioning of the study within these lived realities. Working with youth and their lived experiences meant bending the study in relation to youth lives, rather than expecting youth to bend their lives in accordance with the study’s processes and time lines. By honoring youth in this way, the research team ensured participant retention and data that more accurately reflect the needs and experiences of marginalized youth transitioning to adulthood.
While these initial articles explore ways of ensuring youth voice is meaningfully integrated and represented in data sets, Reich and her coauthors discuss ways of extending youth engagement to the dissemination of research findings. With Indigenous youth participants from rural Atlantic Canada as coauthors, In This Together: Relational Accountability and Meaningful Research and Dissemination With Youth again highlights the importance of relationships, emphasizing accountability within these relationships to ensuring meaningful integration of youth in the dissemination process. Of particular note is the way in which youth regard the role of researchers in terms of driving the research and dissemination process. This discussion echoes Bird-Naytowhow and colleagues’ integration of Western and Indigenous ways of knowing as well as Sanders and Munford’s argument that researchers need to respect the positioning and relative importance of the research process in the lives of youth. Put simply, while research endeavors may be of importance to researchers and policy makers, they may not feature as prominently as a priority for youth. It is up to researchers to balance these various priorities in ways that respect youth and keep them engaged. Their discussion of the dissemination process also establishes an important segue into Mitchell’s discussion of engaging policy makers.
In “The Girl Should Just Clean up the Mess”: On Studying Audiences in understanding the Meaningful Engagement of Young People in Policy-Making, Mitchell introduces critical considerations regarding dissemination processes. She draws on her experiences of research dissemination with deans and deputy deans from Agricultural Technical Vocational Educational Training Colleges in Ethiopia to highlight the complexities of dissemination. Through this reflection, she highlights the key points of consideration necessary to move these processes away from tokenistic and even potentially harmful activities to ones that are meaningful and that can effect change that is relevant to marginalized youth. Critically, Mitchell adds to the emerging questions of how we account for the role of audiences, and in particular, audience members who hold power in the process of knowledge uptake and knowledge mobilization.
Finally, in Meaningful Engagement of Indigenous Youth in PAR: The Role of Community Partnerships, three community partners and I reflect on the importance of community-based partnerships and relationships in supporting the meaningful engagement of youth throughout the research process. Responding to Sanders and Munford’s caution that research may not always be a priority for youth, as well as Reich and colleagues’ clear statement of researcher responsibility to the design and facilitation process, we reflect on the ways in which community–academic partnerships can ensure contextual congruence and relevance of research as well as create a strong foundation from which youth can move forward with research and dissemination activities. We also discuss the ways in which these partnerships create longevity with regard to the impact of research projects for youth and their communities.
Collectively then, these six articles bring together innovative ways of thinking about how we do research with youth and their communities, how we can better ensure that our findings are of greater relevance to the needs and wants of youth, and how we can engage in a more impactful dissemination process that facilitates greater uptake of knowledge. Simultaneously, these articles also demonstrate ways in which youth can be meaningfully supported as change agents within and beyond their communities. At the core of each of these manuscripts is a call to respect the perspectives, experiences, and agency of youth and that we honor their priorities, perspectives, and needs. Critically, such respect and honor requires not making assumptions. There will be occasions when youth will not be able to or want to give their attention to research; how researchers respond to these moments is important. Do we simply walk away? Or do we take the time to understand the dynamics of this resistance and ensure that we respond in ways that do not further the marginalization of youth. Similarly, what is our role as researchers in supporting dissemination of findings? And where does our responsibility in this process end? In short, respecting and honoring youth means engaging in open dialogue and working in active partnership to achieve constructive and meaningful outcomes. It also often means extending ourselves both in terms of how we understand research, ethics, youth, participation, and dissemination and to persist in critical questioning of normative assumptions around these terms.