Fellows from the Youth Research Council (YRC) presented alongside leadership on a paper panel at the annual meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society (ESS) in February of 2023 in Baltimore, MD! According to ESS's website, the ESS was founded in 1930 to advance sociological research, promote the effective teaching of sociology, develop more vital relationships between sociology and related disciplines, and to use the tools of the social sciences to address social problems. ESS publishes a peer-reviewed journal Sociological Forum, hosts an annual conference, supports workshops, and awards prizes for excellence in the discipline. 2023 was ESS's 93rd annual meeting!
The YRC's paper authored by the YRC leadership team, was part of the paper session "Coming of Age: Racism and Young People."
Title:
Youth Research Councils: Youth-led Research and Social Change
Presenters:
Amy L. Best, Meagan Call-Cummings, Khaseem Davis, Jeffrey Keller, Courtney Bell, Giovanni Dazzo and Youth Research Council Fellows: Nora Kurtishi (GMU student, YRC alum), Sara Martah, Natale Gray, Rehana Ahmed, and Widad Khalid
Proposal:
The Youth Research Council (YRC), a partnership of the George Mason University’s Center for Social Science Research (CSSR), and Mason’s Early Identification Program (EIP), is committed to inclusive, collaborative, and transformative experiential learning of social sciences for social change. The YRC engages Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR), a type of community-engaged research designed and conducted by youth, in collaboration with adult mentors, for identification of systems-level, institutional, and community-based problems and solutions. It is driven by the local expertise and knowledge held by youth about their schools and communities. The YRC’s long-term mission is to build community capacity and racial equity through youth-generated research for local policy uptake, forge a more durable and diverse student pipeline for the social sciences; expand youth civic action guided by social science evidence, and serve as a bridge between community area schools and the university. During the pilot year, 36 high school student-researchers (YRC Fellows) representing 20 different high schools in the region participated. YRC Fellows engaged social science research as a tool for social change. Fellows spent the year documenting racial microaggressions in school and their mental health impacts through surveys and interviewing, and developed and implemented a dissemination plan. In year two, YRC fellows will build their advisory capacity to school districts and municipal governments and continue to conduct research about youth that speaks to the needs and mobilizes the strengths of youth. This presentation reports on progress and findings to date and offers recommendations for forming a youth research council.
May 25, 2023