YPAR as Process

Supporting Youth Development Through Youth Participatory Action Research

By Sally Neas, Steven Worker, Car Mun Kok, & Dorina Espinoza

As a new Latina immigrant to the United States, Julia remembered feeling devalued and marginalized because she did not speak English: “People … tell you that you are less for not knowing how to speak the language, because this is a country where only that [English] language is spoken.” Julia then enrolled in a Spanish-facilitated youth participatory action research (YPAR) program, in which she and her peers designed and analyzed a survey on how other immigrant students had learned English.