ENGAGING YOUTH AS SCHOLAR LEADERS

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ENRIQUE ALEMÁN, JR. AND LISA MENDOZA KNECHT

ENGAGING YOUTH AS SCHOLAR LEADERS

“I am a lot more confident now when it comes to speaking up in front of a lot of people because [of my experience at AERA in] Chicago. We had to present in front of a bunch of people. So when I came back and one of the teachers was like, ‘Hey, you can present in front of the class.’ I was like, ‘Okay, sure.’ But if it was ‘last year me,’ I would’ve been like, ‘No way. You can ask someone else or something. I’m not going to present in front of all those, in front of all those kids.’ But going to Chicago and having to tell a lot of people about my project really made me more confident.

McCollum High School sophomore student

During the 2021-22 school year, the Trinity Youth Scholars (TYS) program was initiated between a team of university researchers and a local high school. The goal of the partnership is to engage youth in community-based research projects that will increase their civic engagement and prepare them for their transition to college. Conceptualized and implemented as a youth participatory action research (YPAR) project, TYS also seeks to understand how a culturally responsive curriculum can shape critical consciousness by engaging youth in community-based research projects that they design. Consisting of after school sessions, university and city field trips, guest speakers, and faculty and college student mentors, the partnership is now

in its third year of operation at McCollum High School. Located in Harlandale ISD, the southside school district has a student enrollment of approximately 12,000 students, and is 97.9% Latina/o/x and 85.4% economically disadvantaged, 100% of students receive free lunch. The high school mirrors the district’s student population in terms of student demographics.

YPAR AS A PATHWAY TO HIGHER EDUCATION

Schools in San Antonio are historical remnants of segregation, and continue to operate in under-resourced and inequitable systems, especially on the city’s westside and southside (Cardenas, 1997). It is for this specific reason that the TYS partnership sought to

partner with teachers and youth from these neighborhoods and communities. Seeking to provide an innovative way to combat student disengagement, the partnership is community-based and youth-centric in its pedagogical and curricular approach. By shaping and developing the critical consciousness of youth, the after-school program also inculcates youth with an awareness of college and higher educational pathways.

Scholars note that YPAR is a critical strategy for youth development, youth-based policy making, community organizing and education (Cammarota & Fine, 2008). This approach centers youth voices and lived experiences, and youth development is enacted through social and emotional development. As students engage in research, they develop understandings of their social

world and are well positioned to inform educational practice and create change in their community (Caraballo, et al., 2017).

YPAR also offers teachers the opportunity to broaden their understanding of curriculum and pedagogy for historically marginalized students, whose voices and lived experiences are often left out of traditional curriculum and pedagogical practices (Caraballo, et al., 2017). During TYS sessions and embedded in student activities, youth are encouraged to speak and write in the languages in which they are most comfortable, and to express their perspectives on the various educational, community and social issues that are impacting their lives.

YPAR is also a research process where youth learn how to study problems and find solutions to them (Cammarato and Fine, 2008). It is research for action where students work as a collective, engaging in continuous dis-

cussion and reflections with each other about problems they identify as critical. Over the first two years of the program, students have completed projects related to immigration, school culture, funding for college, racism, LGBTQIA+ discrimination, and mental health for high school students. A graduating senior who participated in TYS for two years stated: Ireallylikedhavingthewholeexperienceoffeelingthatyouhave peoplewhosupportyou,andpeoplewhospeakthesamelanguageas you.And[Iliked]beingabletotalk aboutwhatmatterstoyou,ortalk abouthowyoufeelaboutdifferent [socialjustice]issues.Anditwas oneofthebestexperiencesthatI hadduringmytimeattheschool.

While recognizing the importance of leadership programs for future school leaders and administrators, the CEL is also striving to learn more about teacher and student leadership as they engage in YPAR. Therefore, TYS is an example of how the CEL is expanding its practice and research surrounding teacher and student leadership (Wenner & Campbell, 2017; Mitra, 2006, 2008). By centering the voices and ideas of youth, in collaboration with teachers who are committed to their academic, social and critical consciousness development, TYS is attempting to cultivate forms of youth and teacher leadership that are present in schools.

Trinity University campus visit, Spring 2023 ←

LESSONS LEARNED IN OUR FIRST TWO YEARS

TYS conducts after school sessions and facilitates activities on Tuesdays and Fridays at McCollum High School. Several field trips have been organized, including two visits to Trinity University and participation in the Cesar Chavez March in downtown San Antonio. Our guest speakers have included City Councilwoman Terri Castillo, Harlandale ISD Director of Counseling, Mr. Brian Jacklich, and Trinity University Professor of Spanish, Dr. Rita Uriquijo-Ruiz. During our first visit to the university, youth presented their final research projects to the group and took a guided tour of the campus.

Last year, as part of our second visit to Trinity’s campus, youth attend-

ed a “U.S. Latinx Experience” course taught by Murchison Distinguished Professor of Humanities, Dr. Norma E. Cantú, where they participated in discussion with Trinity undergraduate students. The campus visit concluded with a college student panel made up of undergraduates, most of whom are first-generation, Latina/o/x students. Also in our second year, TYS was one of sixteen youth research teams awarded a competitive American Educational Research Association (AERA), Youth Teams in Education Research (YTER) grant. As the premiere national and international research association, AERA and the YTER initiative brought high school students together to present their research projects in an electronic poster session alongside other youth

teams from across the U.S., Canada and Spain. The TYS team, which included six high school youth students, two McCollum teachers and one Trinity undergraduate mentor, showcased youth research findings during the April 2023 annual AERA meeting that was held in Chicago, Illinois.

Finally, as part of our ongoing desire to learn from our research on youth development and partnership building, the TYS Trinity team interviewed youth who participated in the program in the first two years. In asking the youth to share their experiences with participating in the partnership and to reflect about the process of conducting their research projects, we learned several key lessons.

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Youth group analyzing data on their “Mental Health for High School Youth” project

← TYS Group with Trinity Professor Dr. Rita Urquijo-Ruiz

TYS Youth Researchers Presenting at AERA in Chicago, Illinois

THREE KEY LESSONS

1. Youth consistently identify and understand critical social issues that impact their lives . In each of the first two years, we facilitated discussions and activities that enabled youth to choose their topics of research. As stated prior, topics included understanding the impact and effects of mental health on high school youth, combatting racism, critiquing a lack of access to college, and telling the stories of immigration that many of our students have experience with. One student, a senior who was struck by the differences in infrastructure he noticed when participating in the Cesar Chavez March across downtown San Antonio explained how his topic of studying neighborhood sidewalks seemed insignificant at first in comparison to his peers’ topics. However, attending the march helped him realize the importance of his topic as it addressed inequities in infrastructure investments within his community. He chose his topic, “Because I feel like it relates to me, because [walking on the sidewalk is] a daily routine of me going to school and then going back home…But then when we went downtown and I started comparing [the differences in infrastructure], taking pictures [of the differences], I was like, ‘Naw, this is a big topic.’” His topic, and the topics of the group, led to critical discussions on city resources, systemic inequities in various communities, and the importance of providing spaces for youth to question and explore their own interests.

2. Youth spaces for processing, unpacking and dialoguing are important for developing critical consciousness. Students shared how TYS provided them with a space to discuss topics that were important and relevant to them and their communities. A space to discuss and deconstruct topics that were important to them, without the fear of being judged or censored, emerged frequently from our interviews. One student shared, “At first, I was kind of nervous because I was going to meet more people, but then I saw that when I could express what I was feeling or [talk about] the things that were happening in my topic [and I felt more comfortable]. Everybody else was saying what they think about it, and everybody was really honest. I really felt like it was a place where I could be and say the truth without being judged. So I feel like that’s a safe space.”

3. Youth cite mental health resources as a top priority and significant topic that they and many of their peers are contending with. Youth expressed a need for dialogue with regard to mental health services and discussed how adults’ responses towards these needs were not always positive. One student explained, “By talking about mental health, because I feel like because of this pandemic we had or have, a lot of people really didn’t support their kids or believe them because they were like, ‘We’re fine. We’re just living in a pandemic.’ But no, people actually go through mental illness, and we need to talk more about that, more stuff about that.” Youth stressed the need and importance for more opportunities to discuss mental health issues within the school day without the fear of stigma or minimization of their feelings and experiences. They expressed a need for more mental health resources and for strategies that they could apply and practice. Dialoguing with teachers and their families was another finding that emerged frequently with youth.

GROWING AND SUSTAINING YOUTHCENTRIC PARTNERSHIPS

The TYS team continues to learn with and from our youth participants, and to work with teacher leader, Ms. Natalie Clifford. Partnerships - if created as authentic and mutually-beneficial - are difficult to sustain and grow (Delgado Bernal & Alemán, 2016; Rodriguez, 2019). As we continue planning and implementing programming in our third year, sustainability and growth are challenges that we are continuously contending with. Ten seniors graduated from last year’s cohort, thus the recruitment and onboarding of new students who are interested in this work is high on our list of priorities. We are also aiming to incorporate more college mentors at our site, two of whom are recent McCollum high school graduates and who are now returning as college mentors. We added a second teacher fellow, Ms. Jonlivia Martinez, to help support our original teacher partner, a move that will assist us in sustaining and building on the success of our curricular advancements. Additionally, we are increasing the number of guest speakers for the various weekly workshop sessions so that students have a better understanding of the research process.

With all of our successes, we are also aware that weekly TYS sessions at the school site do not always provide enough time to collaborate and that authentic and sustainable university-school partnerships require consistent planning and time to reflect, revise and enact. There is no fixed timeframe for effectively facilitating discussions on complex issues and for building rapport and trust with students and a school community that is challenged by systemic inequities outside the control of its local leaders. Cultivating spaces and coordinating learning sessions that promote deep and authentic dialogue takes consistent attention and continuous efforts at relationship building. As part of our twice-weekly sessions,

we attempt to implement planning meetings with teachers where we have opportunities to debrief, reflect and brainstorm with each other - but this remains difficult in the course of already busy and overscheduled teacher and mentor lives.

Regardless of the challenges, our work thus far is indicating that creating spaces for youth to collectively address issues that directly impact their lives is resulting in youth development, youth organizing, self-efficacy and community action. Youth are aspiring to college, and they are articulating a desire for spaces where their voices are centered. Our co-created curriculum is fluid; however, it is also responsible and relevant to the youth from this community. The TYS team will continue to chronicle this university-school partnership journey as we attempt to understand the phenomenon of critical conscious development and educational empowerment across K-12 and higher educational contexts. Our research with youth in this community is helping us understand how YPAR infused in youth-led community-based partnerships can be an example of how student engagement with youth can impact and change a school and afterschool community. One of the TYS graduating seniors from last year perhaps stated it best when they responded to a question about their participation:

Thetruthis,[myparticipationin TYShasgivenme]opportunities thatIhavetomeetpeoplewho perhapsthinkthesameasmeor thinkdifferentlythanme,butare stillprofessionalsinwhatthey do.Andthatinspirationthatthey giveusthroughgettingtoknow them, in how we can be more confident,morecapableofdoing whatwefeel.Inotherwords,that theytellus:‘Followyourdreams,’ thattheycontinuetomotivateus everyday,thattheydonotstop motivatingus.

AERA Annual Conference ←

REFERENCES

Caraballo, L., Lozenski, B. D., Lyiscott, J. J., & Morrell, E. (2017). YPAR and critical epistemologies:Rethinking education research. Review of Research in Education, 41(1), 311-336.

Cardenas, J. A. (1997). Texas School Finance Reform: An IDRA Perspective. IDRA, 5835 Callaghan, Suite 350, San Antonio, TX 78228-1190.

Cammarota, J., & Fine, M. (2008). Youth participatory action research. Revolutionizing education: Youthparticipatory action research in motion, 1-12.

Delgado Bernal, D. & Alemán, E., Jr. (2016). Transforming educational pathways for Chicana/o students: A critical race feminista praxis. Teachers College Press.

Mitra, D. L. (2008). Amplifying student voice. Educational Leadership, 66(3), 20-25.

Mitra, D. (2006). Increasing student voice and moving toward youth leadership. The prevention researcher, 13(1), 7-10.

Rodriguez, L. F. (2019). Community-based participatory research: Testimonios from Chicana/o studies. University of Arizona Press.

Wenner, J. A., & Campbell, T. (2017). The theoretical and empirical basis of teacher leadership: A review of the literature. Review of educational research, 87(1), 134-171.

Trinity Youth Scholars End of Year 2023 Celebration ←

Cesar Chavez March, San Antonio ←

in Chicago, Illinois