Critical Youth Research in Education

Critical studies of youth play an increasingly important role in educational research. This volume adds to that ongoing conversation by addressing the methodological lessons learned from key scholars in the field. With a focus on “the doing” of critical youth studies in ways that center praxis and relational care in work with youth and their communities, the volume showcases scholars discussing their research and reflecting on the practical strategies they have used to operationalize their conceptions of knowledge in youth-centered research projects. Each chapter addresses the research features, challenges, tensions, and debates of the project; engagement with communities; and relationality, reciprocity, and responsibility to participants. The focus throughout is on qualitative approaches that are humanizing, anti-colonial, and transformative.

Arshad I. Ali is Assistant Professor of Educational Research in the Graduate School of Education and Human Development at The George Washington University.

Teresa L. McCarty is the George F. Kneller Chair in Education and Anthropology in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, and Faculty in American Indian Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.