Researching in Community

Both historically and in our current sociopolitical landscape, adults are given the responsibility and the power to make decisions about the organizations and institutions that impact young peoples' everyday lives, including schools. Decisions about social emotional learning—including the teaching of social emotional skills and behavioral expectations around their use—have been no exception. Even as the field of SEL has moved toward culturally sustaining and locally responsive practices, little work has been done to integrate youth voices and perspectives into adult decision-making. The Researching in Community project seeks to counter that trend by providing students with the tools and opportunities to shape ongoing conversations about teaching, learning, and social emotional expectations for youth and adults in their schools and communities. 

Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) is a transformative approach that positions young people as co-researchers rather than subjects of study. This form of critical inquiry provides young people with opportunities to identify injustices or opportunities for justice in their social realities, gather and analyze data about these phenomena, and determine actions that will move individuals, relationships, and systems toward more just ways of being (Brion-Meisels & Alter, 2018). 

The Researching in Community project works primarily with schools and community-based organizations in Somerville, MA, Boston, MA, and the Bronx, New York. As one example, at Children's Aid College Prep Charter School (CACPCS) in the South Bronx, the EASEL Lab implemented a YPAR initiative that directly addresses a fundamental limitation in traditional SEL programming: the absence of youth voice in understanding experiences and designing approaches that profoundly affect students' wellbeing. Since July 2023, 6th-8th grade students have become researchers and advocates, tackling real issues affecting their daily experiences. They have explored topics such as student belonging, feelings of safety, bullying, and student-teacher dynamics. Over the past two years—and nearly 50 YPAR sessions—middle school students have created school-wide surveys, facilitated focus groups with peers and adults, held workshops with school staff, and presented their findings to school leadership and at Youth Summit NYC. 

Similarly, since 2013, the Researching in Community project has partnered with youth across the city of Somerville to investigate questions of educational justice. Currently, the project supports Student Equity in Action Teams (SEAT) at every middle school, as well as the city's high school and alternative school. These teams include youth, educators, and Harvard graduate students who together learn the tools of youth participatory action research and investigate locally identified questions about educational justice. 

Together, this work demonstrates that effective SEL cannot be separated from questions of power, identity, and voice. By centering youth perspectives in educational decision-making, schools and community-based organizations create more culturally responsive learning environments while students develop the very SEL competencies—self-awareness, social awareness, communication, conflict resolution, and relational skills —that traditional SEL programs aim to foster. The initiative continues to expand as the desire for practices that center the expertise of student's lived experiences and social realities increases.