Art-Based Autobiographical Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) in an Urban School

Abstract

This article examines a classroom-based implementation of Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) that integrates art-based autobiographical methods to support student reflection, identity exploration, and voice. Grounded in a year-long collaboration between a ninth-grade English teacher and Project HighKEY at Cleveland State University, the study documents how over 100 students engaged in storytelling through collage, poetry, and narrative writing. Drawing on student work, survey and interview data, and a teacher interview, the article highlights how creative expression served as both data and action—positioning reflection as a foundational phase of YPAR. By centering teacher and student perspectives, this work contributes to the growing field of arts-integrated YPAR and offers a developmentally responsive model for embedding participatory research in K–12 classrooms.