Future Directions in Social and Emotional Learning and Education / Issue Briefs

Opportunities to Strengthen SEL Impact through Youth-Led Participatory Research (YPAR)

Emily Ozer, Professor of Community Health Services and Director, Innovations for Youth Center, University of California at Berkeley

Valerie Shapiro, Associate Professor of Social Welfare, and Faculty Affiliate, Innovations for Youth Center, University of California at Berkeley

Catherine Duarte, IDEAL Provostial Fellow, Stanford University, and Faculty Affiliate, Innovations for Youth Center, University of California at Berkeley

Executive Summary

Social and emotional learning has recently moved “toward the center of educational curricular and pedagogy.” Yet, concerns regarding SEL programming, particularly in secondary schools, have led to calls for innovation. Specifically, these concerns encompass programmatic issues (i.e., positive effects attenuated among adolescents relative to children); contextual challenges (i.e., misfit with the structure, routines, and emphases of secondary schools) and developmental concerns (i.e., incongruence between the top-down pedagogical approach of some SEL programs and emerging adolescent status, autonomy, and identity).

In this brief, we consider how youth empowerment approaches—here, focusing on Youth-led Participatory Action Research (YPAR) in particular—may meaningfully address these challenges to better promote the social-emotional wellbeing of adolescents in secondary schools. YPAR is a youth-led, adult-facilitated empowerment process whereby young people are supported in building research and advocacy skills to study and improve their schools and communities. Youth-led inquiry guides action and disrupts traditional hierarchies to center power-sharing among adults and young people, with a focus on social justice and equity.

This brief invites SEL audiences concerned with promoting young people’s wellbeing to consider YPAR as a complementary approach to support students in addressing inequities that affect their wellbeing and limit their rights and opportunities to learn and thrive.