Confronting the Urban Civic Opportunity Gap: Integrating Youth Participatory Action Research Into Teacher Education

This article considers how youth participatory action research (YPAR) can be used to build the civic teaching capacities of preservice teachers working in urban settings. In the final semester of an urban-focused teacher education program, preservice teachers led YPAR programs in the urban schools in which they student-taught the previous semester. This article analyzes what preservice teachers learn through the process of YPAR. Specifically, we found that YPAR supported teacher learning in three areas: cultivating student-centered teaching practices, observing and documenting students' strengths and capacities, and developing new understandings of the structural inequalities that shaped the lives of the students in urban schools. Drawing on data collected over the past 6 years, we argue that leading children and young people in participatory action research projects can contribute to the creation of the transformative civic educators so sorely needed in urban settings.