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Unaccompanied youth are migrant children who travel by themselves to the United States, mostly from Central America and Mexico. Since 2014, more than 200,000 unaccompanied youth have entered the United States, with approximately 28,000 residing in Los Angeles, California (U.S. Customs and Border Protection [CBP], CBP 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021a, 2021b). Hundreds of these young migrants have enrolled in public schools (Pierce, 2016). Schools seek adequate and effective ways to support these students’ complex needs and aspirations. Within the body of research about this sub-group of immigrants there is a significant absence of the voices of unaccompanied youth themselves, which results in limited knowledge and uninformed school policy responses. This study employed Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a theoretical framework and Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) as a methodology to foreground youth agency in capturing counter-narratives that accurately depict the school experiences of unaccompanied youth who find themselves at the intersection of race, gender, immigration status, migration, and class. The questions guiding this study were: How do unaccompanied youth, in the role of youth co-researchers describe, experience, and make meaning of educación at a justice-focused high school in Los Angeles? and (b) How can the epistemology of unaccompanied youth inform practices and policies, to ensure a socially-just education, against the backdrop of an anti-immigrant climate? YPAR is built on the idea that young people have the capacity to conduct research, generate new knowledge, and create transformational social change. This research study built on the epistemology of unaccompanied youth to inform and generate affirming and emancipatory educational practices with youth as agents of knowledge creation. This study provides the field with first-hand information that can be shared in the educational community. Abstract (Spanish) Los jóvenes no acompañados son niños migrantes que viajan solos a los Estados Unidos, principalmente desde Centroamérica y México. Desde 2014, más de 200,000 jóvenes no acompañados han ingresado a los Estados Unidos, y aproximadamente 28,000 residen en Los Ángeles, California (U.S. Customs and Border Protection [CBP], CBP 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021a, 2021b). Cientos de estos jóvenes migrantes se han matriculado en escuelas públicas (Pierce, 2016). Las escuelas buscan formas adecuadas y efectivas de apoyar las complejas necesidades y aspiraciones de estos estudiantes. Dentro del cuerpo de investigación sobre este sub-grupo de inmigrantes hay una ausencia significativa de las voces de los propios jóvenes no acompañados, lo que da como resultado un conocimiento limitado y respuestas políticas escolares desinformadas. Este estudio empleó la Teoría Crítica de la Raza (CRT) como marco teórico y la Investigación de Acción Participativa Juvenil (YPAR) como una metodología para poner en primer plano la agencia juvenil en la captura de contra-narrativas que representan con precisión las experiencias escolares de los jóvenes no acompañados que se encuentran en la intersección de la raza, género, estatus migratorio, migración y clase. Las preguntas que guiaron este estudio fueron: ¿Cómo los jóvenes no acompañados, en el papel de co-investigadores jóvenes, describen, experimentan y dan sentido a la educación en una escuela secundaria centrada en la justicia social en Los Ángeles? y (b) ¿Cómo puede la epistemología de los jóvenes no acompañados informar prácticas y políticas para garantizar una educación socialmente justa, en el contexto de un clima anti-inmigrante? YPAR se basa en la idea de que los jóvenes tienen la capacidad de realizar investigaciones, generar nuevos conocimientos y generar un cambio social transformador. Esta investigación se basó en la epistemología de los jóvenes no acompañados para informar y generar prácticas educativas afirmativas y emancipadoras con los jóvenes como agentes de creación de conocimiento. Este estudio proporciona al campo información de primera mano que se puede compartir en la comunidad educativa.

This study examines ways in which African and Afro-Caribbean refugee girls and young women negotiate and perform identity in varied social contexts. Designed as youth-centered participatory action research, the study draws from three years of engagement with a group of refugee girls, ages 11-23, from Somalia, Liberia, Haiti, Burundi, and Sudan. The research occurred in the broader context of The Imani Nailah Project, a program I initiated for refugee middle and high school girls in May 2008. Through in-depth interviews, youth-led focus groups, and arts-based research, Imani researchers (study participants) and I explored experiences and expressions of gender, race/ethnicity, nationality, age, religion and citizenship status, as well as the intersections among these multiply-located identities. This study spans a wide range of identity negotiations and performances, from micro-level interactions to macro-level impacts of dominant culture. Three interrelated chapters focus on programmatic, methodological, and theoretical components of the dissertation research: (a) how refugee girls and university volunteers pursue mutual learning within a service context; (b) how girl-centered participatory action research can serve as a vehicle towards relational activism, and (c) how broader discourses of othering shape the salience of refugee and citizen identities in the lives of refugee girls. Combined, these articles expand our understanding of how refugee girls narrate self as they participate in and contribute to multiple social worlds. / Ph. D.

Yes / Participation of community stakeholders in health research priority setting is an emerging trend. Despite this, the involvement of marginalised groups in research prioritisation is limited and where they are involved, sample sizes are small, where individuals are merely consulted with, rather than coproducing the research agenda. Without addressing power dynamics inherent in research prioritisation with marginalised groups, their engagement in the research process can be tokenistic and the resulting research agenda unreflective of their needs. This article, therefore, aims to generate knowledge on how feminist participatory action research was used to co-produce an obesity research agenda with British Pakistani women, a seldom heard population, living in deprived areas. The methodology enabled Pakistani women to be involved in all stages of the project, culminating in the co-production of an obesity research agenda that accurately reflects their unmet needs. Women’s engagement in the project led to their increased confidence, the formation of relationships that lasted beyond the research project, improvements to their lifestyles, and engagement in further research. Feminist participatory action research may be used by researchers as a guiding methodology due to its ability to improve women’s lives and develop research agendas for women’s health. / National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) under its Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) Yorkshire and Humber [NIHR200166], the UK Prevention Research Partnership (UKPRP) - [MR/S037527/1], the NIHR Clinical Research Network, NIHR ARC Yorkshire and Humber / Research Development Fund Publication Prize Award winner, Jul 2023.

This qualitative participatory action research project examined how the spiritual dimension in pastoral therapy served as a life-giving resource to facilitate healing and growth in the lives of three Christian female university students. A postmodern epistomology, social construction theory and a contextual feminist theology informed the praxis of pastoral narrative therapy. The themes of subjectivity, meaning, religious development and religious experience were the focus of this study. Narrative practices were engaged in to utilise spiritual talk in the co-construction of an alternative relational identity with the research participants. The theory of religious development is discussed from a social constructionist perspective with an accent on a personal relationship with God as central to the developmental process. The religious experiences of the participants contributed to a spiritual awareness of being connected, in a dynamic way, to God, that transformed the clients' perceptions of problems and ways of addressing problems in their lives. / Practical Theology / M.Th. (Practical Theology)

This research regarding power/knowledge abuse within the church was conducted within the postmodern social construction discourse and in the context of narrative therapy, feminist theology and practical theology. It presents a chronicle of five individuals who experienced abuse within their congregations. It reflects on the co-authoring journey of these five individuals personally and within the context of the narrative group. As part of the narrative group they came to re-author their lives around what they had experienced regarding abuse within their churches. Together they challenged those dominant structures that are so often hidden just below `sacred' tradition. In conclusion the five individuals experienced a renaissance within themselves and their personal theology of God and His dealings within the church. This renaissance has led them to seek out others who have experienced this form of abuse and to give them the hope that they discovered together. / Practical Theology / M. Th. (Practical Theology - with specialisation in Pastoral Therapy)