The DATA Project: Partnering with Youth to Design a Tool for Data Literacy and Advocacy

Background and Purpose: Building Black youth’s capacity to analyze and use data in advocacy is critical to conducting participatory action research (PAR), an important strategy in democratizing social work research. While data literacy curriculums and tools have been developed, few have considered Black youths lived experience from its inception. Based on Mohammad and colleagues’ (2016) assertion that Black youths’ literacies are 1) multiple, 2) tied to identity, 3) historical, 4) collaborative, 5) intellectual, and 6) political/critical, this interdisciplinary team partnered with Black youth to build a web-based data tool that will facilitate data literacy through role-based collaboration to analyze and use data for advocacy. In this study, we present our process of participatory design, the web-based tool created, and crucial elements of engaging Black youth in data literacy learning.

Methods: In the Spring of 2022, nine Black youths, active members of an existing Youth Research Advisory Board, were invited to partner with this interdisciplinary team on the creation of a web-based tool to facilitate grouped-based data analysis and advocacy. Based on a review of the literature on role-based collaboration, the university-based team proposed the roles of 1) scientist, 2) detective, 3) artist, and 4) journalist and the use of an open-source data analysis tool, Metabase, as the foundation for collaborative design. The youth participated in seven advisory sessions where they discussed the roles, used the technology, and brainstormed features that would be useful. They also completed an advocacy project from start to finish, allowing them to identify elements that were engaging and those that were frustrating and needed to be modified. All sessions were audio recorded so the youths’ feedback could be accurately communicated to all team members. Youth members of the team were included in summarizing the results and are authors on this paper.

Results: The elements of the tool and curriculum that the youth advisory identified as critical aligned with Muhammad and colleagues’ identified literacies. The youth reported that they identified with the roles and found them useful. However, reflective of the importance that literacies be tied to identity, the youth were excited about roles that align with their personal strengths and interest and, reflective of literacies being multiple, wanted to be able to occupy different roles at different times rather than be constrained by one. Reflective of the assertion that Black youths’ literacies are collaborative, youth advisors were interested and motivated to use the analysis tool when working together to figure out its functionality. Similarly, the assertion that Black youths’ literacies are political/critical and intellectual was demonstrated by their engagement when analyzing data that represented an issue currently challenging their community and of sufficient quality to build an effective advocacy campaign.

Conclusions and implications: PAR is an important approach in the democratization of social work research, and creating equitable partnerships requires university-based scholars to build partners’ data literacy and accessible tools. This project resulted in a usable data analysis tool and the identification of essential elements of a curriculum to facilitate data literacy among Black youth.