Transformative Learning in Action: A Collaborative Autoethnography of a Youth Participatory Action Research Lab

Background

Participatory action research prioritizes university partnerships with community-based experts to share power across positionalities. Despite the documented benefits of community participatory research, there is a dearth of research about how participatory values are implemented in the context of a research team. There is a need to examine how researchers (young adults and adults alike) engage in continuous reflection on their roles, power dynamics, and responsibilities to the communities they work with and to identify practices that support sharing power within research teams. The present collaborative autoethnography draws on the experience of a seven-person research lab working collaboratively and sharing power. It explores the inner workings of a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) Lab, highlighting how ongoing critical conversations and reflections among co-researchers serve as both a method and a mechanism for transformative change.

Methods

We used a collaborative autoethnography (CAE) research methodology in this study. CAE invites researchers to view ourselves as both researcher and participant, co-constructing shared knowledge through an iterative process. As a research lab representing a range of ages, ethnicities, genders, sexualities, and positions in the academy (three master’s students, one doctoral student, two tenure-track faculty, and one tenured faculty), we each wrote reflexive narratives in response to the following research questions: What does it mean to share power as a research team? What are the benefits and challenges of working collaboratively? How does working in a collaborative way change us and change our research? Our narratives formed 40 pages of data, analyzed by three coders using the Sort and Sift, Think and Shift process. This iterative approach immerses in the data and reflects on insights, creating a hybrid narrative of participants' voices and the researcher's knowledge.

Results

Analysis of our reflections highlighted three themes: collaboration as a source of joy and connection, collaboration as innovative creative thinking, and collaboration as catalyst for transformative change. Working collaboratively was both a source of joy and a crucial element that sustained the team through challenges. This approach led to concrete benefits, such as the generation of creative ideas beyond the project's initial scope. Co-researchers navigated tensions between academic expectations and community relevance, ensuring accountability to the youth people we work with through daily practice and reflexivity. While time-intensive, building relationships with fellow researchers was a vital part of the process, fostering a community of practice where youth and adult co-researchers grew together in their commitment to justice-oriented inquiry.

Conclusions

By drawing on existing relationships and wisdom within the YPAR team, we aimed to generate and share knowledge about team members' experiences. Reflecting on our process of sharing power, we recognized the need to decolonize how we produce knowledge. The team’s diversity enriched both process and impact, fostering transparency around values and power. Our results highlight the importance of decolonizing research methods and adopting an emancipatory approach. The YPAR Lab becomes a reflective space that strengthens research integrity and models transformative leadership—rooted in humility, listening, and mutual accountability—core principles for equitable, community-driven social work practice and policy.