Doing Research on Young People with Young People: Co-Productions, Co-Authoring and Collaborations

In Youth Studies, the importance of listening carefully to what young people say and ‘youth voices’ is fundamental. Increasingly, attention is being given to including young people in the research process from start to finish, rather than them being simply subjects under study or participants in qualitative work. Some innovative research projects include young people in the design and development of studies right from the outset, in pilots and later on. Other research projects involve young people in the writing process, for example, drafting scientific texts with researchers, reviewing, or commenting on texts with remarks being published adjacently. In this way, we are witnessing a growth in creative and collaborative inter-generational scientific work on young people with young people, which provides a new approach to providing an authentic ‘youth voice.’

This session seeks to explore how youth researchers are already including and can include young people in the research and publication process as co-authors, collaborators and co-producers.

Papers discuss not only how collaborative intergenerational research can done based on concrete experiences, but also the advantages and disadvantages of such an approach, as well as useful guidance on issues, such as ethics, time-division and rewarding young people for their time.

The organizers of this session are involved in collaborative work on young people with young people, especially regarding young activists. We look forward to rich exchanges on doing research on young people with young people as co-productions, co-authoring and collaborations in various youth-centered fields.