Youth Empowerment, Engagement and Identity: A Participatory Action Approach to Exploring Marginalized Youth Perceptions of Their Role Identity and the Effects on Civic Engagement

This research investigates how underserved, minority adolescents understand civic engagement and how they view their roles in their community. Utilizing a participatory action research methodology, adolescent participants acted as co-researchers and were provided with a platform through which to investigate issues that is important in their lives. This research provided three themes related to adolescent role identification. The first theme highlighted adolescent identification with role that are predetermined by adults or society. The second theme related to low confidence perceptions by adolescent in identifying their roles within the construct of their community. The third theme discussed adolescents who had difficulty identifying roles or who felt a sense of rolelessness. The findings of this research suggest that participatory action research is a useful methodology to promote youth empowerment and civic engagement and highlight beneficial considerations for adult researchers as they embark on similar pursuits. Keywords: adolescents; civic engagement; role identification; empowerment; participatory action research.