Youth Voices
The Youth Voices Research Theme Working Group will focus on answering our second research question:
"What are the perspectives of youth in urban communities concerning their needs and well-being? What are their perspectives on youth-on-youth violence, how do they understand and experience this violence and how does it impact their life? What are their explanations for violence and how do they think it should be responded to?"
Specific research questions that the Youth Voices Working Group are focusing on include:
- What are the perspectives of youth concerning their needs and well-being? (This question will focus on key areas such as social relationships, housing, health, education, employment, community organizations)
- How do youth understand "turf issues" in their community? How do they understand what community they 'rep'? Do they have a 'hood pass'?
- How do youth experience violence in their lives?
We will use various qualitative research strategies including arts-based approaches to explore youth perspectives on the above questions. Arts-based approaches seek to uncover the stories and the meaning that people ascribe to their lives and context. We will train youth as researchers so they are involved in asking the questions rather than being just the object of study (Fallis & Opotow, 2003).
Key Research Activities
Four photo-voice projects with four cohorts of youth: Each project is framed by one of the first two research questions.
Participants will be asked to take pictures representing issues that are important in their lives and attach a narrative to the photos developed through critical analysis in focus groups.
Data Collection will include five focus groups (FG) and an individual interview for each of the focus group projects
FG 1: Ethics, technical skills training, distribution of camerasFG 2: Exploration of research question
Individual Interviews: Youth chose and attach narratives to their photos
FG 3: Youth share their photos with the groupFG 4: Youth discuss emerging findings from the photos
FG 5: Youth decide on an action strategy for the findings.
Mobile Speakers Corner: A mobile video booth will be constructed and set up at various community malls and events. Youth will: tape their answers to questions that are based on the three research questions; fill out a consent form and a brief demographic survey form.
Working Group Members
Community Co-Chair:
Byron Gray, The SPOT: Jane-Finch Community and Family Centre
Academic Co-Chair:
Nombuso Dlamini, York University
Ifeanyi Ezeonu, Brock University
Working Group Members:
Zorana Alimpic, Antonius Clarke, Kofi Frempong, Ben Marshall, Janet Mosher, Francis Ubah, Carol Wade
