Centering community: enacting culturally responsive-sustaining YPAR during COVID-19

Purpose This paper aims to provide insights for educators seeking to enact culturally responsive-sustaining education and research in the midst of the COVID-19 global pandemic. The authors examine what happened when the community-based Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) initiative they engaged with traditionally marginalized high school students was interrupted as a result of physical distancing necessitated by COVID-19. Design/methodology/approach Data for this inquiry were taken from a broader on-going ethnography of youth's participation in the YPAR project and included audio and video recordings from meetings of the YPAR initiative and messages exchanged between and among authors and youth. Authors used components of culturally responsive-sustaining education and theories related to student voice as an analytic frame through which they considered how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced their work. Findings Three findings are examined in this paper. They consider: how youth participants and the authors stayed connected after they were no longer able to meet in person; how youth chose to center the needs of the subsidized housing community where they lived while continuing their work; and how youth and authors navigated the uncertainties they encountered in looking ahead to future possibilities for their study as the pandemic continued. Originality/value This study provides urgently needed insights for educators and researchers grappling with how they may enact culturally responsive-sustaining education and research during the COVID-19 global pandemic and beyond.