Being In-Between: Participatory Action Research as a Tool to Partner With and Learn About Emerging Adults

The "in-between'' position of emerging adults (EAs) aligns with the in-between position of participatory action research (PAR), where individuals are both participants and researchers. Through PAR, academics and participants partner in a cyclical process of exploration, knowledge construction, and action. EAs' foray into diverse social contexts, broadening emotion regulation capacities, and neurological maturation provides EAs with metacognitive abilities to reflect on complex social interactions. Research aimed at understanding EAs can benefit from utilizing the increased capacities of EAs by involving them in designing, executing, and interpreting the findings through methodologies like PAR, thus increasing its ecological validity (or quality as defined in PAR contexts). This article outlines the utility of PAR in studying both common and understudied issues and populations relevant to EAs and provides a case study to illustrate a PAR project on intersectionality and microaggressions among an undergraduate population at an institution of higher education in the United States.