‘Is this for real?’ Participatory research,intersectionality,and the development of leader and collective efficacy with young mothers

Abstract

Young mothers are often socially and economically marginalized, and tend to be discussed as one homogenous, high-risk, deficit-based group. They are frequently excluded from youth participatory action research and youth leadership research, which leaves little space for considering them as engaged citizens or leaders. To contribute to filling this gap, I created and implemented, in collaboration with a group of 11 young mothers, a policy-focused participatory research project called Engage for Change. My objectives included generating youth-based research evidence for informing public policy; exploring intersectionality as a theoretical foundation for participatory research with young mothers; and better understanding the impacts of participatory research on young mothers’ leader and collective efficacy. In this article, I describe the implementation of Engage for Change, highlighting the work of participating young mothers. I explore intersectionality as a theoretical foundation, and consider the leader and collective efficacy development of participants, with the goal of: 1) contributing to the sparse literature on participatory research with young mothers; 2) suggesting that intersectionality is a useful theoretical foundation for participatory research with young mothers; and 3) highlighting participants’ leader and collective efficacy, while acknowledging persistent systemic exclusions they face in exercising leadership and engagement.

Keywords

Community-based participatory research policy development young mothers

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