Enhancing the participation of young and minoritised fathers in peer research: An intersectional reflexive analysis of methods and ethics

Abstract

This article presents an intersectional, reflexive analysis of the research process, methods and ethical considerations involved in a community-based participatory study aimed at increasing and improving the participation of young and minoritised fathers, both in support settings and in research. Conducted by a peer research team comprising beneficiaries and a young male employee of a specialist support charity for young fathers, the substantive aim of Diverse Dads was to explore and address the limited diversity and inclusion of minoritised young fathers in contexts of family and multi-agency service provision. This aim prompted critical attention to questions of inclusion and empowerment for young fathers throughout the research process, including those from ethnic minority communities, as overlooked and under-represented populations in service contexts and research. Synthesising intersectionality and participation theories, we employ an ‘intersectional participatory framework’, to outline and interrogate four ‘critical moments’, and associated methodological strategies, that researchers might encounter in co-produced research with participants who are marginalised and/or minoritised. These are: (1) creating spaces to facilitate and enhance research participation, (2) fostering community empowerment through participation, (3) foregrounding minoritised voices and (4) (en)countering essentialism. Via these themes, we consider the possibilities for enhancing the inclusion and participation of marginalised and minoritised participants and explore the challenges and tradeoffs in research and practice contexts where engagement with such populations has proven challenging to overcome.

Introduction

This article presents a critical account of the epistemological and methodological processes involved in a participatory pilot study called ‘Diverse Dads’. A community-based peer research methodology, or CBPR, was employed for the purposes of enhancing the value of research participation for all involved. CBPR is well suited to this aim as ‘a collaborative research approach that equitably involves community members, researchers, and other stakeholders in the research process’ (Collins et al., 2019). Diverse Dads was conducted by beneficiaries and a young male employee of a specialist support charity for young fathers in England and with the support of a wider collective of researchers and professionals who work with young fathers, aged 25 and under, and minoritised communities. It is worth noting here that our use of young minoritised fathers in this article refers to young fathers who are minoritised according to race/ethnicity.

The main substantive aim of the study was to explore how family and youth support services can implement more inclusive and equitable approaches to service support and outreach. This focus mirrored our own intentions as researchers to better understand and address the under-representation of young and minoritised fathers that has been observed in research about young fathers (Davies and Hanna, 2021 and see Tarrant et al., 2024; Neale and Tarrant, 2024) and fatherhood more generally (e.g. Strier and Vaisvidovsky, 2023). Our dual and complementary concern about increasing the visibility and inclusion of young and minoritised fathers both in research and as a substantive agenda for support provision, was driven by the following question; how do we access, reach and foreground the voices and experiences of young and minoritised fathers in research and maximise their participation in research and practice contexts to the benefit of those individuals and their families?

Empirical interest in the value and challenges of enhancing the service engagements of these young men were reflected in, and inevitably impacted on, the peer research process, producing numerous tensions, epistemological complexities and productive insights around accessing, recruiting and engaging with populations of fathers and communities who are often problematically described as ‘hard-to-reach’. This is a language that has necessarily been critiqued both in research about ethnic minority communities (Darko, 2021; Hoppitt et al., 2012) and young fathers (Davies, 2016; Neale and Tarrant, 2024; Tarrant et al., 2024) for further discriminating and marginalising those populations.

To better understand and critically address the processes that have contributed to the under-research of these young men, the team committed to a reflexive approach to the research that foregrounded both intersectional and ethical considerations. These influenced and shaped our methodological approaches, particularly in terms of how we engaged with young fathers as peer researchers and as participants. Attentive to the complexities of peer research with marginalised and minoritised participants and researchers, the team sought to be attentive and responsive to how power dynamics were (re)produced and/or navigated through the research process, including the possible effects of decisions about who we included, at what stage, how, when and why. These questions were also pertinent to how we communicated about the study at its conclusion.

Four ‘critical moments’ (Braye and McDonnell, 2013) in the fieldwork ‘that caused reflection, doubt and hesitation… but eventually also fostered deeper insights into the research process’ (Ravn, 2019: 171), are examined in this article; moments that researchers might encounter in participatory and other research with participants who are marginalised and/or minoritised. These are: 1) creating spaces to facilitate and enhance the participation of young fathers, 2) fostering community empowerment through participation, 3) foregrounding minoritised voices; and 4) (en)countering essentialism. For each of these themes, we detail how, informed by the principles of intersectionality, participation and reflexivity, the peer research team and wider collaborative were able to engage more critically and sensitively with questions of power, representation and ethics in context of research with participants experiencing multiple marginalisations on the basis of age, gender, ethnicity and socio-economic circumstance. In applying this innovative ‘intersectional participatory analytic framework’ we demonstrate how concerns around inclusion, equality and diversity infused the study design and process. Given that intersectionality as a concept does not come with an established methodology, we show how considerations of intersectional difference came to the fore at different points of the research process and influenced the ethics and pragmatics of our methods.

Our analyses, which have wider implications both for applied research and practice with young people/parents and minoritised communities, demonstrate the importance of sustained collaborative dialogues and relationships for identifying, navigating and addressing inherent inequalities and power differentials (Muhammad et al., 2014) in impactful, co-productive research processes.

Researching with young and minoritised fathers

As a community-based participatory research study, Diverse Dads sought to work with young and minoritised young fathers as ‘experts by experience’, both to foreground their perspectives on service access and design and to explore pathways for enhancing their participation and empowerment in research and practice contexts. The intersectional character of young father identities has been observed in earlier research (Weber, 2012; Davies and Hanna, 2021). Not only are these young men disadvantaged by their young age and associated societal stigma when becoming a parent for a first time, but fatherhood is often considered a peripheral role to motherhood. Many young fathers, although not all, also experience some form of disadvantage, associated with any combination of an increasingly precarious relationship to the labour market, residence in low-income localities, housing instability, histories of care experience and/or small family and social networks (Neale and Tarrant, 2024). Within the wider terrain of youth, young parenthood and fatherhood research and practice, young fathers also occupy a marginal position because of their young age, gender and socio-economic status (Davies and Hanna, 2021; Neale and Tarrant, 2024). Adding race and ethnicity into the mix, young and minoritised fathers are simultaneously subject to minoritisation and marginalisation processes, further entrenching their absence from support contexts and research. Other than notable contributions by Higginbottom et al. (2006a, 2006b, 2008) and Owen et al. (2008), empirical attention to young minority ethnic parents has been largely overlooked in the UK, despite evidence of an over-representation of minority ethnic groups among UK teenage parents (Hadley, 2014; Owen et al., 2008). Rich, qualitative accounts of the diversities and dynamism of young and minority ethnic parenthood are therefore rare, obscuring what is distinctive about their parenting journeys and how and why policy and professional practice systems may exclude them (although see Tarrant et al., 2024).

Principles of an ‘intersectional participatory’ analytic framework

Diverse Dads provided an opportunity to challenge problematic and pervasive assumptions that young fathers, including those who are minoritised, are ‘hard to reach’ and ‘hard to research’ by developing proactive strategies designed to increase their participation and representation. Throughout the research process we developed and applied an ‘intersectional participatory’ analytic framework, which supported a reflexive approach to the methodological strategies employed, that infused the study design and methods and informed ethically driven decision-making. The aim of the framework was to ensure considerations of intersectionality underscored our strategies for increasing opportunities for both young and minoritised fathers to participate and have their perspectives heard and responded to. We remained attentive to participant reactions and responses throughout the research process so that we could adjust according to their needs for participation and expectations of the process and considered the implications of our decisions retrospectively once the study funding had concluded. This framework is outlined in what follows.

Intersectionality: Theory and praxis

As the study evolved, intersectionality was employed as a critical methodological tool (Haynes et al., 2020; MacKinnon, 2013), to guide decisions about how we might increase and enhance the participation of young and minoritised fathers. It is worth noting our understanding of intersectionality here, including how it informed our approach. Originally conceptualised by Crenshaw (1989, 1991), intersectionality is a major intellectual contribution of Black and anti-racist feminist academics and activists (Bilge, 2014; Hopkins, 2019). Developed to explain the multiple oppressions faced by Black women (Crenshaw, 1991), intersectionality as a theoretical framework offers more nuanced explanations of how various forms of oppression interact to reinforce marginalisation and inequalities. This involves a recognition that identities are fluid and multifaceted, while also encouraging deeper consideration of relationality, social context, power dynamics, complexity, social justice and inequalities (Hopkins, 2019).

As a method or heuristic device, intersectionality complicates and moves beyond analyses of gender as a standalone category to a consideration of how it is related to, and mutually constituted by, other differences (Lutz, 2015), prompting interrogation of how multiple inequalities interweave and shape research processes, knowledge production and representation. Greater awareness of how power operates within and between groups can also be achieved by consciously acknowledging and responding to intersectional power relations, as well as drawing attention to hidden knowledge and experiences and challenging discriminatory labels (Wheeler et al., 2020). As a theoretical standpoint, intersectionality fosters considerations of how, why and when inequalities may surface in research, including through the creative and iterative processes of dialogue and reflection that constitute research processes built on collaboration and partnership working. Analysis of these processes therefore draws attention to, and aids researchers and research beneficiaries, in reflecting on and resisting exclusionary discourses and attitudes. Rice et al. (2019) note, however, that there have been challenges in translating the concept of intersectionality into research methods, given the lack of a clear set of tools for research.

Keeping the question of how to translate intersectionality theory into practice, the Diverse Dads team and partners engaged collectively in a constant process of ‘intersectional reflexivity’, involving interrogation of researcher, team and participant positionalities and how this informed the research process (Hamilton, 2019). Given the complex interplay of multiple social identities and systems of oppression that are experienced and navigated by young fathers over time, the framework not only guided decision-making but also supported explanations of how some young fathers may be additionally minoritised and therefore multiply disadvantaged in terms of research participation and service engagement. From the outset we were attuned to the view that their experiences of young fatherhood are not solely shaped by their gender or young age in fatherhood but also distinctively shaped by other dimensions including ethnicity, class, immigration status and so on. Attention to these complexities were essential for developing and implementing methodological strategies designed to ensure the research was accessible and appealing and more likely to increase the participation of a diverse, heterogenous sample of young fathers.

Promoting the participation of diverse young fathers in research

As Lohmeyer et al. (2024) argue, the popularity of research and practice that prioritises children and young people in working towards emancipatory aims alongside adults, has increased in recent years with benefits both for researchers, as a ‘gold standard’ approach, and for practitioners as they design and deliver services that better address beneficiary needs. In this vein, the Diverse Dads study was designed to enhance the wider participation of young fathers, placing emphasis on researching with young men, both as participants, but also as peer researchers. Our intentions were for the participatory approach to maximise opportunities for the engagement and personal development of the young men who participated in the research.

While the use of participatory methods is not without foundation in young fatherhood scholarship (e.g. Braye and McDonnell, 2013; Neale et al., 2015; Sopack et al., 2015), peer research is an innovative methodological approach in the broader context of research with this population of young men. The ‘Talking Dads Project’ (Braye and McDonnell, 2013) is notable as a rare example of the use of peer research with young fathers. This approach brought young fathers together with an NGO and university researchers to explore the experiences of young fathers in a UK seaside town. In their retrospective reflexive process, Braye and McDonnell (2013) observed that participatory research with young fathers had several benefits, including; increasing the capacity to facilitate change for the young men involved, to ensure impact and outcomes through dissemination and in terms of the learning the academics involved took forward from the process. However, they also highlighted numerous difficulties in operationalising this kind of co-operative enquiry. The young fathers reported that they considered the peer research training to be ‘too much’ to digest; felt a loss of power when the university researchers intervened; reported difficulties in collecting in-depth data; and felt challenged by the changed power position they experienced in their role as researchers. These critiques are pertinent to questions concerning the extent to which participation in peer research leads to participant empowerment. While commonly conceptualised as empowering (Yang and Dibb, 2020), empowerment cannot always be guaranteed. Indeed, the relationship between empowerment and participatory research is often presumed and unquestioned, resting on an assumption that individuals as research subjects want/need to be empowered. This could be viewed as problematic, particularly if we are approaching participants as ’competent social actors’ (Fitzgerald et al., 2021). Peer research can be open to further critiques - without adequate training and resources, for example, peer research can be critiqued from an ethical position for its potential to set peer researchers up to fail (Lushey and Munroe, 2014). This was something the Diverse Dads team were sensitive to across the study’s lifespan, and which will be discussed further below. Like Braye and McDonnell (2013), the Diverse Dads research process provided a valuable opportunity to critically examine these complexities as the study progressed, as well as a retrospective review of our methodological approaches, helping us to better understand how and why minoritised and young fathers are so under-represented in research and how this might be addressed by offering insights into more effective research and practice to address their exclusion.

The Diverse Dads study

Diverse Dads established a new research partnership between the Following Young Fathers Further (FYFF) team, based at the University of Lincoln and the lead partner, a specialist support organisation for young fathers. An advisory team was established comprising representatives of regional and national charities and organisations that support minoritised young people including those who are also fathers. As a small pilot study, the research was co-designed by the lead organisation and the research team to address a community identified gap in knowledge about how services might reach and support more young fathers from minoritised communities in the North East of England. To enhance the possibilities for greater representation and participation among young fathers, a peer research study was designed and employed that involved supporting young men and father beneficiaries of a specialist support service for young fathers to conduct research about support provisions in their region.

The peer research team comprised two young men who had been engaged with the lead organisation for several years (first as beneficiaries of their support service, then as peer supporters and researchers), as well as a young male employee. The peer researchers received methods and ethics training from the FYFF team and were supported throughout the research process by them and senior professional staff at the lead organisation to co-design the study in a way that was informed by intersectional considerations. Both the organisation, academic team, and the wider stakeholders approached to advise on the study process, were well versed about intersectionality prior to commencing the study. This guided a shared commitment to supporting the young fathers to understand and consider intersectional concerns and their importance and significance as the research progressed.

Regular meetings were held to create a safe space for training and to explore related questions, creating a space for transparency, reflection and problem-solving. The entire team also attended a cultural competency training session, run by a local Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) organisation specialising in support for minoritised communities. This ensured the team held baseline knowledge around equality, diversity and inclusion in practice and supported informed decisions throughout the research process. It is worth noting here that the peer research team comprised three White researchers; two British and one with Polish heritage. This reflected the demographics of the charity and its beneficiaries/employees at the time, which it was keen to address and change through learning from the research. The advisory group was formed to redress this imbalance and included fathers and professional support workers from minoritised communities to sense-check decisions about the research design, as well as emerging findings.

The study was co-designed with, and conducted by, the peer researchers and included:

• A mapping exercise of family and youth support services in the region to better understand the regional support landscape in terms of those with a remit to support ethnic minority communities, young parents and/or young fathers,

• A small online survey shared with professionals in regional services, including open questions about existing support contexts and support for minoritised communities (respondents, n = 9),

• Semi-structured interviews with young minoritised fathers to explore their fathering experiences, support needs and service engagement experiences (n = 3),

• Semi-structured interviews/focus groups with service managers and professionals from regional and national services (n = 7) to capture a baseline of ‘know-how’ knowledge about the why and how of fostering inclusive approaches to practice.

The fathers who participated in the semi-structured interviews were identified and approached with the support of senior staff working for the lead partner organisation. Access through a gatekeeper was therefore the most effective method of recruitment, although it had its limitations. Pre-existing relationships of trust were key to identifying young, minoritised fathers, as well as pro-active outreach among existing networks (see also Emmel et al., 2007) but given the research focus, there was not a large pool of contacts to develop. Despite best efforts and a great deal of thought around language and appeal, recruitment materials were largely ineffective. Of those who did participate, the organisation had sustained relationships with these fathers as past beneficiaries of the service and were keen to learn from their experiences. One had also remained involved with the service as a trustee and had an appointed role focusing on inclusion and diversity. Given the limitations of time and resources associated with running a short, 8-month pilot study, three minoritised fathers were eventually identified and agreed to participate in the research: Chris, a Black British father who was aged 25 years when his partner became pregnant; Mark, an Asian British father, aged 21 years when he first became a father; and Connor, a Traveller, aged 17 years when he entered fatherhood. Led by peer researchers, the interviews with professionals (n = 3) from other local charities included one pioneering support for minoritised youth and two working in support organisations for fathers. The focus group comprised four service managers of national charities championing inclusive practice.

The FYFF team worked with the peer researchers to thematically co-analyse the data generated. This collaborative approach supported their interpretation of the findings in the context of wider academic literatures and prompted attention to intersectional concerns. Two project reports were co-written and launched at a webinar on conclusion of the study, as well as a set of co-created training videos to disseminate the learning for a national professional audience (see Way et al., 2022).

Ethical approval was secured from the University of Lincoln. Approaching ethics as situational, key ethical considerations were explored and discussed throughout the research process and guided by the intersectional and participatory principles framing the study. Ethics were also explored with the peer researchers at the weekly meetings with the Diverse Dads team, and with the wider advisory team. This supported both proactive and reactive strategies for anticipating and addressing potential concerns with regards to power (im)balances, safeguarding and vulnerability. As we later discuss, many of our methodological decisions and strategies, including consideration of ethical issues raised both before and during the research, were informed by considerations of intersectionality and participation.

An intersectional, participatory framework for peer research with young and minoritised fathers

As part of our intersectional participatory reflexive framework, we frequently returned as a collective to the motivations for conducting the study, keeping these in the frame (Ratna, 2018) when determining our approaches to the study design and methods. The participatory ethos underpinning our strategies was also grounded in a ‘political and ethical responsibility’ towards the young father peer researchers and the participants (Olive, 2018: 336), a central tenet of an intersectional reflexive framework (Wheaton and Olive, 2024).

We move on to outline and analyse the ’critical moments’ that we encountered in our research, that prompted reflexive praxis that other researchers might also encounter when working with participants who are marginalised and/or minoritised. Practical examples are described that we employed to strategically increase and enhance the research participation of young and minoritised fathers both as peer researchers and as participants. These methodological examples demonstrate both the possibilities and limits of enhancing the participation and inclusion of this otherwise heterogeneous and under-represented population of young men in research.

Enhancing research ‘participation’: Peer research, inclusion and diversity

Our strategies for enhancing the participation of young fathers in the research mirrored the substantive focus of the study, as well as the specialist suppport service’s strategy for increasing and enhancing engagement with young and minoritised fathers more generally. Driven by the practice-identified issue of a need to better engage minoritised young fathers, the research process was designed specifically to address their dual exclusion both from services and research on the basis of their young age and wider processes of marginalisation. Existing good practice at the charity included a proactive and locally visible resistance to pervasive assumptions that there is a lack of diversity in the region; a developed understanding of the regional support landscape; engagement in proactive outreach to young fathers; and a support offer designed to empower young fathers. The latter includes creating opportunities for their participation in a range of activities designed to address social isolation, educate about effective parenting skills and promote employability skills. As an emerging strand of activity, the creation of peer mentor and peer research roles, was proving popular among select beneficiaries, who were seeing the benefits of upskilling and building confidence. The Diverse Dads study therefore represented a natural extension of these activities and created a unique space for new forms of engagement for young fathers through peer research.

Given the commitment to understanding how different forms of oppression would intersect and shape individuals’ experiences of the research process and the emphasis on researching the experiences of young minoritised fathers, we had hoped to train and engage young, minoritised fathers as peer researchers. However, there were distinct challenges in identifying these young men, even as participants. Reflecting the time constraints and social contexts in which we were piloting the study, we therefore curated a process in which young fathers already known to the service were trained and supported as peer researchers and young and minoritised fathers were accessed and recruited as participants. The research process, and the structuring of the roles, therefore mirrored the charity’s progress in engaging young fathers; supporting an already promising and semi-skilled group of young fathers to act as peer researchers, and drawing on existing networks and relationships in the locality to proactively identify young minoritised fathers as potential participants.

Although participation in the context of peer research can be variable and dynamic, in this study, the peer research team remained relatively consistent with no attrition. Three young fathers identifying as White, working-class were involved in co-designing the research and were continuously engaged in dialogues with the professionals and researchers about the study design and methods. Regular meetings were held to explore where questions of intersectionality came to the fore, to check understanding, to explore the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of the research, and to consider emergent methodological questions as the research progressed. Questions of how best to recruit, access and engage with minoritised communities to increase their participation were key here. The peer researchers also attended regular research training and support sessions with the FYFF team to ensure they acquired the foundational knowledge required to conduct ethical research practice.

These spaces created the opportunity to explore tensions around power dynamics as they were anticipated to operate throughout the research. Informed by observations made by Braye and McDonnell (2013) discussed earlier, the FYFF research team were cognisant of the dangers of ‘stepping in’ too much and overruling the peer researchers. This was especially pertinent in a context where there were power differentials relating to age, as well as professional experience and expertise; we were older adults supporting young people to do research. The FYFF team negotiated taking the lead for some activities based on expertise but explored other opportunities with the peer researchers where their expertise and experience as young fathers and peer supporters was more valuable. As an example, the FYFF team took the lead for the analysis of the survey data when the peer researchers were struggling. However, they were careful to foster spaces for learning, collaboration and discussion, supporting the peer researchers to reflect on their work, to identify issues and consider solutions collectively, rather than imposing ideas.

Participation in the report writing was also tricky to navigate with a group of young men with varying levels of literacy, writing experience and academic confidence and capability. The final report comprised sections drafted by the peer research team that reported on the survey data and their perspectives of engaging in the process. The rest of the report was written by the FYFF team. Early drafts of the report were shared with the peer research team to provide comments and to reaffirm their consent to being named as authors. Time constraints associated with the funding and the need to create outputs in a timely fashion influenced the level of participation of the peer researchers in these outputs, as well as the need to ensure academic standards.

In response, decisions were made by the wider collective to prioritise activities that played to the strengths of the peer research team and enabled them to direct the extent of their participation. Where there were concerns among the peer research team about analysis, the FYFF team provided training and support. This allowed the peer research team to take initiative in deciding how to present their data, prompting innovative models for doing so. For example, the peer research team decided to present the findings from the mapping exercise in the form of an interactive map of regional service provision that was colour coded according to sector and could be iteratively added to over time. They also decided to co-create a set of training videos for professionals during the research process to capture the dialogues and create valuable dissemination tools (Way et al., 2022). These videos powerfully demonstrate that attention to questions of diversity and inclusion should be a shared, collective undertaking. They also played an integral role in designing, introducing and presenting at a webinar to launch these, chaired ‘share and learn’ sessions with professionals and featured in the video outputs. Providing options in terms of their involvement ensured a balance of responsibilities across the team and in a way that was inclusive of the varied skill sets, confidence levels and competencies of the wider team. These opportunities also facilitated the social participation of these young fathers, involving them directly in the processes of social change that affect them and others (Way et al., 2022).

Fostering empowerment through participation

Underpinned by its participatory ethos, great care was taken to maximise the benefits of participating in the study for all participants, especially the peer researchers and the young fathers who were interviewed. Our working assumption as a team was that engagement in peer research for the young fathers could be empowering in terms of upskilling, educating and building confidence and competence in research. It was also anticipated that the opportunity to share issues that were distinctive to them could foster empowerment by ensuring their say on how services could better serve them. Reflecting critiques raised in peer research and participatory research literature (referred to earlier in this article), care was taken to reflect critically on assumptions that the process of engaging in a participatory research project is always automatically empowering for participants. To manage and explore this, we engaged in frequent dialogues with the peer researchers about their involvement in the study and asked them methodologically driven questions about their views on being researchers to gauge the extent to which they felt their involvement was beneficial for them. Our aim was to balance the project’s needs with those of the peer researchers and to curate an enjoyable and productive process. The peer researchers commented that their experiences of research had enhanced their learning about the place where they lived and about the lives of minoritised fathers. They also expressed pride in their work:

it helped us to understand that the North East is a more diverse region than we thought, Will, peer researcher

I feel really proud to be part of these findings. I really enjoy doing research work in general as it is very fascinating to understand and explore certain things, Dylan, peer researcher.

Pride has been described elsewhere as a tool for empowerment (Claeys, 2021) and was one of the personal benefits noted by the peer researchers of being involved in the Diverse Dads study. Our research with young fathers more broadly has indicated that, on the premise of sharing values and identities as young fathers, research participation is driven by fathers’ investment in creating new opportunities and empowerment for others sharing similar experiences (Ladlow and Tarrant, 2023). Empowerment is also a process whereby participants are supported to gain mastery over their lives (Rappaport, 1981; Röger-Offergeld et al., 2021). In a context where the educational and employment trajectories of young fathers are typically disrupted and precarious (Neale and Tarrant, 2024) the research process created new opportunities for skills development and enhanced the young fathers’ perceived competency and knowledge. Peer researcher Adam, who was of Polish heritage, reflected that it provided a space for young men like him to have a voice:

I myself am part of a minority ethnic community and being able to give people like me a voice about what kind of support we would like to see through things like parenthood.

It is worth noting here that the young fathers were financially compensated for their time and contributions. Inequities in peer research have been highlighted around renumeration and incentives, including examples where peer researchers have been underpaid for their time and effort (Damon et al., 2017). The peer researchers were therefore funded for their participation, subsidised by the lead specialist support organisation through their formal job roles. This recognised their labour in a way that sought to be non-exploitative. The three minoritised fathers who took part as interviewees received monetary vouchers as a thank you for their time and for sharing their insights for the purposes of supporting other young fathers through improved knowledge about the lived experiences of parenting and support engagement.

Foregrounding minoritised voices

While we were unable to identify young, minoritised fathers to participate in the study as peer (or community) researchers, one of our main concerns throughout the research was to foreground their voices in an academic and professional context where they commonly experience marginalisation and/or are rendered invisible. The interviews and videos of these provided a public and visible platform for them to share their experiences in their own words, not only with the peer research team but also for a general audience. The visibility of their stories through the video outputs informed our decision to explore questions of informed consent with them and to secure permissions to name them rather than to obscure or anonymise their identities as per usual ethical protocol.

As we note elsewhere (Tarrant et al., 2024), each participant consented to waiving their anonymity both for participating in the interviews and being featured in the video outputs. This was determined as part of an on-going empirical process and sustained dialogue with the participants that was responsive to, and respectful of, their values and agency (Gordon, 2019), where they expressed their intentions to remain visible because they were participating for the purpose of foregrounding voices and experiences rarely heard in research or in practice. The videos and outputs acknowledge their names, contributions and experiences, enabling direct and public influence on policy, research and practice concerns of relevance both to young fathers and professionals. The videos not only foreground the young fathers’ voices but also place them front and centre and in clear dialogue with the peer research team. They therefore amplify the voices and experiences of minoritised young fathers and act as a visual account of the value of peer research, conversations between diverse constituents and a commitment to the emancipatory and political goals of the research. Given this decision, the study team engaged in a protracted process of intersectional reflexivity, involving reflection on the possible ‘effects’ of the research (Ratna, 2018) and considerations of the ‘politics of letting go’ (Fink and Lomax, 2016) of images and representations of young and minoritised fathers through the dissemination process. Once images are released to audiences it becomes less possible for researchers and participants to control responses and interpretations of what they are presented with. To protect the participants as far as possible, we disabled commenting on the training videos both on Youtube and study and organisational websites to reduce the possibilities of trolling and other harms and provided written context to the study to accompany the videos to clarify our aims and purpose.

Another key consideration for the research collective was how to foreground the voices of the participants in their own words, without imposing the views and experiences of a White research team. Researching with minoritised groups or individuals raises questions concerning how to ensure the voices of these communities are not re-interpreted through over-analysis by researchers (Muhammad et al., 2014), or how to ensure the ‘stories’ researchers tell, for example, do not uphold deficit, racialised notions (Solórzano and Yosso, 2002). Bonilla-Silva et al. (2006) speak, for example, of ‘White habitus’, whereby interpretations are based upon conditioning into white perceptions and views on racial matters. Delgado and Stefancic (2007) suggest ‘counter-storytelling’, or the embracing of personal narratives, to ensure minoritised voices are heard. Solórzano and Yosso (2002), for example, refer to creating counter-stories through conducting and presenting research grounded in the experiences and knowledge of people of colour, with these stories then used as theoretical, methodological and pedagogical tools in social justice work.

With this in mind, we were careful to ensure that the narratives of the three minoritised fathers interviewed were as unedited as possible both to retain authenticity and to avoid the retelling of participants’ experiences by the research team. The construction of these narratives into a coherent ’film’ was created by the peer research team with support from the lead organisation and the FYFF team. Given time constraints, the participants were not involved in the editing process. A preference here and recommendation for future research is to involve young and minoritised fathers in this process as well. Nevertheless, the videos provided a meaningful format through which the young, minoritised fathers were able to share their stories and insights about their parenting and service engagements (or lack thereof), establishing a rare dialogue with an audience of multi-agency professionals and others, in a way that involves them directly in processes of social change.

(En)countering essentialism

Throughout the Diverse Dads study the research team both encountered, and sought to actively counter, essentialism, an issue that was especially heightened in context of addressing intersectional dynamics in the research process. We worked with an understanding that essentialism is ‘the view that members of a group share defining qualities, or essences, that are innate and unchanging and inform the nature, behavior, or abilities of group members’ (Roth et al., 2023: 41). Critiques of essentialism in debates about ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ are well developed in scholarship. In our case, embedding principles of intersectionality in participatory research processes supported us to think critically and reflexively about how the research could be conducted to reduce the risk of essentialising young and minoritised fathers and to challenge, rather than to reproduce (often negative and damaging) norms associated with those who identity with particular social groups (Levac, 2013).

One way the Diverse Dads team sought to (en)counter essentialism was through consideration of, and response to, existing scholarship pertaining to young (minoritised) fatherhood. As noted earlier, very little research to date has unpacked young fathers’ experiences and/or support needs via an intersectional approach, such that existing scholarship might be critiqued as conflating ‘young fatherhood’ with ‘young White fatherhood’. The team actively sought to avoid replicating, and in turn respond to, such issues through its substantive and empirical focus on minoritised young fatherhood. Researching their experiences, in and of itself, became an act of ‘countering’ in that we produced knowledge in collaboration with young fathers that was embedded in intersectional principles. Young fathers are often treated in public discourse and policy as a homogenous group, described in deficit ways and associated with damaging stereotypes (Davies and Hanna, 2021). The young and minoritised fathers interviewed directly countered these ideas, confirming their intentions to ‘be there’ for their children, while also providing explanations of their need to navigate systems and processes of oppression in ways that created distinctive experiences of fathering for them. Teaching children about how to negotiate racism was just one example. Interview participant Chris, for example, said:

My son, he’s bi-racial, and he knows, I think from about four or five, he already knew that he wasn’t the same as everyone else […] But I know in the future I probably unfortunately I’m going to have to have that conversation with him, which every black parent has with their child […] about how once they start becoming more mobile and being out there by themselves, how in certain situations, how to handle themselves.

Another way the team sought to (en)counter essentialism was through careful attention to the use of language and terminology. The cultural competency training we undertook noted the importance of these. Both are imbued with complexities, and therefore raise important ethical considerations, especially around communicating research and disseminating findings. A great deal of time was spent unpacking language and terminology as a project team. It was determined that it was important to avoid the acronym ‘BAME’; a term criticised for lacking specificity (Milner and Jumbe, 2020), which places emphasis on skin colour, and which ‘reduce[s] the identities of victims of White supremacy to a single, three to four-letter abbreviation whilst remaining divorced from the long history of racial subjugation’ (Rayvenn Shaleigha D’Clark cited in Milner and Jumbe, 2020; 419). The language of BAME also upholds a ‘false essentialism’ (Modood, 1994) in relation to the historical use of ‘Black’. Aware of these critiques, we determined to use the term ‘minoritised’, a processual language that actively acknowledges minoritisation as ‘a social process shaped by power’ (Milner and Jumbe, 2020: 419) and the ways that individuals are minoritised by others (Gunaratnum, 2003). This concept therefore moves understanding beyond descriptions of identity categories to one where it becomes possible to consider how young fathers’ identities and fathering practices are actively stigmatised and subject to vilification, in relation to the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, class, age, religion, sexuality and disability.

Like Wheaton and Olive (2024), considerations of intersectional reflexivity also prompted the FYFF team to explore questions of positionality with the peer researchers, who were encouraged to reflect on similarities and differences they may have with the participants. Building on academic debates about insider/outsiders, which have been subject to critique for being too dichotomous (Dwyer and Buckle, 2009; Kerstetter, 2012; Pollack and Eldridge, 2015), we introduced them to more nuanced concepts like ‘betweenness’ (Nast, 1994), based on its application in our previous research (Tarrant, 2014). The idea of ‘betweenness’ encourages attention to the multiple positionalities and power relations that researchers may navigate in their relationships with participants. The young father peer researchers and participants therefore established common ground as young fathers, while also remaining attentive to the dynamics of ethnicity to explore differences in experience.

In terms of encountering essentialism, two peer researchers were young fathers who shared this identity with the three men who were interviewed. Care was taken to note that they did not assume an understanding of their experiences as young fathers based on a presumed commonality, particularly in a study exploring the distinctive relationship between young fatherhood and minoritisation. The peer researchers were encouraged to be reflexive in their interactions with participants and to be aware that they should avoid essentialisation where possible, as a peer research team who were White. Related to such nuanced complexities and returning to questions of language, Lacombe-Duncan and Logie (2021) argue for a move away from the language of ‘peer researcher’ to ‘community researchers’ in order not to overestimate commonalities between researchers and participants nor ignore how communities are complex and diverse. In this context of this particular study, we retained the language of peer researcher given the emphasis on young fathers researching young fathers, although there were elements of difference around race and ethnicity between the researchers and participants that the peer researchers were encouraged to be reflexive about.

The team also sought to consider essentialism in the context of sampling, given that only three minoritised fathers were interviewed. Care was taken to ensure that the replication of an essentialist view, whereby members of a group are presented as sharing defining innate qualities, was avoided. The co-creation of a video, drawing upon their filmed interviews, helped navigate this concern. Videoing young minoritised fathers about their experiences supported the storying of lived experiences that were distinctive to these young men and their children, a useful method for foregrounding intra-group differences and moving beyond simplistic binary generalisations and essentialisms (Goethals et al., 2015).

Conclusion

This article demonstrates the value of employing an ‘intersectional participatory framework’ to guide and interrogate processes of co-design, ethics and representation throughout research processes, particularly in peer research designed to increase and enhance the participation and representation of young and minoritised fathers. Our empirical reflections on the research process demonstrate the value of intersectional reflexivity, both as a political and ethical sensibility and approach, a tool for shaping participatory strategies in research with marginalised and minoritised participants, and for enhancing and increasing the participation and representation of a more diverse group (in this case of young fathers) in research and inclusive family support and practice.

As with any participatory process, it was necessary to carefully manage and negotiate a host of issues around how power and control was distributed, and the needs and agency of the participants were balanced through the co-design of the research process (Centre for Social Justice and Community Action, 2022). The Diverse Dads study created an opportunity to both highlight and challenge social inequalities as they are experienced in the lives of young and minoritised fathers and to analyse how these might play out in, become observable, and even resisted through research processes and praxis. The substantive focus of the study, which was community-led and responded to practice driven imperatives to develop more inclusive support for young fathers, also supported the redress of imbalance in young fatherhood scholarship with regards to the under-representation of the voices and perspectives of young minoritised fathers.

Questions of how to translate intersectionality theory into practice were at the forefront of our reflexive considerations across the research process. Employing intersectional reflexivity meant we felt better equipped as an older, predominantly White and professionalised research and professional team, to explore questions around participation, empowerment, inclusive language and the countering of essentialism with all of the young fathers involved. Yet, like Braye and McDonnell (2013), our reflections illustrate that full participation may not always be readily achieved despite our best intentions. Numerous tradeoffs had to be made with differing implications for the kinds of participation that were possible for the young fathers. We found it difficult to access a larger sample of young, minoritised participants for interviews, for example, in a context where services, who typically act as community gatekeepers, are themselves challenged with engaging these populations. We relied on existing local contacts and sustained relationships with former beneficiaries to identify participants but learnt that services supporting minoritised communities may not always know if the young men they support are fathers. These barriers to participation tell us something of the processes and contextual features that render minoritised young fathers invisible more generally, both to researchers and to practitioners. They also highlight some of the ongoing challenges in translating the conceptual tenets of intersectionality into research methods and into a clear set of research tools (Rice et al., 2019).

In such contexts, engaging all young fathers in a dialogic relationship, both as researchers and with other support professionals, proved vital to enhancing the benefits of this kind of research for those involved. Our recommendations for practice therefore mirror those for researchers. There is value in working collaboratively and in partnership to enhance participation, support, outreach and empowerment, to develop a clearer understanding of local contexts and conditions and their implications for local populations, and for more proactively enhancing the participation of young fathers in research and practice. These dialogues are transformative in terms of facilitating critical and careful attention to intersectional dynamics in research and beyond, in how inequalities can be purposefully navigated and subverted where research mirrors real world processes, and for underpinning approaches that foster empowerment and inclusion for all.