Speculation is Not Theoretical: The Work of YPAR Moving Forward

by Nicole Mirra

Nothing brought me more joy during my years as the coordinator of the UCLA Council of Youth Research than those moments when, after politely listening to my explanation of some theoretical concept that scholars have painstakingly defined and debated across years in the academy, the students would laugh and respond with some variation of, “Yeah, we get it. We know what they’re saying—they just use fancy language to say it.” Hegemony, social capital—whatever the concept, the youth could always tap into their own identities and experiences to understand that, stripped of all jargon, they already viscerally grasped these realities—the literature just provided some new vocabulary.

I loved these moments because they confirmed the innate brilliance of every individual and took educational systems down a peg, reminding us that teaching and learning need not be so hierarchical, so stratified, so distanced from everyday life. Students would get especially bewildered when I explained the tenets of critical pedagogy, describing the student-centered approach, problem-posing considerations of power and social consciousness. Sure, they would say, but why does it need a special term—shouldn’t that just be education?

I think of this question as a I write this short meditation for a collection dedicated to speculation within youth participatory action research (YPAR). Even though I have spilled much ink exploring YPAR (Mirra et al., 2015) and coining concepts like “speculative civic literacies” (Mirra & Garcia, 2022) for the field, I am always a bit discomfited by the acronyms precisely because of what my students taught me. Shouldn’t this just be research? Why do we need so many qualifiers appended to the word? Shouldn’t research inherently honor youth and community inquiries and perspectives? Shouldn’t it welcome participation from those affected by the issues at hand? Shouldn’t it be a conduit for collective action?