ABSTRACT
In this participatory action research (PAR) project with young people, sociopolitical analysis development occurred as an intentional pedagogical strategy in which student researchers connected their personal, micro-level experiences of sociopolitical inequities to larger, macro-level sociopolitical forces. Promoting sociopolitical analysis skills is an element of pedagogy of praxis, in which student researchers analyze community issues and connect them with an action plan to address those issues. The critical, sociopolitical activities that developed an analysis of the community dimension of their neighborhood needs assessment required high degrees of risk-taking and vulnerability, and conditions of trust and safety. Student researchers in Central Youth United were highly engaged in this component of pedagogy of praxis in which they developed their sociopolitical analysis skills. The PAR curriculum enabled student researchers to engage deeply in conversations about social and political issues they experienced, and to think critically about the sociopolitical context of their research study.
