This article sketches a participatory action research project, Polling for Justice (PFJ), which was designed by youth and adults in New York City to evaluate the impact of neo-liberal public policies on young people. PFJ examined young people’s experiences of urban public policy using a critical participatory research approach in which young people had power to shape inquiry into their experiences, decide how to interpret the findings, and then take a lead role in action, in part through radically inverting conventional understandings of who/what should be held accountable. Using the story of PFJ, the authors propose that reconsidering accountability at the point of knowledge production is generative for reimagining, and realizing a more just world.
Fox, M., & Fine, M. (2013). Accountable to whom? A critical science counter-story about a city that stopped caring for its young. Children & Society, 27(4), 321-335.
Full Text.