Research with young people: Methodologies, challenges and implications

It can be argued that young people are one of the leastempowered and listened to groups in our community. Their voicesare rarely heard in a meaningful way that is not tokenistic, andthey have very little control or opportunities to make decisions,even over matters that directly affect them. In the institution ofeducation where they spend large portions of their lives, youngpeople are by far the majority group and yet are controlled anddominated most of the time. Our control as adults over youngpeople needs exploration and action, but it also has implicationsfor carrying out research. As community psychologists who wishto improve the well being of communities, we need to change theway we think and act towards young people in order to contestrather than collude with negative dominant beliefs.