Youth Researchers: Engaging Young People in Research Through an Activist Approach

In addition to involving young people to co-design their curriculum and/or sport programme, the Activist Approach offers a tool to involve young people in all aspects of the research cycle. This concept emerged from the idea that young people’s experiences and knowledge are integrally valuable and largely equivalent to academic expertise. This chapter aims to present experiences using the Activist Approach in the co-design of research as a whole. This study involved four Youth Researchers in all aspects of the research cycle including the design of the research, plan of data collection, writing of dissemination, and recommendations. The chapter concludes by describing some of the opportunities in rethinking the levels of young people’s participation in the co-design process and in using the Activist Approach as a powerful tool to reimagine young people’s participation as co-researchers.