Fourth-year students in the Children, Childhood and Youth program, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LAPS), will present their honours research projects on March 29, and April 5 and 6 during a mini research conference online.
The projects, supervised by Assistant Professors Anu Sriskandarajah and Abigail Shabtay, and Associate Professor Cheryl Cowdy, showcase a wide range of small-scale community projects involving child and youth participants as well as child-focused texts discussed and examined in historical context.
The students presenting this work are currently enrolled in the course “Research with Children and Young People: Honours Research Project” (CCY 4999), in which they proposed original research, examined the ethical considerations of their projects, conducted research and analyzed their findings.
This event will showcase projects focusing on a variety of topics relevant to young people’s lives and experiences, including (but not limited to): social and environmental justice, friendships, culture, health and well-being, technology, social media, children’s cookbooks, educational texts, print culture and fairytales.
“Conducting youth-centred research showed me that the young people I worked with had so much to say; they were just waiting for someone to listen. By just giving them that space and time to share their experiences, I was able to be part of a really fruitful conversation and learn a lot, both about conducting research and about the participants’ lived experiences,” said Katelyn Conferido, a fourth-year CCY student.
The Children, Childhood and Youth program has a strong focus on child-centred research, meaning research that engages children and youth as active participants in the knowledge construction process, or that examines texts from a critical childhood studies perspective.
A cornerstone of the CCY program is a fourth-year honours research project, in which majors conduct their own research projects.
The mini conferences take place March 29 from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; April 5 from 11:30 a.m. to 2:20 pm.; and April 6 from 11:30 a.m. to 2:20 p.m. To join the Zoom conference, email one of the faculty organizers: Sriskandarajah at sriskana@yorku.ca, Shabtay at ashabtay@yorku.ca, or Cowdy at ccowdy@yorku.ca.