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Focusing on research methodologies, this chapter addresses the potential and challenges of participatory action research (PAR) for working with marginalized youth communities in the context of media education and media literacy research. PAR may offer new opportunities to bridge the perspectives of academics, practitioners, and learners. Rather than conducting research on a community, it is an approach to research with communities. Participatory action research enables researchers to ensure that their academic objectives are aligned with the interests of the participants. The chapter is structured in three sections. In the first, we examine PAR objectives and detail where PAR originated. Second, we discuss the type of research questions PAR approaches can cover in relation to critical media literacy theories, introduce methodological techniques, and outline the challenges. Third, we present five principles – related to power relations, stakeholders, ethics, process, and reflection – for carrying out PAR. In general, PAR may contribute to larger changes currently observable in academia. Universities are increasingly seeking to rebrand the academic landscape, not as an ivory tower removed from society but as a publicly engaged institution. PAR provides an approach, methodology, and social justice-based ethics to support this broader shift toward engaged, community-based research.

Focusing on research methodologies, this chapter addresses the potential and challenges of participatory action research (PAR) for working with marginalized youth communities in the context of media education and media literacy research. PAR may offer new opportunities to bridge the perspectives of academics, practitioners, and learners. Rather than conducting research on a community, it is an approach to research with communities. Participatory action research enables researchers to ensure that their academic objectives are aligned with the interests of the participants. The chapter is structured in three sections. In the first, we examine PAR objectives and detail where PAR originated. Second, we discuss the type of research questions PAR approaches can cover in relation to critical media literacy theories, introduce methodological techniques, and outline the challenges. Third, we present five principles - related to power relations, stakeholders, ethics, process, and reflection - for carrying out PAR. In general, PAR may contribute to larger changes currently observable in academia. Universities are increasingly seeking to rebrand the academic landscape, not as an ivory tower removed from society but as a publicly engaged institution. PAR provides an approach, methodology, and social justice-based ethics to support this broader shift toward engaged, community-based research.

This editorial introduces the thematic issue titled Inclusive Media Literacy Education for Diverse Societies. We start by introducing our aims for developing a more open and inviting approach to media education. We argue for a media education that acknowledges a variety of voices, and that provides skills and recognition for everyone, irrespective of their social class, status, gender identification, sexuality, race, ability, and other variables. The articles in this issue address the role of media literacy education in relation to questions of in- and exclusion, social justice, voice, and listening. The issue covers a variety of critical, non-Western perspectives needed to challenge dominant regimes of representation. The editorial is enriched by the artist Neetje’s illustrations of the workshop that preceded the publication of this thematic issue.

Since the emergence of the new sociology of childhood in the late 1980s, there has been an increasing expectation to engage children actively and to take their views seriously throughout the research process. This is even more important when it comes to unaccompanied refugee children, whose voice is seldom heard. In this article the author builds upon her project of exploring unaccompanied refugee children’s lived media experiences and argues that—in order to have meaningful results and to create safe spaces for those who need it most—we need to search beyond traditional research tools. Specifically, she proposes to bring into research the concept of “play”. The article presents the use of bespoke, artisanal board games in cross-national interview settings with unaccompanied refugee children. It is argued that these creative tools can help in collecting diverse and rich data that can successfully complement traditional research methods

Since the emergence of the new sociology of childhood in the late 1980s, there has been an increasing expectation to engage children actively and to take their views seriously throughout the research process. This is even more important when it comes to unaccompanied refugee children, whose voice is seldom heard. In this article the author builds upon her project of exploring unaccompanied refugee children's lived media experiences and argues that - in order to have meaningful results and to create safe spaces for those who need it most - we need to search beyond traditional research tools. Specifically, she proposes to bring into research the concept of "play". The article presents the use of bespoke, artisanal board games in cross-national interview settings with unaccompanied refugee children. It is argued that these creative tools can help in collecting diverse and rich data that can successfully complement traditional research methods.