The Justice-oriented Youth (JoY) Education Lab is an intergenerational collective of youth and community members (ages 16-83), faculty, staff, and student researchers who center joy as the root and the fruit of our pursuit of educational, racial, and social justice through community-engaged programming and critical participatory action research projects.
Research
Community-driven, Human-centered, Participatory Action, Project-based, Arts-inspired Methodologies
We are a diverse, intergenerational research collective! Co-designed, youth and community participatory action and transdisciplinary educational and social science research is what we do best! We are first and foremost about relationships; people are the nucleus of all of our research endeavors. Within our humanizing research approach, we intentionally build deeply meaningful collaborations with youth, community, school, and university partners-centering our youth and community researchers as thought-leaders in every aspect of the research process. Our methodologies are culturally sustaining, arts-centered, and multi-modal, meaning we conduct all variations of qualitative and mixed methodologies to answer critical questions about issues of educational, social, and racial justice with the promise of a more inclusive and equitable world where we can share in a collective sense of belonging in the spirit of Dr. MLK’s Beloved Community. Our research is West Philly place-based in our university-adjacent community of Mantua.
"The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference."
—Audre Lorde
The JoY Lab strives to cultivate joy amongst our diverse community of scholars through our collective pursuit of justice in all its forms, particularly educational, racial, and social justice. Rooted in authentic relationships, we co-create community-driven programs and critical participatory action research projects that interrogate systems of oppression while (re)imagining transformative ways of knowing and being together. In essence, our mission is to cultivate joy as the root and fruit of our collective pursuit of justice.
Mission
Pictured: JoYful Powel Elementary School students gathered for their STEAMing Through Dance Winter Dance Showcase.
Approach
Popular proverb “it takes a village,” rings true for us at JoY Lab and we are definitely a village! Each project is in a constant state of growth, reciprocity, and iteration. To sustain what has blossomed into a large, diverse network of cross-departmental, transdisciplinary, and intergenerational participation, it is essential that authentic relationships remain at the forefront. Not only are we engaging in research together, we are doing this thing called life together.
Pictured: Then high school youth leader Jahyonna Brown presents at Cabrini Universityon behalf of the West Philadelphia High School Preservation Project with fellow students on their archival research efforts. Jahyonna currently co-leads the project as an undergraduate at Drexel University.
Projects
Pictured: Mr. Ronald Ray ‘73, Ms. Michelle Allen ‘71, and Mrs. Rana Goldsmith-Carter ‘69 explore a yearbook from their alma mater West Philadelphia High School.