Resistance and compromise: an emerging framework for evaluating impact in youth-led research

Motivated by a political environment in the United States growing more hostile to issues around social justice, we conducted a systematic review in 2024 of international youth-led research and its impact on policy change. Within our results, we identified several youth-led projects that, while not impacting policy directly, engaged in innovative acts of resistance that indirectly fought for change across a spectrum of anarchist methods and calculated compromise. Building on the results of our systematic review, this descriptive article examines four examples of indirect impact and resistance from multiple countries and contexts to consider ways that youth-led research can serve as a site of advocacy and change even when policy contexts are less welcoming to youth expertise and influence. Our descriptive synthesis of these four studies posits that, for researchers, impacting policy directly requires negotiation and compromise. For some youth, this is untenable, and direct policy impact is not viable; for others, these mechanisms are acceptable if it means achieving desired outcomes. The role of adult allies, then, is to help youth navigate what we call the ‘continuum of compromise’, a framework for supporting youth in realistically examining their contexts, establishing meaningful goals for their research, and achieving tangible outcomes.