Participatory Action Research (PAR) empowers young people to work alongside adult researchers to determine the purpose/scope of research projects. By naming the purpose of the research, young people have the potential to transform it. Beginning with a broad question, we worked in collaboration with secondary school students (co-researchers) and staff to decide on the focal research question. Prior to recruiting the co-researchers, we conducted an ‘exploration study’ using a qualitative online questionnaire distributed to the wider school population, to ascertain the core bullying issues. Although the questionnaire highlighted complexities in recognising bullying, misogynistic behaviour was stressed as a particular concern. In-depth discussions with the co-researchers and reflections on the questionnaire findings over several months gave us further insight into this issue, as well as the complexities of determining bullying/banter. Our research question was determined as: “Does gender bullying happen at this school?” Two distinct methodological and process-related insights arose from this work: power dynamics and the construct of time as duration and a non-linear process. This paper contributes to the literature on hearing stakeholder views as well as on actively including students in designing and developing research foundations, that is the research question, an under-explored topic in the wider literature.

This current study is located in a co-educational fee-paying day and boarding secondary school with approximately 800 national and international students. One-third of the students are boarders, and the gender divide is evenly distributed. In November 2020, during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, we were invited, by the headmaster, to conduct a study on the core bullying issue(s) in the school from the perspectives of staff and students and to work with both groups to determine an ‘Action’ in response to the research. This paper sets out the beginning of a larger Participatory Action Research (PAR) project that is still underway. Here we focus specifically on the initial exploration phase and the first cycle of research where the core research question emerged. We begin by discussing the rationale for using Participatory Action Research (PAR) and offer the underpinning definition of bullying used in the study. The paper then maps out how the research question was co-constructed and how it emerged through the PAR process. Before concluding, we discuss two distinct methodological and process-related insights arising from this work with young people as co-researchers: power dynamics and the construct of time as duration and a non-linear process.