Social justice research is popular in education, but social scientists have limited emancipatory methodological procedures, especially in scale construction approaches that empower marginalized communities in defining their own lived experience. Therefore, this study develops the Transformativist Measurement Development Methodology, exemplified using the development of the peer bonds scale. The sample (167 students across two democratic school communities) was randomly selected, then purposive sampled for optimal diversity. Across Transformativist Measurement Development Methodology’s six stages, mixed methods were used to check assumptions, set parameters, inductively operationalize the construct, qualitatively generate items, quantitatively examine psychometric properties, and examine trustworthiness. This work contributes to mixed methods social justice efforts that apply transformativist approaches to research processes for emancipatory social science procedures while enhancing rigor in scale construction methodology.

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Needs assessments (NAs) for marginalized communities would ideally contextualize needs in the sociocultural context, use agency-supportive methods, and result in liberatory action planning. This article develops the Transformative Needs Assessment With Marginalized Communities (TNAMC) using a mixed-methods approach that examines internal and external factors of needs for marginalized communities using liberatory methods to arrive at emancipatory action planning. This nonlinear process includes identifying concerns, checking assumptions, action committee selection, identifying need areas, situating need areas in context, identifying metrics of needs, collecting and analyzing data, prioritizing needs, creating action strategies, and developing an action plan. Each phase is discussed using the examination of anti-recidivism adolescent development needs in a predominately Black juvenile detention facility ( N = 87 juveniles) as exemplar. The development of TNAMC is designed to aid NA evaluators in designing assessments that integrate social action as a primary purpose of the NA while empowering marginalized communities throughout research processes.

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Purpose LeftTube – a loosely connected community of left-leaning content creators on YouTube – includes a subsection of video essayists that conduct scholarly work seemingly adjacent to critical research. Exploring this digital community of critical scholars may precipate opportunities for collaboration and reciprocal learning to better academic qualitative research approaches. Therefore, the purpose of this exploratory study is to (1) examine if and how this digital community engages in critical scholarship, and (2) initiate a call for academic qualitative scholars to watch this digital space as a potential source of collaboration, an opportunity for co-learning and consideration for inclusion in the qualitative “big tent”.Design/methodology/approach Using an algorithm-based sampling procedure, 143 videos were sampled across 23 Black women content creators. Videos were analyzed for characteristics of critical research using multimodal-ethnographic semiotic analysis.Findings Findings suggest that 11 strategies of critical scholarship were used with themes of knowledge production and ethical framework. Such results indicate that this subsection of LeftTube video essayists are conducting critical scholarship.Originality/value The most significant implication is the expansion of the qualitative “big tent” to include international social media content creators who conduct social science research. This would have many benefits to academic qualitative researchers, including learning how the studied community (1) makes critical scholarship impactful and influential in civil discourse, (2) mobilizes critical language, and (3) resists neoliberal and capitalist systems attempting to marginalize critical research.