Particular strategies are effective in researching with marginalized youth for social and educational change. 1 From voice to agency: Guiding principles for participatory action research with youth Louie F. Rodríguez, Tara M. Brown IN THE LIBERACE OF BAGHDAD, filmmaker Sean McAllister chroni- cles the life of pianist Samir Peter in war-ravaged Iraq. 1 After an anxious drive along Baghdad’s dangerous airport road, Peter and McAllister arrive at the family compound, with its relative safety. With his camera fixed on them, McAllister asks Peter’s two grown daughters if now, with the fall of the repressive Baath regime, they feel free to express their political opinions. They respond, “No! Who will listen to us? Who will hear us?” In other words, they were asking, who can make their voices matter. This captures the contextual limitations of voice alone as a tool for empowerment and sociopolitical change. In this article, we take up the issue of shifting the role of marginalized youth from simply giving voice to one of becoming change agents through educational research. We outline principles that can effectively guide this process, drawing on tenets of participatory action research (PAR) and our research with youth. First, we discuss student voice research and explain some of the ways in which we feel that it has neither 19 NEW DIRECTIONS FOR YOUTH DEVELOPMENT, NO. 123, FALL 2009 © WILEY PERIODICALS, INC. Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) • DOI: 10.1002/yd.312