Bijan’s research concerns young people’s engagement in resolving global social and environmental injustices.
Currently, he is the Associate Executive Director for Research at the Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York where where he leads a team responsible for investigating key issues on child and family well-being in New York City, producing an array of data resources, and conducting community-based assessments of the most pressing needs and important community assets. These projects complement data available at data.cccnewyork.org and elevate the voices of community members, service providers, and other experts, especially when public data are lacking.
From 2011 to 2016, Bijan worked with the Children’s Environments Research Group , where he directed the Article 15 Project and other international research initiatives. The Article 15 Project became part of Bijan’s dissertation and larger program of research examining the internal decision-making structures of children’s associations around the world and how each organizational structure improves communication and trust among group members, as well as children’s rights as citizens.
As a member of the Public Science Project, Bijan collaborated with New York City youth on the Food Justice Project, a participatory action research team investigating the food environment of a neighborhood in Brooklyn from 2009 to 2010. The focus of the project, in part, was incorporating young people’s perspectives into the academic and public discourse on low-income individuals’ accessibility to fresh and healthy food.
He has taught at multiple City University of New York campuses, including Brooklyn College, Hunter College, and the School of Law; and he is a former organizer of the Nature, Ecology & Society Network’s annual colloquium.
Research Interests: Children’s environments; critical and participatory pedagogies; children’s solutions and collaborations with adults to mitigate poverty, violence, and global climate change; children’s governance in groups; child-friendly research methods and study designs; children’s rights; participatory action research; globalization; human ecological systems theory
