Youth Theorize Silencing by Way of Collective Filmmaking

• In Event: 14.045 - Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: 14.045-3 - Engaging Youth Through STEAM Projects

Abstract

This paper explores how a group of 15 youth and a researcher challenged schooling’s silencing through film-making. We had been writing and film-making together for four years through elementary and middle school. During one year the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders produced films about three forms of silencing: a) silencing of Spanish, b) silencing of romantic relationships, and c) silencing in classrooms. This paper details the students’ theorizing on silencing. Educational research on silencing is about advancing equity. This paper situates the youths’ theorizing on silencing within that educational research discussion. Theorizing how silencing works and how social change can happen, the youth engage in the already ongoing project of expanding the notion of silencing beyond the concept of voice.

Author

• Amy Senta, University of North Carolina - Wilmington