Critical Inquiry and the Arts: Partnering With Immigrant Communities

• In Event: Participatory Research Methodologies in Equity-Oriented Research: Action Through Literacy

Abstract

Background and Theoretical Perspectives: This presentation focuses on collaborative inquiry into educational equity and immigrant rights as part of an ongoing partnership with a community center located within a multilingual, multiethnic faith-based community in a large Northeastern American City. The project has sought to better understand collaboration across difference, the practice of partnering, and the ways that immigrant and minoritized youth and families use literacy to advocate for themselves in the face of educational inequity. Unfortunately, the perspectives and knowledge of families, especially those from historically disenfranchised communities, do not often inform educational research, policy, and practice. Our partnership is bridging these divides by bringing together neighborhood leaders, educators, families, and university faculty through community-based research. Our work is rooted in feminist of color epistemologies (Lorde, 1983; Anzadúa, 1999) that value the narratives and perspectives of those with direct experiences with oppression and on realist theories of identity that place emphasis on the epistemic priviledge (Mohanty, 1997; Moya, 2002) of subordinated knowledges.

Methods/Data: We strive to enact feminist values in all stages of research and draw on practitioner research (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009) and participatory action research methodologies (Cahill, 2007) that foreground shared decision-making and the insights and goals of community members themselves. Part of the enactment of this humanizing methodology is seeing relationships as valuable sites of knowledge production and, thus, a large part of this partnership is the cultivation and maintenance of deeply caring relationships amongst all involved. The collaboration has entailed a series of research foci developed with community members, including two we feature in this symposium: an intergenerational educational access inquiry group and a “youth voices” group investigating civic engagement. Data sources for this presentation consist of: fieldnotes of participant observation across the various dimensions of the partnership, artifacts (e.g. planning documents, work produced in inquiry groups, written communications), and researcher reflective memos. Data were analyzed thematically (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) and collaboratively as part of inquiry group meetings.

Findings and Significance: This presentation focuses on how youth and families engage in various arts-based multimodal literacies in order to extend insights around educational inequity and activism, especially in the context of the current immigration climate. We share examples of the multimodal artifacts produced through this inquiry, discuss the pedagogies that lead to their production, and engage dialogue about the insights that arose from their creation. The presenters have learned from families directly about how policies and practices impact youth’s educational experiences, including issues that cut across culture, language, and immigration status as well as ones that are unique to specific groups. This work has also made clear how families and youth advocate for educational access. Our research contributes to understanding the role that language and literacy play in how people work together across their insular social spaces to advocate for change in order to inform conceptual and methodological directions in the field. We also highlight the approaches we have adopted to foster collaborative research which may inform educational partnerships beyond our particular context.

Authors

• Gerald Campano, University of Pennsylvania

• Grace D. Player, University of Pennsylvania

• Bethany Welch, Aquinas Center