Intergenerational Counternarratives of Creative Agency: Reimagining Inclusive Practices Through Youth Participatory Action Research

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Four
  In Roundtable Session: Agency and Resistance for Reimagining Learning Across Different Contexts (Table 3)

Abstract

Since the 1990s, teen-centric programs (Szekely, 2013) have proliferated, as museums target young people to diversify art museum audiences. However, few studies examine how museum programs impact youth development (Linzer & Munley, 2015). Inspired by YPAR methodology (Cammarota, 2008), youth experiences from an art museum program in the southwestern US are centered. We investigated two questions: (1) What are the spaces of participation within an art museum teen council; and (2) what possibilities/obstacles exist within those spaces for young people to develop creative agency? Informed by arts equity (Kraehe, Boyd, & Travis, 2016) and understanding the museum as a curriculum space (Cary, 2006; Judson, 2006), the findings demonstrated an incremental constriction of teens agency within the neoliberal art museum.

Authors

• Kendall Crabbe, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
  Presenting Author

• Amelia M. Kraehe, The University of Arizona
  Presenting Author