Portraits of Home: Youth Belonging in a Participatory, Arts-Based Educational Program

• In Event: Exploring the Production of Well-Being for and by Adolescents

Abstract

Situated in Minnesota counties representing the rapidly diversifying urban-rural continuum, this study seeks to understand how high school age youth experience belonging, or not, in these changing environments and develop civic engagement through an arts-based participatory educational program. We argue that arts-based and participatory approaches are transformative pedagogies to foster engagement and dismantle structural hierarchies impacting youth for three main reasons. One, youth enacted their agency and own voices through chosen arts mediums. Two, arts-based methods combined with structured and open dialogue foster empathy. Three, in our program, youth started the progression from “creating in community” to community building through arts-based methods. This study establishes possibilities for sustained, nuanced, and actionable educational research in rapidly changing, divided communities.

Authors

• Heidi I. Fahning, University of Minnesota

• Zhuldyz Amankulova, University of Minnesota

• Erma Mujic, University of Minnesota

• Joanna Tzenis, University of Minnesota

• Joan G. Dejaeghere, University of Minnesota

• Michael Winikoff, University of Minnesota

• Ashley Purry, University of Minnesota