“There is a Space Saved for Me”: Agency, Art, and Photovoice with Young Artists in New Jersey

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 9:45 am - Gold 4
  In Roundtable Session: Arts based educational research for unfolding provocation(s)

Abstract

Our pilot study centers secondary school students’ experiences during an instrumental jazz program in urban New Jersey. Though we initially aimed to evaluate this program from learners’ perspectives, our analysis suggested that our participants might have useful insights that transcend the program with which they were affiliated in the spring 2025 semester, the time of data collection. Indeed, by leveraging Lees’s concept of improvisation as a conceptual framework and recent developments in using photovoice for education research, we identify curricular structures that might support students’ communication pathways across historically siloed conditions, like formal grade levels. We conclude by drawing connections between our work and contemporary education policies and praxes for music education classrooms in New Jersey and the United States.

Authors

• Taylor Masamitsu

• Nicole J. Auffant, Rutgers University - Newark

• Lynnette Mawhinney, Rutgers University - Newark

• Laura Krystal Porterfield, Rutgers University - Newark

• Kendall Lipham, Colton Institute of Research and Training