Joy as Data, Resistance as Assessment: Black Student Photovoice at a Hispanic-Serving Institution

• In Event: Identity, Liberation and Counternarrativity Across Educative Spaces

Abstract

This paper explores how Photovoice was used as an assessment tool to understand the lived experiences of Black students at a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI). Guided by Black Critical Race Theory and Black Placemaking, the study examined how Black students experience anti-Blackness, joy, and belonging at West Coast University. Traditional assessments often overlook or flatten the complexity of Black student life, especially at institutions focused primarily on Latine-servingness. By centering student-created images and narratives, this project highlights the power of art-based assessment to reveal nuanced insights and foster institutional accountability. Findings challenge assumptions about equity at HSIs and call for race-conscious, participatory, and justice-oriented approaches to assessment that affirm Black student resistance, joy, and community building as essential to campus transformation.

Author

• Lissa Ramirez-Stapleton, California State University - Fullerton