Reflections on using digital tools in cross-country participatory arts-based research with young people from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras

• In Event: Youth, education, and digital tools: global perspectives on connection, migration, and learning

Proposal

This paper reflects on using digital tools to engage young people in cross-country participatory arts-based research, discussing their perspectives on youth agency and youth’s roles in addressing social change in educational settings. The accelerated digitization of education, since 2019, has provided new avenues for global and local education stakeholders to engage with students and connect young people from different countries (OECD 2023). International education organizations, in particular, are increasingly using virtual and digital platforms to host global, regional and multi-country educational workshops, training, and webinars with the specific aims of bringing together diverse groups of young people to discuss social issues and raise their voices about development goals that matter to them (See for example, UNICEF ESARO 2023; YouthPower2 2024). Education scholars and practitioners have mixed reactions to using digital and virtual platforms for these types of educational and youth engagement activities. On the one hand, they underscore the potential of technology to improve access, equity, and inclusion of young people involved in global and local development efforts (Gibbs et al. 2020; UNICEF ESARO 2023). On the other hand, they raise ethical concerns and underscore practical challenges in implementation, especially in contexts where access to and use of the internet is neither given nor provided in educational settings (Gottschalk and Weise 2023).

This paper draws from fieldwork in 2023 to reflect on a participatory arts-based research project that used digital tools to engage with eleven young people from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras in discussions about youth agency in their schools and communities. The project was designed using elements from youth participatory action research (YPAR) (Berkely YPAR Hub n.d.) and photovoice methodologies (Ciborowski et al. 2022; Vargas et al. 2022). The eleven young participants created original artworks (e.g., photographs, paintings, songs, poems) centered around the prompt: moments where young people are exercising their voice, action, and agency in the community and moments where these aspects are restricted. Then, as a group, they discussed and shared their produced artworks before selecting eighteen artworks that were featured in a public youth art exhibition that artistically represented how they understood youth agency and young people’s roles in addressing social issues. The young people led the art exhibition's concept, themes, and design, and the exhibition was publicly displayed in El Salvador and the United Kingdom. Since the young people lived in different countries, the project utilized a number of digital tools (Zoom, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Twitter/X) to conduct educational workshops and facilitate cross-country exchanges between the eleven young people across the three countries.

Emerging research suggests that involving young people in research processes helps to reduce power dynamics and allows for more critical and open discussions on social topics (Kosko et al. 2022). Photovoice methodologies, in particular, have emerged as a promising approach for engaging with diverse youth populations on social issues through their visual images and narratives from their perspectives (Ciborowski et al. 2022). While there is some literature on the use of technology in youth-led participatory action research (Gibbs et al 2020; Rivera et al 2022), there is limited research looking at interactions of technology in photovoice methodologies with young people. This paper seeks to contribute to this literature by critically reflecting on the YPAR and photovoice methodologies used in the project, considering how the use of digital tools facilitated and hindered participatory research processes with young people, paying particular attention to impacts on the young participants’ artistic forms of expression, communications, and knowledge exchanges across the three countries. The paper surfaces some of the methodological and practical challenges of hosting sensitive and complicated discussions with young people on digital platforms. It also highlights how digital tools generated new spaces of inclusion and connection for young people. The reflections presented in this paper aim to generate useful information for local and national educators and international organizations and NGOs implementing education projects that are interested in utilizing digital tools to facilitate engagement with diverse groups of young people from multiple countries.

References

Ciborowski, H.M., Hurst, S., Perez, R.L, Swanson, K., Leas, E., Brouwe, K.C, and Shakya, H.B. (2022). Through our own eyes and voices: The experiences of those ‘left-behind’ in rural, indigenous, migrant-sending communities in western Guatemala. Journal of Migration and Health, 100096.

Gibbs, L, Kornbluh, M., Marinkovic, K., Bell, S., and Ozer, E.J. (2020). Using technology to scale up youth-led participatory action research: a systematic review. Journal of Adolescent Health, 67, S14-23.

Gottschalk F and Weise, C. (2023). Digital equity and inclusion in education: An overview of practice and policy in OECD countries. OECD education working paper no. 299. https://one.oecd.org/document/EDU/WKP(2023)14/en/pdf.

Kosko, S.J., Dastin, A., Merrill, M. and Sheth R. (2022). Marginalised youth activism: peer-engaged research and epistemic justice, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 23:1, 136-156, DOI: 10.1080/19452829.2021.201969.1

OECD (2023). Shaping digital education: enabling factors for quality, equity and efficiency, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/bac4dc9f-en.

Rivera, A., Okubom Y., Harden, R., Wang, H., and Schlehofer, M. (2022). Conducting virtual youth-led participatory action research (YPAR) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Participatory Research Methods, 3(3).

UC Berkely YPAR Hub. (not dated). https://yparhub.berkeley.edu/home.

UNICEF ESARO (2023). Social and behavior change (SBC) digital engagement approaches to empower adolescents and young people and bridge the digital divide in Eastern and Southern Africa. UNICEF U-Report and Internet of Good Things Case Study. https://www.unicef.org/esa/media/12596/file/UNICEF-ESA-SBC-U-Report-IoGT-Case-Study-2023.pdf.

Vargas, M.L., Maicas-Pérez, M., Hernández, C.M., and Fernández-Baldor, A. (2022). They take away what we are: contributions of a participatory process with photovoice to the capabilities for epistemic liberation of young people, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 23:1, 50-72, DOI:10.1080/19452829.2021.2005555.

YouthPower 2 (2024). Global lead networks. https://www.youthpower.org/global-lead-networks.

Author

• Meaghan Elizabeth Malloy, University College London, Institute of Education