Visualizing Social Issues Through Infographics: A Cross-Cultural Collaboration

• In Event: Data Visualization for Social Justice: Collaboration Among Stakeholders

Abstract

In the United States and Taiwan, increasingly divisive political ideologies in have brought challenges. Facing unsettling political climates, teachers may bypass potential conflicts, or embrace these transformative opportunities. In this presentation, we portray our experiences engaging future art teachers with social justice issues from cross-cultural perspectives. The development of this collaborative cultural exchange project has evolved in two stages: first we work to create a sense of knowing amongst the students by recognizing the disconnects and discomforts through discussions of current events from both nations; second, to expand students’ knowledge of place and their understanding of local and global issues through collaborative socially engaged art projects (Helguera, 2011). In both stages, students create collaborative infographics or artworks to communicate their stances on certain issues. We believe this assists all students in navigating difficult topics and building their respect and compassion for their peers. The presentation begins with our rationale for this cross-cultural collaborative project, providing political backdrops of both nations and why addressing social justice issues is necessary. We explain inquiry-based approaches; identify the four domains of teaching social justice, including Identity, Diversity, Justice, and Action (IDJA) (Teaching Tolerance, 2016); and utilize narrative inquiry as described in Bell’s Storytelling for Social Justice (2010). The presentation then explores the first cross-cultural exchange experience that began in the Spring semester of 2018. We engaged pre-service art teachers at two universities in the United States and in Taiwan in discussing critical issues using online meeting platforms. The students used a debate-style strategy to encourage them to share multiple perspectives and uncover their own personal biases. After discussing and debating different social justice issues, these pre-service teachers then created infographics and utilized inquiry approaches to unpack conflicting, blurred, and sometimes controversial information. Creating infographics become a means of visualizing contextual information that enriched the cultural exchange experiences. We then reflect on our first collaboration and discover that critical discussions on current events and issues of social justice helped expand the idea of “culture” from traditions and customs to a living, breathing organism, where multiple perspectives are linked. We noted the difficulties of obstacles, such as time differences and language barriers among our students. Considering the experience from the first collaboration, we continued the cultural exchange with a focus on action and curriculum connection in the Spring of 2019. In this iteration of the project, we emphasized the relationship between self and place, human and nature, and local and global via explorations through socially engaged arts. To reduce the language barrier, we selected a reading published in English and Chinese. This reading serves as a base to understand data in the process of creating socially engaged art. After reading and discussing this, the pre-service teachers investigated and collected data in their own community to address social justice issues that may bring change. Thus, combining data visualization and collaborative cultural exchange allows pre-service teachers to utilize multiple modes of communication to understand information and to foster their analytical thinking with artistic and creative processes.

Authors

• Yichien Cooper, Washington State University - Tri-Cities

• Li-Yan Wang, J. S. Yeh & Co