Engaging youth through arts-based approaches to understand belonging and civic action

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Developing Youths’ Engagement in Democratic Practices in the U.S. through Arts-based Youth Participatory Programs

Proposal

Situated in a Minnesota county representing the rapidly diversifying urban-rural continuum, this study seeks to understand how a diverse group of high school age youth perceive their identities and experience belonging through an arts-based program. We explore in what ways arts-based methodology empowers youth to think critically about history and their community to promote social justice and bridge perceived and actual social divisions.

Within the research on youth programs, participatory action research and arts-based approaches, used in nonformal programs, can be productive in fostering youth identities, values, and commitments (Greene et al., 2018; Simpkins et al., 2017). Arts-based research can decrease power-imbalance in research and help connect researchers with diverse communities through more-accessible methods (Cole & Knowles, 2012), and help us better understand dimensions of human life that may be hard to capture through quantitative or traditional academic approaches (McNiff, 2008). Studies show that participatory methods, like digital storytelling, have potential to promote awareness of inequities, critical dialogue around solutions, and collective action (Greene, et al., 2018).

We utilize a critical youth empowerment framework (Jennings et al., 2006), to understand youth as assets to their diverse communities and to explore how their belonging to multiple communities can be fostered through a participatory, arts-based program. An interdisciplinary body of critical research posits that youth belonging and civic engagement are important elements for fostering social justice in communities (Shaw et al, 2014; Checkoway & Aldana, 2013), and at the core of arts-based inquiry is a “radical, politically grounded statement about social justice and control over the production and dissemination of knowledge” (Finley, 2012). Arts-based inquiry relegates power to youth, who control the knowledge that is produced and its use.

Data Collection and Analysis

The study relies on an arts-based approach to study youth experiences of self in history, and how this relates to their present conceptualization of identity and belonging. The pilot 5-week program took place in a rural community in Minnesota in April-May 2022, where youth explored historical themes that have shaped the community, introduced participants to alternative perspectives, and were encouraged to explore and share their own experiences through a series of reflective arts-based activities. Participants documented their research and collected artifacts in the form of audio recordings, photographs, maps, handwritten notes to elicit engagement with history and place. In the final session, they shared their findings with members of the community, a critical aspect of arts-based research.

The research team relied primarily on participant observation, youth audio and visual artifacts (and corresponding reflections), and open-ended interviews of youth experiencing the program, to understand youths' perspectives and attitudes about their communities. As the community’s demographics and culture evolve from homogeneity, the looming identity crisis threatens to further divide the community and decrease the level of civic engagement and trust among community members. This work will give us insight into youth belonging, identity, activism and their perceived power to transform communities.

Authors

• Erma Mujic, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

• Michael Winikoff, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• Joanna A Tzenis, U of MN

• Heidi Ione Fahning, Purdue University

• Zhuldyz Amankulova, University of Minnesota

• Joan Dejaeghere, University of Minnesota