ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we present contributions from our ongoing, arts-based youth participatory action research (YPAR) project that aims to make space for diverse high school students to express their experiences within structures of injustice. Since 2017, our collective has gathered and collaboratively analyzed artifacts created at arts inquiry retreats and research meetings. In this chapter, we extend this work as we examine student-created photographs and drawings around the theme “Seen but not heard”. Using excerpts of the youth writing that accompanies each piece, this chapter offers insights into the effects of school-sponsored silencing. We demonstrate how arts-based YPAR can highlight acts of “un-silencing” by creating space for resistance toward unjust structures that both concern and constrict today’s students. Ultimately, our goal is to theorize how a critical arts approach to YPAR can open up space for reflection and dialogue and effect meaningful change – particularly within schools.
