Participatory Visual Research Research Articles

Syrian refugees’ vision for quality education in a Lebanese public school: a participatory visual research

This study explores the quality of education delivered to Syrian students in a public school in Lebanon. Concepts of agency and empowerment are at the heart of this discussion. To address the current lack of student-centred perspectives on schooling in this context, this study supplements the Capability Approach (CA) with a social justice framework and uses visual and art-based methods to gain insights into what these young people have reason to value. It examines the value of combining theoretical insights, analytical approaches and methods that share a commitment to honouring participant agency. Analysis of input from children advocates considering the concept of ‘care’ as an integral dimension to social justice in the context of this study. It also suggests the need for implementing negative and positive peacebuilding strategies and contemplating the relationship between art education and school violence. We argue for a whole-child approach to refugee education, drawing connections between cognitive academic learning and affective embodied wellbeing. We conclude the study by discussing these findings and shedding light on the significance of our theoretical and methodological choices and their potential to inspire future research endeavours and explorations.

Family and community resilience: a Photovoice study

BackgroundAdverse childhood experiences (ACEs), in combination with adverse community environments, can result in traumatic stress reactions, increasing a person’s risk for chronic physical and mental health conditions. Family resilience refers to the ability of families to withstand and rebound from adversity; it involves coping with disruptions as well as positive growth in the face of sudden or challenging life events, trauma, or adversities. This study aimed to identify factors contributing to family and community resilience from the perspective of families who self-identified as having a history of adversity and being resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsThis study used Photovoice, a visual participatory research method which asks participants to take photographs to illustrate their responses to a research question. Participants consisted of a maximum variation sample of families who demonstrated family level resilience in the context of the pair of ACEs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Family members were asked to collect approximately five images or videos that illustrated the facilitators and barriers to well-being for their family in their community. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted using the SHOWeD framework to allow participants to share and elucidate the meaning of their photos. Using thematic analysis, two researchers then independently completed line-by-line coding of interview transcripts before collaborating to develop consensus regarding key themes and interpretations.ResultsNine families were enrolled in the study. We identified five main themes that enhanced family resilience: (1) social support networks; (2) factors fostering children's development; (3) access and connection to nature; (4) having a space of one’s own; and (5) access to social services and community resources.ConclusionsIn the context of additional stresses related to the COVID-19 pandemic, resilient behaviours and strategies for families were identified. The creation or development of networks of intra- and inter-community bonds; the promotion of accessible parenting, housing, and other social services; and the conservation and expansion of natural environments may support resilience and health.

Picturing broader socioeconomic conditions: introducing demographic data to participatory photo mapping in order to help youth understand community stratification

ABSTRACT Shaded polygons based on quantitative demographic indicators can represent place-based characteristics that influence perceptions of social phenomena. However, social scientists have struggled to integrate demographic methods with qualitative means of participatory research meaningfully. This is especially true in work with children, where concrete depictions of broader socioeconomic conditions can be challenging yet must be balanced with their research contributions. In working with this population, we encourage the introduction of demographic community indicators when integrating Photovoice (participant-generated imagery) and qualitative GIS methods. This integration simplifies an analytical challenge and allows youth to balance perspectives and quantify how social and economic features of place affect their perceptions of social phenomena. While the broader literature has focused on one-level designs to capture participant narratives and the overlapping of spatial data, integrating these concepts with youth researchers has not been addressed. As a methodological advancement in children’s research, we believe spatial participant-generated imagery (SPGI) improves upon participatory visual research methods by depicting how participant perceptions are situated in a community context. Through this research method, participants are empowered to triangulate their lived experiences with mixed-methods research. We illustrate this process through a case study of community belonging by youth.

Rural Early Childhood Educators’ Perception of Music-Based Pedagogy in Teaching Communication Skills to Children

Early childhood care and Education is an important phase for impacting communication skills to children for building a strong sense of identity and belonging. The South African National Curriculum Framework (NCF) regards communication skills as one of the six early learning and development areas considered for Early Childhood and Education (ECCE). Caps Grade R admonishes educators to support learners with interpersonal Communication Skills and to develop their Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency by engaging them in activities that focus on rhymes. Thus, South African children need skillful educators to employ developmental implementation strategies to support their acquisition of these skills. Research shows that subjects like Life Skills, English Language, Civic Education, and Mathematics are successfully implemented using music-based pedagogy. However, because ECCE is relatively new in South Africa, there is no strong structure to support the ECCE/ECD (Early Childhood Development) educators in employing music-based pedagogies to teach communication skills to the children. This article focuses on the rural ECD/ECCE educators’ perception and experiences in employing music-based pedagogy to support the children’s acquisition of communication skills. The study was conducted at two ECD/ECCE centres in Northern Cape province, South Africa.This is participatory visual research where Six ECD/ECCE Educators were engaged in semi-structured interviews and reflective activities on how they facilitate communication skills using music. The study was informed by Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory. The educators supported music-based pedagogy, however, inadequate musical training, non-availability of musical resources, and non-inclusion of music as an independent subject in the CAPS/NRF documents are their constraints. In their pre-service teacher education programs, almost all South African institutions include creative arts training; the course is typically taught over one semester, and music is merely one of the various creative arts subfields. As a result, the pre-service teachers lack the necessary musical background to implement music-based instruction. In conclusion, the study recommends musical intervention training to empower ECD/ECCE educators. Keywords: Early Childhood Development, Rural Context, Music-Based Pedagogy Communication Skills.

‘Parents are gudlists!’ Experiences of puberty and parent-child sexual communication in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

This paper explores young people’s experiences of puberty and their perspectives on parent-child sexual communication in rural northern KwaZulu-Natal. In-depth individual interviews, focus group discussions, and participatory visual research methodology were employed with 18 and 19-year-old young women (n = 30) and young men (n = 16) attending three primary health care facilities and a local high school in Jozini municipality. The findings suggest a complex interplay between unequal gender and socio-cultural norms that results in divergent puberty experiences and ambiguous and inconsistent patterns of parent-child sexual communication. Young people referred to their parents as gudlists, a local colloquialism for someone who is evasive, vague, ambiguous and indirect. Lack of open parent-child sexual communication hinders discussion of healthy sexuality, neglecting the sexual and reproductive health education and needs of young people. Reflective of their desire for change, young women in particular contest current parenting norms and suggest returning to cultural practices linked to traditional forms of courtship and sexual communication among young Zulu people.

Doing it together, but in a queer way: joyful worldmaking with 2SLGBTQI + folks in Atlantic Canada

This paper explores the joyful worldmaking that circulated between a group of 35 queer and trans adults and youth from across Atlantic Canada—New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador—who came together in February 2023 for a do-it-yourself (DIY) archiving and artmaking workshop on unceded and unsurrendered Wolastoqiyik territory in Fredericton, New Brunswick—as part of an ongoing participatory visual research initiative called Pride/Swell+. Exploring this worldmaking through frameworks of queer joy, we ask: How does worldmaking circulate within the Pride/Swell + workshop space and archives? Why is queer and trans worldmaking valuable to 2SLGBTQI + youth? What is the importance in remembering and archiving the things that queer and trans folks are doing to craft their everyday lives? Through DIY artmaking and participatory methodologies, we explore how Pride/Swell + fosters spaces for 2SLGBTQI + folks, including youth, to think about their lives and queer communities in celebratory and joyful ways. Ultimately, we argue that uplifting everyday moments of queer and trans worlds in our project promotes a more complicated and nuanced understanding of what it means to be 2SLGBTQI + in Atlantic Canada.

‘There is a No that means Yes!’ – Coercive and aggressive sexual behaviours in adolescents’ heterosexual relationships in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

ABSTRACT This qualitative study examined sexual negotiation in heterosexual romantic relationships of rural adolescents in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Participatory visual research methodology alongside focus group discussions were employed with 18 and 19-year-old adolescent boys (n = 10) and girls (n = 12) to understand how sex is negotiated in heterosexual relationships. Findings suggest adolescent boys and girls had little understanding of mutual sexual consent, and lacked the skills for exercising it. Adolescent boys’ coercive and aggressive sexual behaviours in romantic relationships were embedded in hegemonic masculinity characterized by male dominance, hypersexuality and multiple partners; and included boys pleading for sex, buying gifts, threatening to dissolve the relationship if sex is not initiated, screening pornographic films and rape. Sexual violence prevention strategies commencing during early adolescence are needed and should focus on developing adolescents’ understanding of mutual sexual consent, incorporate skills for autonomous sexual negotiation, and emphasize gender transformative and equitable norms.

“Something that is so overlooked”: joyfully exploring queer bodies and sexualities in sexuality education with teachers in New Brunswick, Canada

ABSTRACT In this paper, we seek out the possibility of joyful and queered spaces of sexuality education. The sexual lives of queer and transgender youth are often passed over in sex and sexuality education classrooms. In this study, we were interested in exploring how sexual and bodily diversity make an appearance in these often-normative spaces. Through participatory visual research methodologies, we created art and media alongside 40 teachers in the province of New Brunswick, Canada, to look at the ways in which queer sexualities and bodies are made possible and impossible in their sex education practice. In three workshops, we found teachers negotiating the presence of 2SLGBTQI+ sexuality in their classrooms and a missing discourse of queer pleasure – mimicking the province’s tired sexuality education curriculum. We notice that artmaking helps diffuse the discomfort that often accompanies talking (and teaching) about sex in workshop spaces. We argue that sexuality educators need additional professional learning and resources to tend to the sexual lives of young people – and ultimately, a queering of sexuality education that is more intersectional, pleasure-centred, and joyful.

Solidarity through mail-based participatory visual research: exploring queer and feminist futures through an art, activism and archiving project with 2SLGBTQ+ youth amidst COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic posed a logistical problem to our normal ways of engaging in participatory visual research. Our in-person art, activism and archiving with 2SLGBTQ+ Atlantic Canadian youth pivoted to use distanced engagement strategies that met the demands of the pandemic. We sought to create networks of solidarity while we were apart. Monthly, over the course of a year, we mailed out themed packages of art supplies and directions to fifty-five 2SLGBTQ+ youth situated in the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador. Participants then created the artworks, photographed them and contextualised them through text. While the resulting co-curated digital archive includes multiple mediums, here we focus on the participants’ zines and dioramas for what they taught us about 2SLGBTQ+ youth’s identities, activism, beliefs, friends, home, family, fears, strengths and futures. The digital archive of our artwork deconstructs, explores and affirms identities and functions to build solidarity during a time of increased isolation. We argue that collaboratively building the digital archive was a feminist act of reclamation and a declaration of youth queer activism.

Speaking back to gender-based violence in New Brunswick schools through queer maker literacies with 2SLGBTQ+ youth

ABSTRACT Schools are a site of gender-based violence for queer, trans, and non-binary youth. Drawing on a participatory visual research project with three queer, trans, and non-binary youth, we argue that selfie and cellphilm production offer a glimpse into queer maker literacies. We suggest that the practice of making do-it-yourself (DIY) media productions with queer youth and older community collaborators in out-of-school settings provides opportunities for new intergenerational friendships and networks to be built. Through a discussion of the processes of critical making within the workshop, and the themes that arise in the cellphilm, including gender-based violence, queer experiences of school structures – and the way that friendship is positioned in relation to solidarity, collaboration, and speaking back – we argue that through facilitation and co-production of media, workshop spaces can be engineered with participants as spaces of solidarity, action, and safety even amidst institutional settings.

“Kudliwa imali, kudliwe umuntu”: In-school Adolescent Girls’ Experiences of Umqasho and Transactional Sex in a Rural Sub-District of Northern KwaZulu-Natal

This study examined the intersecting impact of structural inequalities and transactional sex on in-school adolescent girls’ risk of pregnancy and poor educational outcomes in rural northern KwaZulu-Natal. In this article, we understand structural inequalities as providing a basis for transactional relationships between adolescent girls and older men. Participatory visual research methods were employed with 18- and 19-year-old girls and boys to examine multiple systems of oppression and inequalities experienced by in-school rural adolescent girls, focusing particularly on their vulnerability to transactional sex, pregnancy and poor educational outcomes. In this context, moralising discourses on transactional sexual relationships are unhelpful if structural barriers placing girls at risk are not addressed.

On the Ethics of Getting the Word Out: Rural Girls Reflect on Ownership in Participatory Visual Research in Rural South Africa

Despite the growing body of literature dedicated to ethical and methodological issues related to youth engagement and youth participation in arts-based research, the ethics of ownership in relation to the production and sharing of visual artefacts remains an understudied area. This work is particularly critical in the context of war-affected youth, and youth addressing issues of gender-based violence in their lives. Drawing on the voices and perspectives of a group of girls and young women affected by sexual violence in rural South Africa, we explore their views on the idea of ownership of the visual productions (videos, photos, policy briefs) created in an arts-based research project. As we highlight in the article, ownership is a complex ethical issue, and one that cuts across a range of concerns including consent, rights and personal engagement.

A Virtual Photovoice Study of Older African Americans Perceptions of Neurovascular Clinical Trials.

Alzheimer disease (AD) poses a major public health crisis, especially among African Americans (AAs) who are up to 3 times more likely to develop AD compared with non-Hispanic Whites. Moreover, cardiovascular risk factors represent a precursor to cognitive decline, which contributes to racial/ethnic disparities seen within AD. Despite these disparities, AAs are underrepresented in neurovascular research. The purpose of this qualitative virtual photovoice project is to explore how older Midwestern AAs perceive neurovascular clinical trials. Five photovoice sessions were held virtually over a 3-month period. Participants took photos each week that captured the salient features of their environment that described their perceptions and experiences related to neurovascular clinical trials. Structured discussion using the SHOWED method was used to generate new understandings about the perspectives and experiences in neurovascular clinical trials. Data was analyzed using strategies in participatory visual research. A total of 10 AAs aged 55 years and older participated and a total of 6 themes emerged from the photovoice group discussions. Findings from this study inform the development of culturally appropriate research protocols and effective recruitment strategies to enhance participation among older AAs in neurovascular clinical trials.

“We Will Never be The Same”: Photovoice Reports From Social Workers of Aged Care During COVID-19

Using photovoice methodology, this study aimed to capture the perspectives of social workers from aged care services on how the pandemic impacted them at a professional level. This study comprised 12 social workers (aged 22–41 years; 11 females) who worked in aged care facilities during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on photovoice methodology, as a participatory visual research method focused on individual and community assets and co-creation of knowledge, participants were asked to take photographs and then share the photos and associated narratives in a group session on the topic “Me as a professional: One year of pandemic”. From the thematic analysis, four themes emerged: personal and professional growth (increased resilience, with new perspectives on life), responding to the pandemic (implementation of immediate actions to prevent the virus propagation), teamwork (union among staff), and eyes on the future (with a sense of uncertainty, yet supported by the good lessons learned). The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has had a significant impact on aged care facilities, with social workers becoming frontline professionals in a public health crisis. These professionals faced “forced growth” during the pandemic that has transformed them both professionally and personally.

Engaging older people through visual participatory research: Insights and reflections

Although there is an ageing population in Europe which acts as an increasingly influential social and economic force, there remains limited scholarship concerning the involvement of older people in research. This paper responds to the question of how visual participatory research engages older people through three illustrative case studies, set in England and Italy, all of which incorporated different visual elements within their participatory design. These cases highlight; the value of the visual as a trigger for memories as an entry point for research discussions, that the sharing of experiences is facilitated by both the participatory and visual elements of the approach and that greater engagement is forthcoming once trust is established through the socialisation of older research participants. Reflections and good practice suggestions are offered to other qualitative researchers on the practicalities of adopting this approach.

Using body mapping to explore gender with adolescents in Uttar Pradesh

ABSTRACT Young women and girls in Uttar Pradesh (UP), India, face gender inequalities, which threaten their health and well-being. This study used body mapping, a visual participatory research method, to learn from adolescents ages 15 to 17 living in Lucknow slums about how gender norms affect their daily experiences. Forty adolescents participated in body mapping. Their body maps and narratives about those maps demonstrate that starting in adolescence, family and community members strongly enforce divergent gender norms for girls and boys. Girls face restrictions on their clothing, mobility, and education, whereas boys have comparative freedom in these domains. Girls experience persistent public harassment by boys and men, severely constraining their ability to move freely in public spaces. In contrast, the school was a setting where adolescent girls and boys experience more relaxed gender norms. Overall, this study describes the link between gender norms, health, and well-being for adolescents. It also illustrates the value of participatory and adolescent-friendly research methods for exploring gender norms among adolescent boys and girls in India. Finally, it indicates that multi-system approaches are needed to address gender-related inequalities in health and well-being.

Facilitating a ‘virtual space’ for social change during the COVID-19 pandemic: working with high-risk population using an arts-informed method

As participatory methods place an emphasis on ‘collaborative research practices … to produce knowledge in collaboration,’ a transition to virtual platforms created challenges in effectively facilitating these collaborations. Because participatory approaches to digital methods are still growing, there is limited information on best practices for working remotely with ‘vulnerable’ individuals from refugee backgrounds using participatory methods. Given the unexpected requirement to transition to remote research practices as a result of the pandemic, in this article I reflect on my experiences navigating my university’s institutional ethics process, transitioning my participatory visual research project with Turkish and Kurdish asylum seekers to a virtual platform, and the challenges that I have encountered in facilitating digital focus groups.

Facilitating gender-affirming participatory visual research in embodied and online spaces

How might participatory visual research with 2SLGBTQ+ be facilitated in gender affirming ways across physical and digital spaces? What do these practices look like, and how might facilitators adapt their practices in response to cisnormative language and binary physical spaces? This article describes the opportunities and challenges to facilitating two projects with 2SLGBTQ+ youth. The first project, Where Are Our Histories (2018–2020) – was a face-to-face participatory visual research project addressing the erasure of 2SLGBTQ+ people, experiences, and histories from the New Brunswick Social Studies curricula and classrooms and co-creating media to interrupt these erasures with youth. We consider the ways that participatory visual research can be facilitated with 2SLGBTQ+ youth in embodied spaces that are gender-affirming and resist tokenism and structural violence by employing DIY (do it yourself) strategies. We describe the ways in which facilitating Where Are Our Histories has shaped the co-facilitation strategies employed in a distance-based participatory visual research project, Pride/Swell, with 50 2SLGBTQ+ youth amidst Covid-19. We describe how both projects required engaged attention to facilitating the public-facing visual outputs (zines, collages, cellphilms) in public spaces. We offer strategies for facilitating and negotiating cisnormative, transphobic, and homophobic discourses in person and online.

Corrigendum to ‘Using the Emanuel Framework to Explore the Ethical Issues Raised in a Participatory Visual Research Project in Rural South Africa’

Corrigendum to ‘Using the Emanuel Framework to Explore the Ethical Issues Raised in a Participatory Visual Research Project in Rural South Africa’

Schooling, Interrupted

Among the concerns about youth wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic, one well-documented impact is youth motivation, particularly in relation to schooling. Yet many questions remain: How are youth experiencing motivation? What factors affect their motivation? How are youth differentially experiencing motivation? This article addresses young people’s experiences of motivation during the first wave of the pandemic as explored through participatory visual research. In Spring 2020, the Quebec private and public secondary school systems responded very differently to school closures. Private schools pivoted to distance learning within about two weeks, whereas public schools took almost two months to provide formal instruction. Bringing youth’s accounts of motivation into conversation with youth’s concerns about the inequities across the private and public school systems offers a rich opportunity to revisit Self-Determination Theory as an established theory of motivation. Youth’s analyses urge us to revisit the conceptualization of “structure” within this theory and how structure might offer a junction for accounting for more macrostructural inequalities within motivation research.