The issue of voice as the focus point of the educational process

“Much youth research is hence concerned with giving voice to young people and to promoting a better understanding of their worlds”. (Heath, Brooks, Cleaver & Ireland: 2009: 13)

The school of thinking that emerged from the emancipatory project of the French Revolution (Dubet, 2010) had, as one of its aims, a contribution to the formation of citizens with judgment and the ability to participate in the government of the new Republic. This required the populous to stop being subjects and become citizens and did not happen without people having ownership of the process (the capacity of agency) and being aware of the power of the voice to express themselves.

With this reference to this memory, Creative Connections attempted to promote projects generated by children and young people and in which relationships between the visual arts and citizenship are established. Creative Connections generated educational resources that can be used during class discussions and in a virtual environment (http://creativeconnexions.eu/) to promote the voices of the young participants. The issue of voice appears as a key to constitute a sense of European citizenship in which democratic participation of citizens should be the axis beyond elections every four years.

In the current European context, it is possible to use schools as places to contribute to search the conditions, possibilities and difficulties of establishing a common space of exchange that might overcome mental boundaries and locally-focused interests. This is particularly important in times of social inequality when ideologies favoured by the irresponsibility of some, the greed of others, the inhibition of the majority and the claim that the European Commission lacks leadership.

In this tense context, the voice is more than just generate the participation of youth. So when we talk about giving them a voice, having voice, expressing one’s voice, we are confronted which questions such as:

Who is authorised to give the voice?

To give voice, is this not a dominant position?

We collated phrases and questions that we encountered at schools when we decided that one of the key issues in Creative Connections is the developing of authorship (agency) by creating the conditions to make the voices of the young participants emerge. The issue of voice, as Hargreaves (1996-1997) said, is a laudable purpose but requires caution when used in research and in educational projects. It is wise to consider, as Back’s (2007) reminder that at the heart of all social research remains an inevitable dialectic tension between the gift and theft, appropriation and exchange, interaction and the theft of stories. Therefore, it is not necessarily a matter of giving voice to young people, but young people finding and managing the conditions to manifest their own voices. Thus, the voice is not something that is given, but it is taken. It is necessary to call into question to say that voice ‘is given’ when in fact this is utilized as a strategy to legitimize processes to reduce facts according to the intentions of researchers or teachers but not according to those who generously as Black (2007) says, give us their voices.

As Thomson (2008:7) points out, considering that when a project is proposed with and not on the voices of young people, teachers and researchers have to shift the power relations which form part of the investigation (or project) and the context in which research (or project)takes place. The fact is that power relations related to social class, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexuality and age restrict social relations and may limit what can be said and who can say (Thomson, 2008: 7) as well as how is heard (Ellsworth, 2005). However it is necessary to prevent research practices becoming an “as if” (Lerena, 1983) of authorship (a loss of voice) when researchers or teachers provide instructions on exactly how many pictures are to be taken and what themes are to be chosen. In this way "many innovative and participatory research is simply a form or the extension of long-range traditions of ethnographic research" (Holland, Renold, Hillman and Ross, 2010:362).

The use of voice depends on the social context in which such is possible and requires processes and strategies to become visible. One of the teachers involved in the project asked for a wait time before starting to develop the project, because the youth group was in an uneasy relationship concerning matters related to the arts. If project management started at that time-she said-there would be a risk that students inhibit the participation decisions required by the project. One should not forget that being able to say what one thinks and what is desired, much depends on what is asked, who does it and what is expected of the young people with whom the project is to be developed. Conducting research that deals with speech means hearing things being said and / or does not reflect what we expect (Thomson, 2008:4).

In conclusion, the voice is not only about who has something to say, but also refers to the language, to the emotional components and to nonverbal means used to express opinions. Paying attention to voice is not just a matter of questioning, but the way it impacts decision making since it is argued that voice may convey a democratic way of thinking and learning (Holland, Reynold, Ross and Hillman 2010). Hence the importance of Creative Connections in which young people can use their own language when not only in communicating with the works of artists and creating their art projects, but it should prevent teachers and researchers from reducing these voices to data or responses that confirm their own expectations. This is supposed to be a great challenge, to the researchers, to abandon our comfort zones where we normally situate ourselves when working in project and education research.

Process Narratives

Throughout the project, we collected a range of evidence of student’s comments about their own experiences about Creative Connection educational process. The students were able to give an account of their voices through their production of their artwork and in discussion about the artistic processes and meanings of their final creations. Throughout the process all students, teachers and researchers involved in the project have collected the opinions and experiences given by the students. Student’s reflections and comments were collected through interviews, questionnaires, and written opinions by the students on the website. Is has been also collected through videos and photographs, conversations made in the classroom and school’s environment of each school.

The material collected by all participating countries, consisting of a series of comments and stories from students about their process in Creative Connections will be very useful for future research and will be shown in a future new web page of the project. These comments have been organized into the following main topics of the Creative Connections project:

• Reflections/Comments of their own art work
• Reflections /Comments about art (perceptions, approaches, changes in concept, etc.).
• Reflections /Comments of the experiences of CC in their own school Process.
• Reflections /Comments about Europe (What they think about Europe? What it means for them to be a European Citizen.)

 

References

Dubet, F. (2010). Mutacions institucionals i/o neoliberlisme? Quaderns d’Educaió continuada, 22, 105-121.

Ellsworth, E. (2005). Posiciones en la enseñanza. Diferencia, pedagogía y poder de la direccionalidad. Madrid: Akal.

Hargreaves, A. (1996-1997). A vueltas con la voz. Kikirikí. Cooperación educative, 42-43, 28-34.

Heath, S., Brooks, R., Cleaver, E. & Ireland E. (2009). Researching young people’s lives. London: Sage Publications.

Holland, Renold, Ross & Hillman (2010). Power, agency and participatory agendas: A critical exploration of young people’s engagement in participative qualitative research. Childhood, 17(3), 360–375.

Lerena, C. (1983). Reprimir y liberar: critica sociológica de la educación y de la cultura contemporáneas. Madrid: Akal.

Back, L. (2007). The Art of Listening. Oxford & New York: Berg Publishers.

Thomson, P. (2008). Doing research with children and young people. London: Routledge.