Chapter 2: How can I Serve as a Voice for my Community?: Using Photovoice to Cultivate Young Agents of Change

Society often promotes an idea that civic engagement among adolescents and young adults is decreasing. This perception suggests that teenagers are apathetic to social issues impacting their communities or believe they cannot influence change. However, there is widespread evidence demonstrating that youth participatory cultures do exist (Hagood, Alvermann, & Heron-Hruby, 2010; Kahne, Lee, & Feezell, 2013; Morrell & Duncan-Andrade, 2005; Rogers, Winters, Perry, & LaMonde, 2014). Young people are heavily involved in civic engagement and social advocacy often perpetuated through informal contexts of out-of-school literacies and social media platforms. At the other end of the K–12 spectrum, young children are increasingly demonstrating a heightened perception of their social surroundings. Children are asking questions about the messages they receive from radio, television, and the Internet, and are starting to explore their role in families, social groups, schools, and communities (Mitra & Serriere, 2012, 2015; Montgomery, 2014; Montgomery, Mill, Foss, Tallakson, & Howard, 2015). Unfortunately, as many social studies educators acknowledge, there is a tension between a teacher’s desire to thoroughly address their students’ concerns about society and the pressure they feel to prepare these children and young adults to pass high-stakes, standardized tests.