This paper discusses the potential of participant art-making as an ethnographic analytic method for materialising otherwise invisible experiences in the everyday lives of people. To describe this methodology, I share examples from a two year project conducted in a photography classroom in the northeastern United States. Teenage participants made…

Rangeley Friends of the Arts (RFA) is a nonprofit arts organization in Rangeley, a town of 1,200 souls in the rural western mountains of Maine. Working with existing facilities and a largely volunteer workforce, the article explains how this group established Creative After School Arts, or CASA--a program that provides a safe home away from home…

Indigenous youth face numerous challenges in terms of their well-being. Colonization enforced land and cultural loss, fractured relationships, and restricted the use of the imagination and agentic capacity (Colonial policies, structures, and approaches in education have been detrimental to Indigenous youth (Nardozi, 2013). Many First Nations…

In this paper, we examine how Indigenous and non-Indigenous adolescents identify media influences as health/wellness related. We conducted research over a six-week period in two alternative high school settings: a culture-based Indigenous education program at one school and an arts-based program at another school, both in the same small, Western…

This article seeks to help teachers design learning experiences that allow students to manage feelings and emotions before they emerge in the form of aggressive behavior. The author's investigation begins by reviewing the findings of theorists who identify linkages between emotional management, the onset of aggression, and the artistic process. He…

Self-instruction is a pivotal skill that promotes independence and self-determination by allowing individuals to independently access prompts during the acquisition of new skills while decreasing the need for support from another person. Self-mediated video modeling (SMVM) and video self-prompting (VSP) are two methods of video-based…

The purpose of this study was to explore the anxiety and stress-reducing effects of drawing, using different drawing materials by promoting the development of student confidence. The drawing activities were designed to foster the exploration of identity, emotion, and sense of self, while encouraging the exploration of materials and mark making.…

Sociopolitical values are hypothesized to form during adolescence, but the developmental and contextual origins of these values have been largely unexplored. A sample of 846 adolescents (M[subscript age] = 15.96, SD = 1.22, range = 13-20 years) reported on their organized activity involvement (volunteering, sports, church, community clubs,…

Positive school experiences increase school satisfaction and educational aspirations and are important developmental opportunities for adolescents. Associations between time-varying school-based arts participation, students' school satisfaction and university expectation were investigated using data collected from 1,215 students in 29 Western…

This article considers drama/theater education as a form of constructivism where popular culture is both accessed and employed to engage young people and animate education. Using the familiar cultural trope of zombies, and in reference to three separate performance projects, attention is drawn to why projects such as these matter and why they…

This article analyzes the potential of a series of Youth Action Coalition's (YAC) Arts-for-Change (AfC) youth programs for literacy and identity development, as well as for engaging youth in addressing issues of social justice. Drawing primarily on transcripts of interviews, surveys, and participant-observation fieldnotes inventorying changes in…

In this essay, author Steven Ciampaglia reflects on the creation of a guerilla art course he and a colleague designed to engage students in the process of creating contemporary art relevant to them outside the traditional classroom setting. He examines how reflecting on his teaching practices led him to rethink the key objectives and design…

Although adolescents often participate in multiple extracurricular activities, little research has examined how the breadth of activities in which an adolescent is involved relates to school-related affect and academic performance. Relying on a large, multi-ethnic sample (N = 864; 55.9% female), the current study investigated linear and non-linear…

This article is the report of a large-scale, international research project involving focus group interviews of adolescent and young adult members of a variety of self-initiated visual culture groups in five urban areas (Amsterdam, Budapest, Chicago, Helsinki, and Hong Kong). Each group was established by young people around their interests in the…

Reading and Writing for Adolescence and Adulthood is a course for teacher candidates that introduces them to arts-based literacy instruction. The purpose is to train teachers to enhance reading and writing skills in adolescents. The pre-service teachers were encouraged to study theory and perform practical exercises using the arts so that they…