Photovoice: An opportunity and challenge for students' genuine participation

• It has been highlighted that youth empowerment and participationare important principles for school health promotion.Despite this fact, children and youth are rarelygiven instruments to participate or to influence their situationsand the environments in their schools. Photovoice isa method to increased empowerment and participation.Originally it was created as a community action researchmethod based on Freire’s critical pedagogy and feministtheory. The purpose of this study was to explore challengesand opportunities for applying photovoice in aschool setting to support genuine participation. Togetherwith teachers and students in an upper secondary schoolin O ¨ stersund’s municipality in the north of Sweden, thephotovoice method was field tested and modified to aclassroom situation. The teachers and the students wereinterviewed about their experiences with the method. Theresults were interpreted by content analysis and showedthat the teachers’ capability to be facilitators and the students’possibility to make a difference for the school orthe municipality were the most important factors tosucceed with photovoice. The conclusions were thatphotovoice challenges schools and society to have a betterstructure for genuine participation if youth participation isseen as valuable.

Ämnesord

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Folkhälsovetenskap, global hälsa, socialmedicin och epidemiologi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

health-promoting school; action research; participation; empowerment

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)