Our Caring World through Art explores how children and young people from disadvantaged communities can engage in art in education to help them make sense of the world, their own identity, and their futures. We are interested in the way art can empower young people to develop skills and ways to emotionally express themselves in times of uncertainty. By engaging with art, participants build a stronger sense of meaning, belonging, and responsibility toward both their communities and the environment around them.
This pilot action is taking place across two settings in disadvantaged communities in the UK: one representing a formal education setting, secondary schools in West Midlands, and the other an in-community informal educational setting, local libraries in Greater London. This allows a combination of formal and informal educational spaces to work with pedagogies of love, care, and enchantment.
By undertaking a participatory qualitative process underpinned by co-creation, youth participatory action research and creative methods, participants across both settings will have the opportunity to drive the participatory arts-based approaches. This will enable theorising ‘disadvantage’ in a complex way, corresponding to the multiplicity, complexity and diversity of young people’s backgrounds and experience, including their educational background, class, transitory migration, new migration, intergenerational deprivation, and access to resources and participation.
