Art, social justice and critical pedagogy in educational research: ‘The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Person’

In this chapter I present an account of arts-based educational research in which young Londoners speak about their experiences and observations of social justice. The classroom-based ethnographic research I describe is informed by respect for people and place. When exploring identities and belongings, the young people and their teachers benefit from adopting the principles of critical pedagogy in the classroom. I show how interrogating social identities in creative, reflective and collaborative ways is central to learning and teaching about identities and belongings. The combination of arts-based educational research and critical pedagogy advocated in this chapter opens up creative spaces for how we understand complex human identities. I conclude by showing how young people understand the Self and the Other – in reference to classed and racial struggles – through the qualitative-creative approach in educational research.