Creativity and Justice: Leveraging Creative Learning Principles to Co-Design Just Futures With and For Young People

Abstract

Young people who live in underserved and under-resourced communities and have access to a creative learning environment are poised to create positive change within their communities. Their lived experiences make them experts on the issues their communities are currently facing, and the creative learning environment lends itself as a space where young people can prototype, improve, and implement solutions. Young people can use their imagination and creativity to seek justice and re-imagine their communities.

This dissertation examines the Youth Activism and Advocacy program, which I designed using a transformative justice framework, in collaboration with the Clubhouse Network, a global network of after-school centers in historically under-resourced communities. Young people in ten communities around the world used their creativity, lived experiences, and civic imagination to develop and sustain social justice campaigns in their communities. This dissertation addresses the following research questions: (1) How might we cultivate and support constructionist learning environments that serve young people from communities that have been marginalized? (2) How might we use computational tools to support creative learning while developing and amplifying social justice campaigns? (3) How might we use Human Centered Design methods to allow for meaningful participation and engagement from youth who have been marginalized?

While there were multiple pathways into and motivations for engaging in community action projects, all of the young people gained technical, organizational, and leadership skills that can be applied in future education and career pursuits. The outcomes of the Youth Activism and Advocacy program are complex and intertwined, prompting a call to action to further examine how civic engagement and creative learning can broaden participation in STEM and computing fields—and support youth in making a positive impact in their communities, moving them towards greater justice.