Introduction & Significance

Statement of the problem

A group of immigrant youth, recently arrived in DC, is having

trouble dealing with the change and uncertainty of being in a
new school environment

The problem is how to create a safe place for immigrants to

confront these changes and increase their resilience both at
school and in their daily lives

Purpose and significance of the study

Indicate why this study is important

This study is important because if art-making is shown to

increase the resilience of immigrant youth to adapt to a new
environment, it is a method that can be shared with other
communities also struggling to integrate immigrants into
their midst

Background Literature & Review

o

Purpose of the study is to discover how immigrant youth deal

with change and uncertainty and to identify ways that artmaking can address this by fostering resilience

I will look into subjects such as resilience, asset-based community

development, diversity training, youth immigration, and arts-based
healing.

Research Questions/Objectives
o

Overall objective: Does art-making increase the resilience of

immigrant youth to deal with the change and uncertainty of being
in a new school environment?

Specific research questions

How do immigrant young people experience change?

What are the factors that cause immigrant youth to feel a

sense of uncertainty or fear?

How does the process of art-making increase the resilience of

immigrant youth to cope with change?

Research Methodology
o

Paradigm

Constructionism: Social constructionists believe that groups

construct knowledge through shared experience. Their
research, therefore, is focused on dialogue in order to
understand these shared realities (Savin-Badin, p. 63). I
believe that it is critical for immigrant youth, torn from their
culture and history, to construct new knowledge together. I
see this as a healing process that will allow these young
people to adapt to their new context with the powerful insight
that they are not alone. Thus, I will be reviewing literature
and the findings through the lens of constructionism.

Research method

How can art-making foster healing and hope for the

individual?

I chose an arts-based inquiry approach because it uses the

artistic process, the making and doing of art as a means of
understanding experience (Savin-Baden, p. 293). This fits
my research question. I want to create an arts-based
experience to discover how the process of making art might
empower immigrant youth to deal with change and
uncertainty. Dialogue throughout this process will be
emphasized so as to come to discover shared meanings and
insights.

Research Design
o

Data collection procedures

Arts-based experience: I will create an arts-based experience

and lead the group through the activity. Using the activity as
a metaphor, we will engage in dialogue to extract meaning
from the art-making process and apply it to our lives. This
activity will include a pre and post assessment to discover
how art-making has affected the students ability to confront
change and if it has increased their resilience.

Outsider fieldwork: In this type of fieldwork, the researcher

goes to an unfamiliar setting to collect data. For me, this will
mean shadowing 2 or 3 students who will participate in the
arts-based activities in order to understand how they
experience fear and uncertainty.

Ethical Issues

Informal Interviews: I will blend informal interviews into my

fieldwork. As I shadow the students, I will ask them questions
to understand their lived experience and how they deal with
change. I believe that this type of interview will make
students feel more comfortable, especially if they are fearful
of authority or have a high level of power distance.

I will use pseudonyms to protect the identities of participants

Conclusions
o

Findings will contribute to practice. If art-making is shown to

increase the resilience of immigrant youth, then it can be replicated
in other schools also struggling to integrate newcomers into their
communities.