What happens when you give middle school students disposable cameras and invite them to document safe and unsafe spaces on their campus? In the following interview, Manuelito Biag, research associate at the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, shares his paper "Perceived School Safety: Visual Narratives from the Middle Grades." Published in the Journal of School Violence, this research, which was based on Biag's dissertation work, examined how low-income youth in a high-minority, urban middle school characterize school safety. It found that the top three areas that students perceived as unsafe were the restrooms near the soccer field, the soccer field itself and the quad. A majority reported the library as the safest place.
 
What prompted your interest in the topic of school safety?
 
Broadly, my research focuses on schools as contexts for children's development. I'm interested in the practices, programs, and policies we create and implement in schools to support students' intellectual, social, physical, and emotional development. We know from earlier work that when students feel connected to school, they are more likely to experience positive academic and health outcomes. School safety is a critical part of school connectedness, so I wanted to examine students' sense of safety in school more in-depth by using participatory visual research techniques.
 
Tell us a little about participatory visual research techniques.
 
Participatory visual research techniques use photographs, maps, drawings, and other visual materials to create a rich and more nuanced understanding of children's lives in school. These image-based methods help empower students because they are given considerable control in how they visually conceive of their experience on campus. By engaging youth in this process and in a reflective discussion of their self-generated images, they are given an opportunity to voice their unique narratives. Doing so also helps promote greater ownership of the research study.
 
What do you think the students learned from the experience?
 
I think the students learned many things from engaging in this project. I think they discovered differences in how their peers perceived particular areas on campus such as the soccer field, quad, and restrooms. I think they learned about the various safety concerns their peers had such as physical fighting, intimidation, and relational aggression such as spreading false rumors and gossip. I also think they learned that by working together on a particular issue, they can help affect positive change at their school.
 
How will you use what you learned from the project?
 
This project has taught me the immense potential of using visual participatory research methods to closely examine students' experiences within and outside of school. These techniques allow young people a creative outlet to tell their own stories and communicate key aspects of their lives researchers may overlook. These methods also stimulate empowerment, promote a more democratic approach to research, and help generate context-specific knowledge that can inform programmatic and policy efforts.

Leslie Patron is on the staff at the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities.