Envisioning Belonging at Columbia Teachers College: The Potential of Photovoice to Address Educational Displacement
Most people know what it feels like to be left out of a school community. Maybe you were the last person selected in middle school kickball or perhaps you always sat alone in the high school cafeteria. Whatever it is, this feeling of loneliness or isolation is often the first step in what Amra Sabic-El-Rayess, the Executive Director of the International Interfaith Research Lab at Columbia Teachers College, calls “educational displacement.” Students become displaced when schools “ fail to provide educational space and content that addresses the grievances of at risk population/marginalized groups.” And when grievances are not addressed, Sabic-El-Rayess cautions, young people are vulnerable to a process that can lead to hate and violence.
Fortunately, Sabic-El-Reyess has worked out an alternative pathway, an intervention to the process of radicalization, which we learned about recently at a convening in New York City. During the two-day gathering at the International Interfaith Research Lab, we began to see ways our approach to interfaith engagement could be a useful part of a toolkit educators can use to equip students and their broader communities to build resilient and inclusive communities where the experience of belonging can be found in abundance. For example, in a survey Sabic-El-Rayess found that 17% of students in the USA felt like they were not seen. Below the surface of that statistic were young people who felt unseen in several ways. They felt invisible in terms of representation, voice, and potential.
Our approach to using photovoice for intergroup and interfaith engagement emphasizes seeing and being seen. We invite people to look through one another’s lenses. We focus on deep listening and learning across differences. And our process encourages participants to develop greater understanding and empathy for people who are not like them. Our process aims to increase community capacity for belonging and can act as an intervention to the process that leads to hate and violence. In fact, getting to know and respecting people from different ways of life works against our biases and warms our feelings toward people with identities different from our own.
Learning about educational displacement at Columbia Teachers College was heavy at times. Thankfully, there were many opportunities to form new friendships with other leaders at the gathering who shared a vision for building resilience in young people. Indeed, connecting with people from diverse religious and professional backgrounds was a highlight of our time in New York City. We were also encouraged by the age diversity of the participants. So often, gatherings like this skew toward older and more experienced generations, but the room at Teachers College included ages and experiences, including several up-and-coming interfaith professionals at the beginning of their careers.
Learn more about the International Interfaith Research Lab on Columbia’s website.