Nuestra Escuela, Nuestras Voces (Our School, Our Voices): Using Photovoice to Understand and Promote Compassion in Schools

It is important that children obtain not only academic knowledge but also skills to express emotion and sustain relationships. Fostering school communities that embody and teach compassion is increasingly recognized as an important component of many social and emotional learning (SEL) approaches. To generate SEL programs that are inclusive of diverse perspectives, it is critical to center community expertise. We engaged the framework of community-based participatory research (CBPR) to elicit Latina mothers' perspectives on compassion in their lives and in their children's school community. We used Photovoice, an art-based participatory action approach, in which participants were invited to create photographs that expressed their understanding of compassion. A subset of participants also participated in semi-structured exit interviews. The photographs, captions, and interviews were analyzed qualitatively. The results were conceptualized in terms of the themes of "definitions and conceptualization of compassion," "family and community," "communication," and "nature." Findings from this study inform an understanding of compassion focused SEL programs and implications for practice in schools through the cultural wealth of Latina mothers.