This research set out to understand the lived experiences of 26 underrepresented high school girls on the outskirts of Bogotá, Colombia, during the 2022-2023 academic year. Specifically, the research question was: “What is the lived experience of Latina high school girls of their built school environment?”.
Through a methodological framework employing feminist participatory action with arts-based research, specifically a/r/tography, participants analysed data to cultivate awareness and meta-cognition around how their school’s built environment impacted them. Participants revealed how their built school environment illustrated Lefebvre's spatial triad (1974/1991) and Foucault’s theories on the panopticon and biopower (1967/1984). Memories from childhood, patriarchal suppression of participants’ voices, ineffective design choices in communal areas, concerns and competitiveness over body image, a lack of menstrual health care leading to stigma and shame, and poor mental wellbeing from academic pressures and environmental discomfort were all raised as detrimental factors to the daily lives of the girls. The girls also revealed that warm spaces were important to them, natural light created a sense of safety and engagement, and quality time in nature was liberating. This is shown in their artwork, which appears in the thesis. The research reveals the daily experience of the participants in their built school environment is composed from physical, psychological and emotional dimensions, aligning with the theories of feminist geographers such as Massey (2005), Rose (1993), and Weisman (1994).
Presented as a piece of a/r/tography that challenges the tensions between research conducted through the arts and traditional doctoral writing, the thesis seeks to combat research epistemicide (Santos, 2016/2018) and contribute to the democratisation of knowledge. Recommendations for further research centres on investigating the impact of a built school environment’s architectural, pedagogical and social features on girls, as well as the future use of a/r/tography as an empowering methodology in educational research with children.
