Photography as a Tool for Understanding Youth Connections to Their Neighborhood

Jennifer Kofkin Rudkin
Alan Davis
University of Colorado

Citation: Rudkin, Jennifer Kofkin and Alan Davis (2007). "Photography as a Tool for Understanding Youth Connections to Their Neighborhood." Children, Youth and Environments 17 (4): 107-123. Retrieved [date] from http://www.colorado.edu/journals/cye/

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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare photographic and questionnaire-based approaches to examining youths’ relationships with their communities.  Thirty youth living in an urban neighborhood developed a collection of photographs depicting connections to their community.  Youth also completed the Neighborhood Youth Inventory, the Collective Efficacy scale, and the Sense of Community Index, and were interviewed.  A method of assigning ratings to the youths’ photographs that combined their own ratings with independent ratings by social scientists resulted in a measure that correlated significantly with questionnaire-based measures.  This article discusses and illustrates the results through a case study, and identifies the advantages and disadvantages of each method as a tool for understanding neighborhood connections.

Keywords: youth, community, photography, photovoice, sense of community