Open AccessAboriginal Adolescents, Critical Media Health Literacy, and the Creation of a Graphic Novel Health Education Tool
Author(s) -
Robin Wilmot,
Deborah Begoray,
Elizabeth Banister
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
in education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1927-6117
DOI - 10.37119/ojs2013.v19i2.143
Subject(s) - indigenous , media literacy , health literacy , storytelling , health education , literacy , sociology , pedagogy , dialogic , psychology , media studies , political science , medicine , art , health care , narrative , nursing , public health , ecology , literature , law , biology
As Coyote tossed his eyes the next time, the ravens swooped, swift as arrows from a strong bow. One of them snatched one eye and the other raven caught the other eye."Quoh! Quoh! Quoh'," they laughed, and flew away to the Sun-dance camp. (Quintasket, 1933)The knowledge mobilization project involving Aboriginal students described in this article is an extension of a multi-phase, longitudinal, interdisciplinary research project aimed at understanding the processes through which adolescents develop critical media health literacy (CMHL) (Wharf Higgins & Begoray, 2012; Wharf Higgins, Begoray, Beer, Harrison, & Collins, 2012). The primary purpose of this project was to create a culturally relevant CMHL health education graphic novel. An additional purpose was to develop pedagogical approaches to be used to stimulate discussion around media-perpetuated health messages with Aboriginal adolescents: Like Coyote, they too have had their eyes snatched. In brief, we collaborated with Aboriginal students to create culturally sensitive material representative of their identities as media-affected adolescents in the 21st century. In turn, the dialogic process utilized during our project appeared to be a viable pedagogical approach when working with CMHL and Aboriginal adolescents, a supposition that will be the subject of our further research in the fall of 2013. Throughout the project, the authors, all of whom are non-Indigenous, were guided in their use of Indigenous ways of knowing by the Aboriginal education community.Keywords: Aboriginal adolescent health; health education; critical media health literacy; graphic novels as health education toolsAuthor Note:The authors gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Canadian Institues of Health Research (CIHR 293119) in the funding of this project.