Educational innovation has increasingly embraced models that place students at the center as active partners in the learning process rather than passive recipients. Within this framework, the classroom is no longer the sole space of knowledge production, which instead expands into multiple contexts where competencies are enacted and transformed. This perspective highlights the potential of qualitative methods as tools for social and institutional change.
This contribution presents a photovoice project conducted within the Community Psychology course for pedagogists and community educators at the University of Palermo. The initiative pursued a dual objective: on the one hand, to foster students' critical reflection on their academic community; on the other, to promote empowerment processes and encourage active proposals addressed to the university governance.
Students were asked to produce ten photographs depicting an informal space on campus—a wooded green area commonly used for studying, socializing, and sharing breaks. The images were analyzed using the SHOWED method, which supports collective discussion and the co-construction of meaning. Group narratives were then developed into concrete proposals, which were publicly presented to the university governance during a collective event.
The photovoice process made visible everyday experiences and meanings often overlooked, emphasizing the role of informal spaces as relational environments that foster a sense of belonging to the academic community. The students' proposals focused on improving the quality of campus life through creating the first map of the campus, producing reels to raise awareness on aspects of ecosystem sustainability and leading to the establishment of a STUDENT-VOICE space.
The innovative use of qualitative methods, such as photovoice, can foster institutional and cultural change. Student participation emerges not only as an educational practice but also as a form of active citizenship, capable of generating both personal and collective empowerment within the academic community.