Author Identifier (ORCID)
Kylie Boltin: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5764-0397
Abstract
Voices of young people are essential in civic discourse about thriving futures. Yet dialogue can be complicated when the experiences of adults and young people are vastly different, for example in school spaces designed by adults in cities designed for adults. Vertical, highrise inner city schools represent this intersection. A new genre of school in Australia, vertical schools symbolise aspirations for young people and livable cities as designed by adults. This paper draws from data collected in the Thriving in Vertical Schools project to explore the importance of affective learning atmospheres for students, and the value of digital stories to prompt dialogue between young people and adults. 204 secondary students created 96 one-minute digital stories about what it takes to thrive in vertical schools. A close analysis of 4 representative videos shows how students communicated a wide range of affective, embodied experiences and used the friction inherent within digital narratives to highlight issues of importance, which promoted dialogue with adults in audio-recorded screening discussions. The power of digital stories to mediate civic discourse with adults, and new insights like the importance of unscripted, edge spaces as spaces for young people to learn to thrive, have implications for thriving schools and cities.
Keywords
Atmosphere, digital story, school spaces, student voice, vertical schools
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
1-1-2026
Publication Title
Learning Media and Technology
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
School
School of Arts and Humanities
Funders
Australian Government Linkage Grant
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Comments
Miles, P., Boltin, K., Poyntz, S., & Willis, J. (2026). Schools, space and atmospheres: The value of student videos in negotiating contested spaces in new urban vertical schools. Learning Media and Technology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2026.2625784