In humanities and education university classrooms, the authors facilitated counter-narrative arts-based inquiry projects in order to build critical thought and social inclusion. The first author examines public performance installations created by graduate students in elementary and bilingual education on needs-based and dignity-based rights of bilingual families at schools. The second author examines visual and performance art pieces on historical colonial practices in world history, created by undergraduate theatre students. We suggest that critical arts-based pedagogies can build classroom communities and social inclusion, particularly through collaborative counter-narrative and problem-posing research and performance practices about minoritisation in history and contemporary society.