Doing Visual Research with Children and Young People

240 Pages·2008·3.349 MB·English

by  Pat Thomson (editor)

Doing Visual Research with
Children and Young People
‘This is a timely, very important contribution to the growing fields of pupil
participation and visual research with and on young people. It explores and
extends an increasingly vibrant and significant field of enquiry in ways which
engage our imagination and excite us to action. Theoretically sophisticated
and accessibly written, it will quickly establish itself as a key text for
professionals and academics alike.’
Professor Michael Fielding,Institute of Education, University of London, UK
‘...filled with useful techniques for researchers in any discipline studying
children.’
Eric Margolis, Arizona State University, USA, and President of the
International Visual Sociology Association
Visual media offer powerful communication opportunities. Doing Visual Research with
Children and Young People explores the methodological, ethical, representational and
theoretical issues surrounding image-based research with children and young people. It
provides well-argued and illustrated resources to guide novice and experienced
researchers through the challenges and benefits of visual research.
Because new digital technologies have made it easier and cheaper to work with visual
media, Pat Thomson brings together an international body of leading researchers who use
a range of media to produce research data and communicate findings. Situating their dis-
cussions of visual research approaches within the context of actual research projects in
communities and schools, and discussing a range of media from drawings, painting,
collage and montages to film, video, photographs and new media, the book offers prac-
tical pointers for conducting research. These include:
• why visual research is used
• how to involve children and young people as co-researchers
• complexities in analysis of images and the ethics of working visually
• institutional difficulties that can arise when working with a ‘visual voice’
• how to manage resources in research projects.
Doing Visual Research with Children and Young People will be an ideal guide for
researchers both at undergraduate and postgraduate level across disciplines, including
education, youth and social work, health and nursing, criminology and community
studies. It will also act as an up-to-date resource on this rapidly changing approach for
practitioners working in the field.
Pat Thomsonis Professor of Education and Director of Research in the School of Educa-
tion, University of Nottingham, UK. She is a former school principal of disadvantaged
schools in Australia.

Doing Visual Research
with Children and Young
People
Edited by Pat Thomson
First published 2008
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
© 2008 Selection and editorial matter, Pat Thomson, individual
chapters, the contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Doing visual research with children and young people / edited by
Pat Thomson.
p. cm.
1. Visual learning. 2. Learning, Psychology of. 1. Thomson, Pat,
1948–
LB1067.5.D65 2008
300.7'2–dc22 2007047924
ISBN 0-203-87052-2 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 10: 0-415-43109-3 (hbk)
ISBN 10: 0-415-43110-7 (pbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-43109-5 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-43110-1 (pbk)
With thanks to Steven Sasson, inventor of the digital camera

Contents
List of illustrations ix
Notes on contributors xii
Preface xix
1 Children and young people: voices in visual research 1
PAT THOMSON
Part I
Why do visual research? 21
2 ‘Play in focus’: children’s visual voice in participative
research 23
CATHERINE BURKE
3 Creatively researching children’s narratives through images
and drawings 37
RUTH LEITCH
4 Visual methods and policy research 59
JULIANNE MOSS
Part II
Processes, possibilities and dilemmas 75
5 Teaching children to use visual research methods 77
KAYE JOHNSON
6 Gender and being “bad”: inner-city students’ photographs 95
MARISOL CLARK-IBÁÑEZ
viii Contents
7 ‘Scrapbooks’ as a resource in media research with young
people 114
SARA BRAGG AND DAVID BUCKINGHAM
8 Using video diaries to investigate learner trajectories:
researching the ‘unknown unknowns’ 132
ANDREW NOYES
9 Dialogues with artists: analysing children’s self-portraits 146
PAT THOMSON AND CHRISTINE HALL
10 Seeing beyond violence: visual research applied to policy and
practice 164
ROB WALKER, BARBARA SCHRATZ AND PETER EGG
11 Being ‘seen’ being ‘heard’: engaging with students on the
margins of education through participatory photography 175
IAN KAPLAN
12 ‘Voice’ and video: seen, heard and listened to? 192
KAYE HAW
Appendix: Finding out more 208
PAT THOMSON
Index 212
Illustrations
Figures
2.1 ‘Grass’ (Bobby) 29
2.2 Forbidden and risky terrains... 30
2.3 ‘Water’ 31
2.4 ‘The tree that got chopped’ (Adam) 32
3.1 Children’s priorities in relation to schooling: collective
narrative 41
3.2 Illustrative drawing 1: ‘The Yellow Bus’ 42
3.3 Illustrative drawing 2: collage on What do ‘the Troubles’
mean to you? 44
3.4 Illustrative drawing 3: Cathy’s impromptu drawing, ‘Getting
angry’ 47
3.5 Cathy’s narrative account 47
3.6 Illustrative drawing 4: Patricia (RKFD), ‘Happy families’ 49
3.7 Illustrative drawing 5: Patricia (KFD), ‘Growing up’ 50
3.8 Creative research dynamic 54
4.1 ‘Another way of telling’; The Middle Years Project 2001 65
4.2 Educational facilities in Tasmania 68
5.1 Child’s representation of the ‘big tree’ 80
5.2 Child’s perspective of explicit teaching time in the classroom 82
5.3 Child’s detailed pencil drawing of cleaning the classroom 85
5.4 Child’s view of the classroom from the ceiling 87
5.5 Child’s representation of the playground 92
6.1 “Friends playing in the yard” 105
6.2 “Pretty red flowers” 106
6.3 “Views of Pati’s neighborhood from a removed perspective” 107
6.4 “Jessica’s modeling pose” 108
6.5 Pati’s self-portrait 110
6.6 Dante’s self-portrait 111
7.1 Hayley, twelve, uses magazine genre conventions to express
empathy and involvement with celebrity relationships 117