Beyond Illustration: purposefully harnessing young people’s everyday sense-making through digital photography in educational settings

Abstract

This research explores how young people’s everyday photographically-mediated sense-making and communication practices can be purposefully-harnessed into educational settings. Ubiquitous smartphone technology has placed high-quality digital cameras into the hands of most young people of school age, enabling participation in many new forms of cultural connectivity. This shift towards the digital and visual raises questions around the possibilities for new practices of knowledge production, curriculum-making and learning. Currently, there is limited research on the pedagogical use of photographs beyond the simple illustration of words. In many countries, the use of smartphones is banned within classrooms. Thinking with Deleuze and Barthes, the outcomes of this enquiry address a gap in educational research around the affordances of working with digital photography in learning and teaching.

This study takes a New Materialist theoretical approach employing an assemblage ethnography in two Scottish secondary schools. Using Allwright’s Exploratory Practice model of practitioner enquiry, I collaborated with students (aged 12-15) and their teachers over twelve months. Two case studies explore the possibilities for making and viewing digital photographs in the curricular areas of English Language and Science. The analysis of fieldnotes, interview transcripts and photographs revealed four Findings. Firstly, young people’s everyday digital photography assists sense-making in affective registers beyond word-based ontologies. Secondly, harnessing the affordances of young people’s everyday photographic practices can link learning across public and personal domains, and beyond the classroom. Thirdly, curriculum-making with photographs can support alternative modes of participation and expression for students. Fourthly, photography offers teachers alternative modes for contextualising learning, and formative assessment. Emphasising the role of affect, this thesis concludes with implications for policy and practice on the purposeful uses of photographs and photography within learning and teaching in educational settings.