funding denied

Well, no SSHRC for me, and am on the wait-list for OGS .

In the interest of full disclosure, here's the project i pitched--good enough to get me into Communications and Culture at Ryerson/York, but nothing else so far...

Insights, ideas, scathing criticisms, biting commentaries—all are welcome!

- k

Seeing Learning
Towards a Critical Visual Pedagogy of Classroom Learning

Background and Statement of Problem

Although we exist in a profoundly visual culture, there are relatively few contemporary examples of photography-based education in either public school or community-based settings. Each is rare, but each is also distinct: public school photography instruction typically emphasizes technological and vocational aims at only the most senior levels (or “vo-tech” [Goldfarb 2004; Newbury 1997]), while community-based photographic education has a rich history of innovative and critical practice across a range of sites and focused towards a diverse audience. Such practice includes community arts initiatives (Braden 1983, Barndt 2006), research projects utilizing “photovoice” (Wang and Burris 1997, McIntyre 2000) or “talking pictures” (Bunster 1978) techniques, and popular education practices (Barndt 1991). Where critical, school-based learning does exist it is often disconnected from similar practices happening both locally and around the globe (Isherwood and Stanley 1994, Brake 1996, Kist 2005). It is not clear whether community-based practice fares any better (Augaitis, et al. 1995). This project will document examples of photographic practice in public education and community-based settings from the Toronto area in order to articulate a critical visual pedagogy of photographic communication.

This doctoral research project has two primary aims. First, to depict what current practices of photography-based education look like in order to describe the various agents involved, the various pedagogical and technical activities in which they are engaged, and the stated aims and goals of such practices. Attention will be paid to the various traits that align or distinguish public education from community-based practice, and vice versa. Secondly, this research will assess the significance of photographic learning, both in local settings and more broadly across the Ontario education system. I will analyze what factors constitute critical photographic learning for teachers, students, community members, and at a local level, while also considering what such a visual pedagogy both offers and demands of a publicly funded system. Ethnographic interviews with key stakeholders from schools and communities from the Toronto area and photographic documentation of these learning spaces will contribute to this descriptive and analytical survey of the practices, agents, and technologies involved in photographic education. In addition, several action research projects will be initiated at these sites in order to develop of a theoretical framework which situates a critical visual pedagogy within discourses of institutional change and broader practices of social activism.

The goal of this research is to describe and articulate an alternative educational practice which emphasizes visual dimensions to learning in addition to traditional language- and text-based practices. The study will fill in a gap between media literacy education research focused on formal school settings and action research found in community-based practices. The notion of a “critical visual pedagogy” I will develop is clearly indebted to educators and scholars in the Freirian tradition, for whom becoming literate is an emancipatory process and “naming the world” (Freire 1970) is inextricably linked to the speech acts implied in the “photovoice” (Wang and Burris 1997) or “talking pictures” (Bunster 1978) methods I intend to employ. Yet this concept is also related to the tradition of critical theory, particularly as it has been applied to studies of power relations in institutional organizations (Smith 1993, Darville 1995), state-based systems (Lloyd and Thomas 1998, Sears 2004), and media networks (Enzensberger 1970).

Bibliography

Augaitis, D., Falk, L., Gilbert, S., & Moser, M. A. (Eds.). (1995). Questions of Community: Artists, Audiences, Coalitions. Banff: Banff Centre Press.

Barndt, D. (2006). Wild Fire: Art As Activism. Toronto: Sumach Press.

Barndt, D. (1991). To Change This House: Popular Education Under the Sandinistas. Toronto: Between the Lines.

Braden, S. (1983). Committing Photography. Pluto Press.

Brake, J. (1996). Changing Images: Photography, Education and Young People. Salford: Viewpoint Photography.

Bunster, X. (1978). Talking pictures: field method and visual mode. Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication, 5(1), 37-55.

Darville, R. (1995). Literacy, Experience, Power. In M. L. Campbell & A. Manicom (Eds.), Knowledge, Experience, and Ruling Relations: Studies in the Social Organization of Knowledge. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (pp. 249-261).

Enzensberger, H. M. (1970). Constituents of a Theory of the Media. New Left Review, 64.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum.

Goldfarb, B. (2002). Visual Pedagogy: Media Cultures in and Beyond the Classroom. Durham: Duke University Press.

Isherwood, S., & Stanley, N. (Eds.). (1994). Creating Vision: Photography and the National Curriculum. Manchester: Arts Council of Great Britain.

Kist, W. (2005). New Literacies in Action: Teaching and Learning in Multiple Media. New York: Teachers College Press.

Lloyd, D., & Thomas, P. (1998). Culture and the State. New York: Routledge.

McIntyre, A. (2000). Constructing Meaning About Violence, School, and Community: Participatory Action Research with Urban Youth. The Urban Review, 32(2), 123-154.

Newbury, D. (1997). Talking about Practice: Photography Students, Photographic Culture and Professional Identities. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 18(3), 421-434.

Sears, A. (2003). Retooling the Mind Factory: Education in a Lean State. Aurora: Garamond Press.

Smith, D. E. (1993). Texts, Facts and Femininity: Exploring the Relations of Ruling. New York: Routledge.

Wang, C., & Burris, M. A. (1997). Photovoice: Concept, Methodology and Use for Participatory Needs Assessment. Health Education & Behavior, 24(3), 369-387.