Photographs as Pedagogic Tools for Social Justice

• In Event: 70.065 - Roundtable Session 27
  In Roundtable Session: 70.065-10 - Uncovering Social Justice via Vignettes, Photographs, and People

Abstract

Applying Howard Gardner’s (1983) insights into multiple intelligences to classrooms presents teachers with opportunities and challenges. This research focuses on ‘the visual’, specifically how teachers in a range of classrooms use photographs to explore justice themes. Three volunteer teachers were given hard-copy photobanks of 65 images that touched broadly on themes related to justice and citizenship and asked, as autonomous professionals, to use in their teaching across a range of classes for 12-18 year olds. Results suggest that the open-ended nature of photographic images enables student-centred concerns around justice to emerge in classroom discussion. Structured teacher questioning, notably ‘describe-analyse-interpret’ facilitated higher order thinking. Student learning includes the languages of visual literacy and justice discourse.

Author

• Gerry Jeffers, National University of Ireland - Maynooth