Seeing Difficult Histories: How Secondary Students Look at Photographs of Historical Injustice

• In Event: 45.089 - Visualizations, Eyewitnesses, and History Education

Abstract

This paper draws from case study research that explored secondary social studies students’ ability to think historically using historical photographs of Indian residential schooling. 21 Grade 10 students participated in task-based research completing various tasks using six historical photographs. This paper employs theories of visual culture to address the ways students’ practices of looking influenced how they encountered photographs of historical injustice. Findings indicate that historical photographs provide students with a useful entry point into historical thinking, and that they encourage complex thinking in dealing with historical evidence while simultaneously revealing other interpretations dealing with power, the body, and the unseen. This study also sheds light on issues of student positionality when making ethical judgments about the past.

Author

• James Miles, University of Toronto