"It's an American Public High School": A Reflexive Picture of Connectedness, Engagement, and School Climate

• In Event: Witnessing From/Within Intimately Critical Perspectives

Abstract

This visual ethnographic study pursued a deeper understanding of three educational constructs—connectedness, engagement, and school climate—from the eyes and voices of high school students from one large, urban district. Guided by critical theoretical overtones focused on power dynamics in education, and largely underpinned by poststructuralism, data were collected from photo elicitation interviews with three high school students, images taken by the students using photovoice, and researcher reflexive journaling. Critical visual analysis was applied through a poststructural lens to deconstruct and crystallize the concepts. Multiplicities of the constructs were found and lost, always already meaning what they did, where they were placed, and how they were seen.

Author

• Krista Davis, Tennessee Technological University