Description: Photovoice research is a participatory qualitative research method where participants photograph themselves, then analyzing them to document and reflect upon their experiences and perspectives on a specific topic, often with the goal of raising awareness and advocating for change. It empowers participants by giving them control over the research process and their own narratives.
Photovoice: Using Words and Images in Qualitative Research is a collection of essays from the field that focuses on educators' implementation of photovoice in a myriad of settings. This methodology crosses disciplines and offers a powerful way to combine visual methods with social research, making it adaptable to many areas where understanding and representing marginalized voices are important. Photovoice is the perfect text for use in a variety of classrooms and courses, including:- Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods
- Community Studies (understanding how visual methods like photovoice can help researchers gain insight into the lived experiences of people within a community)
- Public Health (photovoice is a valuable method for understanding health disparities, the impact of the environment on health)
- Education (when studying participatory learning, student engagement, or community-based education. It would also be useful in teacher training programs focusing on inclusive and culturally responsive teaching.)
- Anthropology (courses on qualitative research or ethnography, photovoice allows for a deeper understanding of cultural and social dynamics through the visual representation of people's lived experiences)
- Selected topics in Educational Research
- Place-Based Education
Brief description: A former early childhood bilingual teacher, Julia López-Robertson is Professor of Literacy and Teacher Education at the University of South Carolina. Dr. López-Robertson's research agenda focuses on advancing understandings about emerging bilingual/multilingual students and their families and on the transformation of teacher education to support equitable teaching for all children. Dr. López-Robertson is the author of Celebrating our Cuentos: Choosing and Using Latinx Literature in the Elementary Classroom and Re-envisioning Family Engagement and Literacy in Early Childhood Classrooms.
Review Quotes: "Harper and López-Robertson offer a timely and highly engaging collection of studies that demonstrate Photovoice's power and promise as a participatory research method and critical instructional practice capable of transforming how students, particularly those most marginalized in educational spaces, come to understand themselves as agentive knowers capable of impacting and altering the world around them. The studies serve as windows through which we witness students--from kindergartners to college freshman--deploy Photovoice to achieve multiple aims including pushing back on others' views of their communities, their families, and themselves by re-authoring and re-stor(y)ing those narratives with/through their own words and images."----Michelle L. Bryan, PhD, Associate Vice President for Access and Opportunity, Associate Professor, Higher Education Leadership, College of Education, University of South Carolina