what the camera sees

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http://chd.sagepub.com/content/14/1/29The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/0907568207068562

2007 14: 29ChildhoodTina Cook and Else Hessenlightening adults

What the Camera Sees and from Whose Perspective : Fun methodologies for engaging children in

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Mayordesivenece(199yearatom(Ald

child‘in padulown

F

WHAT THE CAMERA SEES AND FROMWHOSE PERSPECTIVE

un methodologies for engaging children inenlightening adults

Children’s lives are lived throughunderstandings of childhood and1994: 1)

all, writing in 1994, on the r, frames the context for this use of adults as proxies for ssarily represent children’s5) comments that children has and that when children’s viise and process them throu

erson, 1995: 40).Since the late 1980s there h

ren’s experiences and viewpart reflects a move away frot socialisation, to a recogniti right’ (O’Kane, 2000: 136).

chd.sagepuDownloaded from

This article draws on the experience of three

research projects where photography was used with

children as a data collection method and

presentation tool. It was used as a way of trying to

enhance opportunities for adults to hear about

topics from the perspective of children. The

projects were not designed to investigate the use of

cameras as a research methodology; the article is a

synthesis of incidentally observed outcomes and

issues raised by the use of cameras within these

projects. Watching young children has told us a lot

about how they engage with their environment and

how to help them fit into the adult agendas we call

‘education’, ‘growing up’ and ‘life’, but how much

does it tell us about how children really experience

their worlds?

TINA COOK Northumbria University

ELSE HESSDenmark

Key words:children, method and methodology,

photography, perceptions, qualitativeresearch

Mailing address:Tina Cook

School of Health, Community andEducation Studies, H Block, Coach Lane Campus East,

Northumbria University, Newcastle uponTyne NE7 7XA, UK.

[email: [email protected]]

Childhood Copyright © 2007SAGE Publications. London, Thousand Oaks

and New Delhi, Vol 14(1): 29–45.www.sagepublications.com

10.1177/0907568207068562

29

childhoods constructed for them by adults what children are and should be. (Mayall,

subject of children, health and the socialarticle. Historically, there has been exten-children but the views of adults may not perceptions and experiences. Aldersonve been the subjects of research for manyews are collected it has usually been: ‘togh the grid of adult designed research’

as been increasing interest in listening tooints. This, as O’Kane (2000) points out:m seeing children as passive recipients ofon that children are social actors in their

by Diana Milstein on September 1, 2010b.com


Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989),ratified by 192 countries and which came into force on 2 September 1990,states that: ‘Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his orher own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affectingthe child.’ In its interpretation of Article 12, UNICEF identifies the need to:

. . . create spaces and promote processes designed to enable and empower chil-dren to express views, to be consulted and to influence decisions . . . the child’sevolving capacity represents just one side of the equation: the other involvesadults’ evolving capacity and willingness to listen to and learn from their chil-dren, to understand and consider the child’s point of view, to be willing to re-examine their own opinions and attitudes and to envisage solutions that addresschildren’s views. (www.unicef.org/crc/crc.htm)

The shift in emphasis to a more child-centric focus has been accompanied bya similar shift in the focus of research relating to children. Children’s per-spectives are being recognized as separate to and different from those oftheir adult carers. Greig and Taylor (1999: 157) point out that while aresearcher cannot necessarily see the world from the child’s perspective,‘acknowledging that their worlds are different is a sound starting point’.What is being suggested is that children have a valuable perspective andadults need to do more exploration with children about this. It is not to saythat the child ‘knows best’, conceptualizing children in the way of someVictorian thinkers who saw them as: ‘innocent enough of convention to seethrough the emperor’s new clothes . . . and at the same time . . . gifted with aprivileged view into the mysteries of the divine plan’ (Fineberg, 1997: 5). Itis recognizing children as collaborators in building understandings aboutinteraction where adult and child spaces meet. Why would we wish tostraightjacket knowledge and understandings of a situation by not using theperspective of one of the key players?

Where are children in research?

Qualitative research offers, through the use of multi-method research frame-works and a more naturalistic approach to working, opportunities to engagewith those who may not speak the language of researchers, of policy-makersand officialdom. By listening to many voices qualitative researchers have theopportunity to take into account the multi-perspectives of many actors in asituation. Over the years, however, qualitative researchers could be accusedof having been somewhat circumspect about the application of this in prac-tice. Certain sectors of society, while central to the substantive researchtopic, have been denied their own voice in research. The perspective of peo-ple such as those with learning difficulties, with mental health needs, who donot speak the language of the researcher or who are otherwise marginalizedfrom mainstream society, have been at best underrepresented, more general-ly ignored and at worst exploited and manipulated (Oliver, 1992; Priestley,

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1998; Swain and French, 1998). As Nutbrown and Hannon (2003: 118) pointout: ‘until recently there has been relatively little interest in understandingthe perspectives of children on what we might call the “ordinary, everydayaspects” of their own lives (Dyer, 2002; Filippini and Vecci, 2000)’.

Traditionally, children’s lives have been explored through the views oftheir adult caretakers. As Christensen and James (2000) point out, such anapproach is now challenged by: ‘a perspective which sees children as pos-sessing distinctive cognitive and social developmental characteristics withwhich researchers, wishing to use child informants, must consider in theirresearch design’ (Christensen and James, 2000: 2). To learn about a child’sperspective adult researchers have to get beyond their own beliefs about asituation and listen to children in different ways. As all adults know, there isoften a big difference between what we expect children to do, and what theyactually do. In the same way, there is often, as Scott (2000) suggests, a verylarge gulf between adult observations about a child’s understandings of a sit-uation and the child’s own perceptions. When working with children, tobegin to hear their perspective, adults need to listen, watch and allow spacefor the child and to change or relinquish some of their own predeterminedresearch agenda and methods.

In choosing to use research techniques which are more responsive to the partici-pants, rather than the researcher’s agenda, the opportunity to gather informationin a uniform way is forfeited. . . . In being thus responsive to individual chil-dren, the field of investigation may become limited to issues that they find sig-nificant, and/or are willing to discuss. (O’Kane, 2000: 155)

Yet, even when researchers claim to be researching with children, thiscan be an ambiguous statement. At one end of the spectrum, it can mean thatchildren have answered some basic interview questions, at the other it canmean that children have been both the instigators of the research focus andparticipants in the process. McTaggert (1997) offered a way of identifyinglevels of participation in research using the terms ‘authentic participation’and ‘involvement’.

Authentic participation in research means sharing in the way research is concep-tualised, practised and brought to bear on the life-world. It means ownership,that is responsible agency in the production of knowledge and improvement inpractice. . . . Mere involvement implies none of this and creates the risk of co-option and exploitation in the realisation of the plans of others. (McTaggert,1997: 28)

Deliberations upon the principle of authentic participation went some-way to starting the review of the three projects that are the subject of thisarticle. The projects were not conceived as investigations into the use ofcameras with children in research, but have been brought together, retrospec-tively, to take a critical look at what was achieved by the process and howwe might improve our work in the future. All three projects have differentresearch topics but have in common the use of cameras as a data-gathering

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mechanism. Photography was used as an attempt to find ways of hearingchildren’s voices, and to represent their thoughts, understandings and con-structs, in ways that would not only be accessible to them but also to adultresearchers and ultimately be valued by adult practitioners. While theresearchers considered this a way of researching with children, none of thechildren participated in deciding on the subject for research, the method ofdata collection or the way in which the data might be analysed. The researchdesign was entirely carried out by adults who then imposed this as a way ofrevealing children’s understandings of a situation. So where were the chil-dren in these research projects?

Taking of photographs with children: a research method

Photography was used as a research method in each of the three projectsunder review for the following reasons:

• Taking photographs would be quick, easy and something pupils arelikely to enjoy. It was likely to engage and maintain their interest andwould be fun. Trying to work with bored children is a difficult, thank-less and unfruitful task.• It is easier than writing and generally seen as more fun by children.• Modern cameras produce acceptable results without children (orresearchers) needing to be experts.• Most of the pupils were young and some had learning difficulties.This can make it difficult to develop abstract conversations and con-cepts when using direct interview techniques (Lewis and Lindsay,2000). The tangible nature of the photographic task was designed tohelp focus attention and discussion on the topic and to stimulate widerdebate.• By giving the pupils control of the camera the choice of pho-tographs was more likely to reflect what they considered to be impor-tant, not the adult.• Once photographs have been taken they can act as a tangible repre-sentation of the children’s interests. They enable researchers to returnto a topic at a future date for further discussion with the children usingthe photographs as a starting/reference point. Photographs provide anopportunity to have group discussions around a visual prompt whichmakes it easier than trying to talk about something in the abstract.Given that a child will have taken the photograph, the stimulus for dis-cussion starts from their interest.• The photographs could also be used in the reporting of the project.Using pictures instead of words not only makes it accessible to chil-dren, but also means they are interested in the ‘report’ as they havebeen involved in its construction.

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Three projects with children and cameras

Of the three projects discussed in this article, two were carried out inEngland and one in Denmark.

Project 1This project was conducted with pupils at an all-ages special school, duringthe last weeks before it was about to close for good. After the summer holi-days, the pupils were to be dispersed across the city to various other schoolsdeemed appropriate to their needs. Some would be going to other specialschools, some to additionally resourced units and some to mainstreamschools. The aim of the research project was to find out what pupils consid-ered important to enjoying their school life and feeling included in theirenvironment. The project involved the pupils in planning for, and producing,a book of photographs of things they wanted to remember about theirschool. Through doing this, the researchers hoped to involve pupils in dis-cussions about the school, their experiences there (particularly their thoughtsand feelings about what made them feel included or excluded), the closureof the school and their future school placement.

Two groups of pupils were chosen for the project, one consisting ofthree primary-aged pupils and the second, four secondary-aged pupils. Allthe pupils participated on a voluntary basis and their parents were informedof their participation. Although six of the seven pupils knew which schoolthey would be attending in the new term, one did not. At the time of theinterviews, the secondary pupils who were placed in new schools had allmade visits to those schools, but all three primary-aged pupils had not seentheir future school.

The research project was carried out at the school over six sessions,three sessions per group. Session 1 involved pupils in the planning of theproject. They were asked to think about why they liked being at this school,what made it important to them and why. They were then asked to decide on12 things they would each photograph for a book of photographs that wouldbe a memory of this school. As they could only take 12, they had to decidewhich things would be the most important. Discussions about which pho-tographs they might take, and why they were the important ones, took placewith the other pupils in the group. The researchers (myself [Tina Cook] anda colleague from Northumbria University, Professor John Swain) were alsopresent. These discussions were tape-recorded with the children’s consent.

In session 2, each pupil was given a disposable camera with 24 frames.Each child took two photographs of their chosen subject, one for possibleinclusion in the school memories book and the other to have as his or herown personal memory of the school. Each child went round the school taking photographs. They went with a friend and a researcher acted as assis-tant to help with technical and/or physical problems. Many interesting


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discussions took place and comments were made about the topics of the pho-tographs as they were taken.

In the third session the pupils selected photographs for the schoolmemory book and for their own personal book, which they would keep. Theschool book had two sections, one put together by the primary group, theother by the secondary group. Each photograph chosen for the school bookwas accompanied by a caption, which was discussed and agreed by eachgroup. This discussion was also tape-recorded and the tapes were tran-scribed.

All the pupils were engaged in and enthusiastic about the project. Bothphotograph books, the one for the school and their personal book, were asource of keen debate. The project stimulated discussion between the pupilsthemselves and with the researchers. Given the hierarchy of adult–childinteractions the researchers were acutely aware of the need to avoid directingthe children’s thoughts and contributions and tried to keep out of the discus-sions as much as possible. We encouraged the pupils to develop conversa-tions around the photographs and to talk among themselves. Inevitably, thepupils’ discussions covered a wide range of topics but three broad themesdid recur: education as an experience in itself; inclusion as belonging; andfeelings of exclusion. These themes had been on the adult researchers’ agen-da, but other topics within the themes, such as the importance of banter infeeling included, and the deep sense of history felt by the children, surprisedus.

Experiences of education: Their experiences were predominantly posi-tive and related almost wholly to the quality of the experiences themselves,rather than to any educational standards or aims. Captions written under-neath photographs of classrooms invariably had information about having‘laughs with my friends’ or ‘ it’s where we get together and see our friends’.

Teachers whose photographs featured in the books were generallythere because they were ‘cool’ or a ‘good laugh’, rather than because theywere skilled at teaching. They were described as ‘funny’, ‘mental’, ‘deadcrazy’, ‘excellent’, but also as ‘kind’ and ‘helpful’.

Researcher: Why do you want a picture of J [staff member] in this book?Pupil 1: Because she’s nice and she helps, she helped M [another pupil] any-way.Pupil 2: She helped me and all.

A photograph taken by one pupil of the school cook sparked a livelydiscussion about the art of flattening pancakes ‘she [the cook] just sits onthem’, and the ‘disgusting nature of school dinners’, ‘I’d rather eat horsemuck’.

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Having friends and feeling included: Most pupils’ photographs consistedpredominantly of their friends and there appeared to be strong friendshipbonds across both gender and age range. Among the secondary pupils, therewas the general camaraderie of leg pulling and teasing, often around ‘snog-ging’, ‘skipping lessons behind the sports hall’ people being ‘boring farts’,and their mutual purported dislike of anything that suggested work. ‘Maths.French. IT. We don’t like any of that!’ The primary pupils demonstrated theirfriendships in a much more straightforward manner:

Pupil: I’ve taken a picture of my friends. I like knocking about with my friends.I like C. I really like knocking about with him because he’s a real sort of friend.

Shared history as a feeling of belonging: The pupils had a lot to sayabout their shared history. Some children had taken photographs of the nurs-ery because they said that was where they had originally met their friends; itwas their history. Another source of evidence of shared history came fromdiscussions around performances they had been involved in. A primaryschool pupil took a photograph of the school hall. When asked why, hedescribed a band he and his friends had formed. They had played to theschool in the hall. He and his friend then went on to recall how it had madethem feel.

Pupil 1: We get together as a group and we practice and then we put on a showfor everyone.Pupil 2: Even the physios.Pupil 1: And it’s great because we’re all excited.

The primary pupils repeatedly talked about using the photographs theyhad taken as a link between the past and the future:

Researcher: Why do you want to keep these? [pointing to particular pho-tographs]Pupil: They have all my memories in . . . and I want to take some [photographs]of my friends in secondary . . . because they have been my friends for quite along time.

Some judgements of the school were embedded in the pupils’ expres-sion of loss at the closure of the school. One pupil told us:

The thing is the school is closing. And the thing is when you leave a school youcan come back to see it, but we can’t come back and see it.

Another, talking about the book of photographs, stated:

So . . . like . . . you know . . . when I go to my new school I’ll be able to takethis and show them who my old teacher was. And I won’t know how I’ll be ableto see my old teacher, and I wanted to be able to see this.

So, while the pupils had talked about the areas the researchers were interest-ed in, their discussions based on the photographs revealed more in-depthfeelings than the researchers would have expected from a more traditional


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interview process. They introduced the adults to elements that were impor-tant to them in feeling included, such as the role of child banter, subcultureand shared history. These were important and very meaningful elements ofthe lived experiences of the children that contributed to them feeling part ofa group. Had we, as adult researchers, gone in and merely asked the ques-tion, ‘what makes you feel included in your school?’, we can only speculateas to whether we would have elicited similar responses but our speculation isthat we would have been unlikely to have reached so far into the children’slives. On the other hand, photographs did limit as well as enable discussion.For instance, we found that pupils’ thoughts and feelings about their futureplacements were not easily addressed. The immediate focus for the projectwas always the immediate context for the pupils. The more abstract ques-tions about their future had to be raised by the researchers.

Project 2This project was a facet of a national evaluation of the development of inte-grated childcare and education settings known as Early Excellence (EE)Centres in the UK. It took place in a suburban area of economic decline anddisadvantage. It was carried out by myself and another colleague, Else Hess,from Denmark. Else was the field researcher.

The aim of the research was to gather the views and opinions of chil-dren, aged 4–5 years, on various aspects of their life in reception class atschool. Topics to be explored included: what made children happy in theschool/EE Centre environment; what motivated them; how they perceivedthe educational opportunities on offer and how they participated in them.

Having little knowledge of the group of children, the researchers, as inproject 1, asked the class teacher to choose the children for the project. Thegroup of children consisted of two girls and three boys, all of whom, withthe assent of their parents, agreed to participate in the project. Else thenspent time in the classroom before the project began so that the childrenwould get to know her.

Collecting data took place over a period of 7 days (half and wholedays), interrupted by half-term. While the main method of engaging with thechildren had been envisaged as the use of photography, when Else joined theproject she had no experience of this approach and was unsure that it wouldgive us all the information we needed. Her uncertainty led her to combinethis method with methods with which she was more familiar, i.e. talkingwith children (interviews) about the subject being researched. She also want-ed to include the use of group interviews with children as a way of ensuringthat she would gather all the information she felt she might need. This wasagreed. She therefore made a list of topics she wished to cover which shebelieved would have relevance to an ordinary day for a child in receptionclass. The topics, in no order of priority, were:

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• Children and friends;• Adults and teachers;• Classroom;• Playground;• Places for outings, visits;• Activities – learning;• Activities – playing;• Toys;• Best time of day at school;• Parents.

When carrying out the interviews the intention was to focus and hold on toone or two topics chosen from the above. Other data on the same topic wereto be collected through the children’s drawings, the recording of generalconversation and comments, producing a book ‘Life in Reception Class’ andtaking photographs of things that interested them.

Interviews and group discussion with the children took place in a part-ly secluded area of the classroom. This meant that children could be at ease,in a well-known and safe environment, having familiar children and adultsclose by. The aim was to offer the children a familiar and talkative environ-ment for mutual inspiration. The drawing sessions were partly planned inadvance to meet the proposed topic and partly organized ‘on the spot as aresponse to child interest’. The latter were declared more successful by Elseas they allowed what she termed ‘unauthorized themes’ to get the activitygoing, and the children talked more freely and independently withoutresearcher prompt. Recordings of general conversation and comments werealso not planned but took place, when, according to Else, ‘the co-researchers– the children – had more important things to see to than pleasing the inter-viewer by answering her questions!’ In other words, when children were act-ing independently and there was no adult input or involvement, they talkedabout the topics that were important to them.

Else planned a number of photography sessions that were to focus on‘places where you like to play’, ‘your favourite toy in the classroom’, ‘yourfavorite games in the classroom’, ‘where you like to work’ and ‘decorationson the wall in the classroom that you like’. This planning by Else was onedemonstration of how difficult it is for an adult, especially an adult with aresearch agenda, to really let children direct the focus of the work. Bychance, however, the children also went on an educational visit and it wasagreed with the staff that photographs could be taken there. The educationalvisit was an outing to see a local church. The children were asked by thereception class staff to think about and find out certain things about the church. Else gave the children cameras to take photographs of things that


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interested them. Noticing a pupil leaning over the church wall to take a photograph of a seemingly empty space, Else asked him why he had takenthat photograph. The reply came back: ‘I’m taking this picture becausenobody asked me to look at it.’

This indicated a new theme that emanated from the children, one theresearchers had not originally expected or planned for, that of ‘childrenavoiding adult agendas’. Within the classroom Else noted that children weregood at avoiding adult agendas. When the children found themselves exclud-ed from influence over the current agenda as imposed by an adult, theywould draw on a number of methods to protest about or evade the givenagenda. Sometimes this involved ignoring adults, sometimes it involved lis-tening for a while and then going back to their own agenda, other times itmeant just doing the basics for the adult so it was done, and then doing yourown thing. For the aforementioned pupil on the educational visit, it meantdoing something not because you were necessarily interested in it, butbecause you perceived that the adult was not interested.

This group of children did, to various degrees and in direct and subtleways, offer opinions on all the topics the adult was interested in but, if theywere given space, they could and would add some of their own. Forinstance:

1. The importance of having playmates and the necessity of childrenmeeting children;2. The importance of spaces and opportunities for play; and3. The importance of doing something that you really want to do,rather than because others have given it some importance or have toldyou that it is important.

This project revealed the strength of the children’s ability to express them-selves on their own terms. When the adults tried to direct the interest of thechildren, it was less likely to be sustained. Offering an environment ratherthan determining the learning was more likely to be successful with thisgroup of children. This insight into children’s thinking was used by theresearcher as a lens for further observations into children’s ways of being inthat setting. It revealed that not only did a significant number of children notengage with adult-delivered material in a meaningful way, but that they haddeveloped very successful strategies for avoiding any form of engagementwhile continuing to follow their own lines of interest and engagement.

Project 3The third project was carried out by Else on her return to Denmark.Following her experiences with the use of cameras, she chose to use thismethod when designing and carrying out a research project with children in her home town. The aim of the project was to explore what pre-school



children understood by the experience of visiting art museums. The key top-ics to be covered in this project were:

• How do pre-school children perceive an exhibition at a museum?• What do they say about museums and visits to them?• Does the trip to the museum cause certain expectations amongthem?• How do pre-school children ‘go to an exhibition at a museum’?• What attracts their attention, what do they point out or catch sightof?• What meanings and values do pre-school children attach to muse-ums and visiting museums?

This was an entirely adult-designed project. Twelve children in total partici-pated in the project. Three visits were made to art museums. Four pre-schoolchildren, two boys and two girls went on each visit. The children were askedto take photographs of things that interested them, that they liked and thatthey would want to show to others. They were left to use the camera on theirown at the museum, making their own choice of subjects. Data were gath-ered together in the following ways:

1. Interviews/talks were held with pairs of children before the museumvisit;2. Observations were made by the researcher during the museum vis-its;3. Photographs were taken in the museum by the children; and4. After the visits the children’s photographs were used as a catalystfor discussion about the visit.

All the interviews were recorded and transcribed.The taking of photographs and the discussion around them was popu-

lar and appeared to be taken very seriously by the children. There wasreflection not only about the content of the photographs, but also aboutwhether choosing the subject matter was easy or difficult. One boy felt itwas hard to decide what pictures to take photographs of. When asked inwhat way he said:

Child: Well, because a lot of them were nice.Researcher: Were there too many things to take pictures of?Child: Yes, it would have been fine if such a lot of them had not been so nice. Itwas fine, if only some had been ugly, too. Such a lot of them were nice. Itwould be fine, if most of them were ugly. Because there are such lot of them, itis hard to make up my mind.

From this the adult presumed that the child liked the exhibits in the museum and that he had taken his job of identifying the nice ones very


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seriously indeed. Another child said it was easy to take photographs but thesecond part of his answer revealed that he had a categorization plan that puz-zled the researcher:

Child: It was totally dead easy [to decide on what photographs to take]. I justlooked for tough things.

Upon further discussion it was revealed that this child’s point of referencefor taking photographs was ‘tough’ things, or things boys might stereotypi-cally find interesting; wedding dresses did not figure in his set of pho-tographs. The children did not always understand things in the way expectedby the adults, nor did they like or take an interest in things we expected themto, and if they did, it was not always in the way we might expect. The sub-jects that the children seemed interested in were likely to be associated withtheir known world of experience. Such interests included earthworms,robots, jewel cases, wedding dresses, cars and teddy bears. While most ofthe photographs were about their usual experience, the content of one exhi-bition, considered by a curator at the museum to be ‘less suitable for chil-dren’, featured significantly in the children’s collection of photographs. Thisgave the researchers much to contemplate. Kampmann (2001) also notedthat child culture cannot entirely be limited to the expressions, actions andartefacts that are originally and explicitly directed to children but that,‘Other kinds of cultural events, media productions etc. which in principlemay be considered adult cultural manifestations, will represent importantingredients in child culture’ (Kampmann, 2001: 55).

The inspiration for other photographs appeared to come from interest-ing stories told on the spot by another person, or by the wish to sociallybelong and were taken because another child had already done so. It wouldappear that some photographs were taken because the child was keen to beincluded in the social group rather than because of any interest in the subjectmatter. The importance of the social dimension of children’s lives was raisedagain when one child, invited to talk with the researcher alone about his pho-tographs, found no inspiration whatsoever. After a short time with the inter-viewer, he asked ‘Where are the others? When is Sam going to come inhere?’ The two playmates were then invited into the discussion and veryshortly the child was talking about the photographs with his friends. Thenthe rest of the children from the museum group arrived and the room becamefull of intense excitement, commotion, chatter and giggling. Together withtheir friends the children looked at, commented on and compared each oth-ers’ photographs. They showed each other what they considered to be impor-tant, remembering and recalling episodes from the visit using their own pho-tographs as starting points. The photographs allowed them to have discus-sions with friends, to be excited about their interest and articulate it forthemselves and to the observing adults in a way that was unmediated byadults. These discussions were rich in data for the researcher who wanted to

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gather the child’s perspective and suggested that children thought carefullyabout the taking of photographs and had different and varied reasons fortheir choice of photograph.

Discussion and questions

One of our criteria for the research had been to make it fun for the childrenand our experience overall was that the children seemed to enjoy workingwith cameras and engaged with the projects. They were willing photogra-phers and took pleasure in talking with their friends about the process andoutcomes. The choosing of subject matter for their photographs, the takingof the photographs and subsequent discussion tended to reveal far more tothe researchers than they would have expected using an entirely verbalapproach for data collection. In all three projects, the adults were surprisedand enlightened by aspects of what the children had chosen to photograph.Discussions about the photographs revealed more complex and in-depthconceptualizations than we had imagined, introduced topics unexpected bythe researchers and offered new suggestions as to what might be meaningfulfor children in certain situations. At the end of each project, we were there-fore relatively content with the method we had used. Combining the researchprojects to take a critical look at what expectations we had, as researchers, ofthe use of this data collection method, has, however, led us to ask questionsabout some of our presuppositions and interpretations.

Why take photographs: using a different filterA key element that remained unexplored through the research was the chil-dren’s understanding about why they were taking photographs. Adults candifferentiate the purposes of taking photographs. There are holiday snaps,journalistic/documentary photographs, photographs for design and artisticrepresentation and even photographs just to see how the camera works. Wewould understand the photographic outcome and interpret the meaning ofeach in a different way. We had asked the children to give us documentaryphotographs without explanation of this kind of distinction. Indeed, we hadnot even recognized and acknowledged this distinction for ourselves. Webuilt on a presumption that the children would take photographs in relationto this meaning-making, and we would then read them through this filter. Itis unlikely that they had a shared notion of what photographs were for orwhat the researchers might want them for. At the heart of these projects wasa particular presumption, held by adults, about what photographs representfor a child. An exploration of what meaning the children might haveattached to the process of taking of photographs could have strengthened thevalidity of the interpretations made by the adults.


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Generalizing on diversityThroughout we have used the term ‘the children’ to refer to the children whoparticipated in the project. This term tended to homogenize the children andtheir experience of taking photographs and perhaps reflects our preconcep-tions about how children would take photographs. Far from being a homoge-neous group, however, the children were from varied social backgrounds,cultures and two different countries. They ranged from pre-school to sec-ondary age and had varied levels of ability. What they had in common wasthat they all seemed to enjoy taking photographs and sharing them withother children, but it became clear that they had different experiences andunderstandings of the use of cameras and they brought those experiences oftaking photographs to the projects.

Interpretation and analysis: who tells the storyJoint discussion about the photographs was a significant part of the threeprojects and involved a deeper analysis of the purpose behind the selectionof the photographs with some revealing insights for the researchers. Itencouraged dialogue (not necessarily between researcher and child, moreoften between children) and enabled the eavesdropping adult to reflect onpossible meanings embedded in those discussions. The children had moreopportunities to ‘create and insist’ on meaning (Rasmussen, 1999) in relationto their experiences in everyday life. This repeated engagement with thechildren slowed down the adult journey to deciding upon meanings. It gavetime to think about what a child was saying, to listen again or differently,and offered the potential for new interpretations. In all three projects dis-cussed in this article, receiving a child’s commentary was the end as well asthe beginning of a process. It was the end of the attempts by adults to findout a child’s understandings and perceptions on a particular subject and thebeginning of an adult interpretation of what has been revealed. Importantly,the second process was unmediated by the children.

Each project had two reporting structures. There were photographsthat the children retained and ‘words’ written to go back to adults (thereport). None of the research projects followed up and explored any contin-ued involvement of the children with the photographs. In retrospect, doingthis may have helped us to know more about why the children took the pho-tographs and how they viewed their daily experiences. While the childrenwere involved in discussing why they took the photographs, the adultsremained the interpreters of this dialogue when reports were written. Theadult interpretation was not checked out with the children, which meant theyhad no input into the final analysis.

Research design: limiting the viewfinderThe conceptualization and design of the projects described in this articlewere entirely adult led. The children played no part in it, despite the fact that

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adults were trying to understand their world. Did the children understandwhat a research project was, what it was for and why the adults wanted themto take photographs? It is unlikely that the children were talking about theirphotographs to enable the adult to understand their worlds (the aim of theadult researchers) yet this is how the adults interpreted their actions and dis-cussions. Whether the children had truly understood the nature of the pro-jects was left unaddressed. It certainly was not clear whether the enthusiasmof the children in respect of participation was directed at the projects ormotivated by the opportunity to have fun taking photographs and beingabsent from regular classes. Could discussions with the children about thenature of the research have led to a process that related more closely to thechildren’s experiences? Research design is one of the many ways in whichadults direct children. What to study about the children remained within theadult notion of the research and the adults’ prerogative. In the researchdesign, we had intended to be open to hearing meanings children attached totheir photographs but the viewfinder had already been limited. The use ofcameras may have offered a glimpse into the child’s world but the construc-tion of camera use for research may have been so embedded in our expecta-tions of the research that we narrowed our lens. The children’s wider storieswere in danger of being framed by researcher expectations.

Summary

The experience of their lives, discussed by the children, offered views thatadults had not expected and perhaps cannot always see given the complexoverlay of experiences through which interpretations have to be filtered.While childhood is something common to all humans, the child within eachof us tends to be buried by the conventions of adult socialization. In projectsdiscussed in this article, the adults learnt more from and about the childrenwhen they were able to stand back, relinquish some of their cherished plansand let the children take a lead in telling and retelling their stories. Theprocess of discussions using the photographs as a starting point, led theadults to new ideas and thoughts about the children’s way of perceiving theirlearning environment and how they participate in, and make meaning of,those environments. As Berger (1972: 10) suggests: ‘photographs are not, asis often assumed, a mechanical record . . . although every image embodies away of seeing, our perception of appreciation of an image depends also uponour own way of seeing’.

It needs to be recognized that photographs are not an absolute repre-sentation of a given state, but a tool to help understandings develop. Theimages held by the children in these projects had multiple meanings, bothfor them and the adult viewer. They offered a perspective from a given con-text, at a given time. Researching with the children, using their photographs,necessitated being open to seeing and hearing changing meanings and unex-


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pected things, often in unanticipated ways. It meant accepting that what weglean from children is more of an indicator of meanings, rather than anabsolute: ‘Tuning into children through observation involves the adult’scapacity to tolerate the anxiety associated with uncertainty about the mean-ing or implication of what the adult takes in – in his or her mind and eye’(Selleck, 2001: 86).

The children took photographs for a number of different reasons. Itwas the exploration of these reasons, through discussion based on the pho-tographs, that helped us make more sense of their understandings about theirworld, rather than the photographs themselves. A vital element of the pho-tographs was the opportunities they offered to revisit situations with the chil-dren, to listen intently to their talk and to be able to change our views.Photographs themselves may not, therefore, be as reliable as ‘tangible evi-dence of interest’ and a ‘manifest representation of their interests’ asRasmussen (1999) originally suggested. Conversations with the children,based on their photographs, did, however, enable the children to ‘insist onmeaning’ (Rasmussen, 1999) and engendered adult learning.

Thinking about the adult-orientated conceptualization of the projects,and the overlay of adult expectations, has highlighted the need for us to con-sider how much more we have to learn about the strength and intrusivenessof our own perceptions when working with children. Although we acknowl-edged there were differences between a child’s view of the world and anadult’s, perhaps we had not thought carefully enough about these differencesand given this sufficient weight. A child’s vision may be sharper than anadult’s, yet the adult may miss what is being demonstrated because it doesnot fit their version of reality. The child’s perspective, being a fragile notion,can then easily be crushed by adults who cannot move from their own ver-sion of an experience or, in the urgency of their research, find it difficult tosee the alternative interpretation.

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what the camera sees

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