Pictures about school

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of their school can add new aspects to the school discussion.

Background

I have been involved in a project initiated by Skolverket (The Swedish National Agency for Education). The aim was to look for new or different methods of evaluation of school as an arena for knowledge and culture. The project consists of two studies:

• Pupils correspond in writing letters telling about school1

• Pupils make pictures telling about school2

The source of research is a collection of about 450 pictures made by children and students in different ages, living in different parts of Sweden. The y have created the pictures about how it is to be a pupil at

school today? The pictures have been treated with pattern analyses and close analysis from different

thematic viewpoints and codes in the signifying aesthetic production. Examples of such themes are: The social and physical organisation of outdoor environment; Time and space; Power, resistance and negotiations ; Order of seeing; Inside the classroom.

The Study – Perspective and Theory

My study started with 65 pictures chosen from the collection above. During a two days meeting, 118 teachers have looked at, reflected on and discussed the pictures, individually as well as in groups. Tape recordings have been used for the documentation. Later 60 student teachers did the same.

The teachers and student teachers are talking individually and together of what they see and understand when they are looking at the pictures. I am analysing the material with glasses from reflection (teacher

thinking) and discourse theories as well as visual communications. What are they talking about and what

are they not talking about? I am looking at the reflections and conversation in different categories as:

1 _{Den rimliga skolan – The Reasonable School – (Lundahl & Öqvist, 1999)}

• The school environment;

• Teachers own role as a teacher, a student teacher, a parent or as a pupil;

• School institutions, time, organisations, knowledge etc.

The aim is to investigate if pupils’ drawings of their school can add new aspects of the school discussion.

The Pupils’ Perspective

I am looking at the processes and construction of meaning of the pictures from the children and youth perspective. Compared to other images in our society I think that pictures made by children in school are marginalized and in minority. Pupils often feel that their pictures have no receivers and are not seen seriously. Usually pupils are seen as a homogeneous and anonymous group, but I mean that the visual language – using production and communication – can be more individualized. That language allows a more differentiated way of communication. The context where the pictures are produced and also where they have been seen is of course also very important. By using the pup il’s perspective I hope we are able to learn more about the children and their school life. The pictures tell us one way of seeing. The pupils have no pretensions to tell “the truth”, but to tell their aspects of it – maybe also the myth about school.

Talking and Reflecting

The context is very important as well as our cultural and social traditions. To study the visual field is much more than just to study the picture itself. When looking at the pictures in different ways and with different glasses you can see the relations of power/ knowledge, gender, traditions and values. The conversations are interpreted as a form of critical discourse analysis and deconstruction. The framework and methodology operates of social constructionist. The tools I use are Foucault’s concept of normalizing and excluding and the production of power/ knowledge.

A first small part is finished by looking at these pictures. The question was: Which pictures are most important or most interesting? The answer was that all observers are looking for the good school (the idealising image of school, teacher, pupil, society etc.) and at the same time discussed the awful and bad

school with the good one3 as background.

My Questions

• What kind of knowledge can we achieve from images?

• What kind of knowledge do images make accessible compared to verbal language?

• Can pictures made by children and youth give us a different or new kind of knowledge about school?

• What do the teachers and student teachers talk about and what remains silent?

Malmö University

Dept of Culture, Language and Media, SE-205 06 Malmö, Sweden

Tutors: Professor Gunnar Åsén and Senior lecturer Lena Rubinstein Reich

Lena Jönsson, doctoral candidate

Nyckelkroken 14, SE-226 47 Lund, Sweden Lena.Jonsson@lut.mah.se Phone private: +46 46 149 749 Mobile: +46 70 496 0405