Understanding children's educational experiences through image based research

Contemporary social science research is increasingly focusing on the need to research the lives of individuals, especially children, from their own perspectives. Studies seek to capture and make visible the diversity of children’s lives, but this requires that researchers explore methodologies that enable participants to tell their own stories. In recent years, the growing sense of urgency to uncover the realities of children’s worlds (Christensen and James 2000), has been accompanied by the growing recognition of the need to fully engage the child in any research process that involves them (Green and Hogan 2007). This has been paralleled by a renewed interest in visual ethnography (Banks 2001), prompting second editions of certain key texts such as those of Pink (2007) and Rose (2007). Clearly, visual methodologies allow researchers the possibility to enter children’s worlds in very immediate, yet creative ways using techniques such as drawings (Kilkelly et al. 2004), video diaries (Haw 2008) and photography (Ewald and Lightfoot 2001).