Jon Prosser

Visual methods and the visual culture of schools

This article examines visual methods for understanding the visual culture of schools. It adopts an institutional culture perspective to equate the visual culture of schools with the ‘hidden curriculum’ of schooling. A range of visual sub‐cultures is touched upon including architecture, non‐teaching space and postures of teaching and learning. The possibility of conceiving the visual culture of schools as a holistic entity raises the problematic of devising broader more encompassing visual‐centric methodologies combining mixed methods and cross‐disciplinary approaches.

Ethical issues in image-based research

This paper provides an overview of current ethical concerns in image-based research. It considers the influence of institutional structures such as regulatory frameworks, professional guidelines and institutional review boards before focusing on issues of data collection and dissemination. The paper discusses informed consent, anonymity and confidentiality, specifically in relation to how they may differ in image-based compared to word-based research. It is suggested that a situated approach to image-based ethics is better able to take account of the concrete, everyday situations within which ethics are negotiated between researchers and research participants.

Personal Reflections on the Use of Photography in an Ethnographic Case Study

Abstract In the past photography has been little used in educational research. If it is to play a greater role in the future there will be a need to establish a set of practical and theoretical guidelines. This article describes a practical application of photography to a case study of a newly formed comprehensive school. A broad strategy is presented, giving an outline of photographic techniques and their uses within a qualitative research framework. The approach described is not intended to be a definitive model, merely a modus operandi upon which to focus debate.

Ethical regulation and visual methods: Making visual research impossible or developing good practice?

The ethical regulation of social research in the UK has been steadily increasing over the last decade or so and comprises a form of audit to which all researchers in Higher Education are subject. Concerns have been raised by social researchers using visual methods that such ethical scrutiny and regulation will place severe limitations on visual research developments and practice. This paper draws on a qualitative study of social researchers using visual methods in the UK. The study explored their views, the challenges they face and the practices they adopt in relation to processes of ethical review. Researchers reflected on the variety of strategies they adopted for managing the ethical approval process in relation to visual research. For some this meant explicitly ‘making the case’ for undertaking visual research, notwithstanding the ethical challenges, while for others it involved ‘normalising’ visual methods in ways which delimited the possible ethical dilemmas of visual approaches. Researchers only rarely identified significant barriers to conducting visual research from ethical approval processes, though skilful negotiation and actively managing the system was often required. Nevertheless, the climate of increasing ethical regulation is identified as having a potential detrimental effect on visual research practice and development, in some instances leading to subtle but significant self-censorship in the dissemination of findings.

Visual mediation of critical illness: an autobiographical account of nearly dying and nearly living1

This article is concerned with the portrayal of the impact of critical illness on the authors life. An autobiographical approach is used to illustrate how imagery mediates personal trauma. A personal journey over a four‐year period, from the onset of illness towards recovery, is portrayed in the form of snapshots of critical events. Running parallel to the visual dimension is the application of mountain climbing as a metaphor for first understanding critical illness and then as a vehicle to aid recuperation. The journey is described in a narrative style that represents one reality.