A novel way in which a number of educators were able to incorporate feminist teaching practices into their classrooms was through a project called Photovoice.
As a classroom project, Photovoice allowed three core feminist principles to be explored (Robinson-Keilig, Hamill, Gwin-Vinsant, & Dashner, 2014, p. 292):
- Challenging instructor/student hierarchy
- Valuing Student Experience and Knowledge
- Facilitating Critical Consciousness
“In Photovoice, students own the process of creating knowledge and draw directly upon their own lived experiences – strategies cited as highly effective when introducing challenging material to students” (Robinson-Keilig, Hamill, Gwin-Vinsant, & Dashner, 2014, p. 293). This is in contrast to “traditional methods, such as lecture and quantitative texts, when teaching sensitive topics,” including the “topic of violence against women” (p. 293).
How Was Photovoice Conducted?
“Film cameras are provided to participants to document and record their everyday lived experiences in response to a central question. Photographic images become the primary mode of expression for participants and go on to serve as the principal data for the study” (Robinson-Keilig, Hamill, Gwin-Vinsant, & Dashner, 2014, p. 292). “In Photovoice, the participant literally transforms from a passive research subject to an active creator of meaning and knowledge (Wang & Burris, 1997; Wang, 1999)” (p. 292).
There were a series of five steps (Robinson-Keilig, Hamill, Gwin-Vinsant, & Dashner, 2014, p. 293) :
- Students would assume ownership of the project and name the topic of exploration
- Students would generate the photos in response to the identified topic. This includes writing a brief narrative explanation to accompany the photo
- Students would review their personal photo collection and identify recurrent themes, patterns, or experience. This may materialize in the form of repeated “feeling states” represented in the photos, or it may come as repeated actions depicted in the photos. The end product is for students to summarize between 5 and 7 patterns across their own photos and then select one key photo to represent each of the prominent patterns
- This same process would be repeated but now each student would review the 5- 7 patterns (each represented by a selected photo) of each of the other students in class, again looking for common themes, patterns, or experiences
- The students would all come together and discuss their “findings” and negotiate a common understanding in response to the guiding question.
“Students would play an active and prominent role and, as a result, would be intimately involved in creating part of the knowledge base for the course” (Robinson-Keilig, Hamill, Gwin-Vinsant, & Dashner, 2014, p. 293).
Journey to Critical Consciousness
What Photovoice has been able to achieve so profoundly is to allow students is to allow students to realize that their “education is a journey [in which one can] … gain new insights and self-awareness. This journey encompasses the ability to recognize and understand the multiple systems of oppression that exist in society, the roles one has played within these systems, adn how one has internalized the dominant cultural values as unquestioned truths (Burbules & Berk, 1999; Freire, 1995)” (Robinson-Keilig, Hamill, Gwin-Vinsant, & Dashner, 2014, p. 294).
This journey is a process referred to as critical consciousness and, at its most basic level, it embodies an awakening within students (Robinson-Keilig, Hamill, Gwin-Vinsant, & Dashner, 2014, p. 294).
As a result, “Photovoice as a classroom project could be easily applied in courses that address issues such as identity development, oppression, and discrimination” (Robinson-Keilig, Hamill, Gwin-Vinsant, & Dashner, 2014, p. 295).