Abstract
This article examines how visual methodologies might be incorporated into educational policy studies. By bringing together theoretical perspectives on critical policy studies and visual methodologies, we aim to demonstrate the ways in which the visual can be an important tool to help us interrogate how knowledge is produced through the constructions and representations of policy texts and discourses. In so doing, we suggest that the use of visual methodologies can help us to rethink policy, particularly in relation to studying social difference in globalizing conditions. While we focus here on one set of documents, the annual Global Monitoring Reports associated with Education For All (EFA), our aim overall is to highlight both the methodological and policy implications that could be applied to a variety of official texts.
Highlights
Visual methodologies and policy research Policy research over the last two decades has sought to develop new approaches to studying the social construction of knowledge in social and educational arenas (Ball, 2010; Morris, 2012; Gale, 2001)
Using a case study of images in the Global Monitoring Reports of Education for All (EFA), we suggest that visual research can play a key role in sharpening policy analysis
Our analysis points to the significance of underlying perspectives and themes, and we draw on other studies as well which have used visual methodologies to study the effects of visual representation on constructing social relationships in local and international campaigns related to issues such as HIV and AIDS and girls’ education
Summary
Visual methodologies and policy research Policy research over the last two decades has sought to develop new approaches to studying the social construction of knowledge in social and educational arenas (Ball, 2010; Morris, 2012; Gale, 2001). Our positioning as insider or outsider in relation to the culture in which the image is produced can play a central role in shaping our interpretations of the image In this way, her method invites us to reflect on who we are when we interpret the meanings implicated in a visual text. Magno & Kirk’s (2010) research focused on the relationships between girls who are the “subjects” of girls’ education initiatives by development agencies and the wider global audience of reports, campaigns and general information about such girls They were interested in exploring how these indirect and yet powerful relationships between the girls and producers and viewers are mediated or constructed by media, imagery, pre-existing understandings and assumptions. Visual methodologies provide us with a tool to question the theoretical implications of texts and discourses that are constructed behind a policy framework
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