Picture This: Seeing Diverse Youths' Ideas about Schools' Purposes, Supports, and Impediments: Students from the “Through Eyes” Project

Abstract

The high school dropout crisis in diverse urban communities in the United States is evidence of an endemic disengagement from formal education. The project on which this essay reports utilized visual sociology methods to explore city students' perceptions of schools' purposes, as well as the supports for and impediments to their school success. Students' photographs and reflections provide insights into the school structures, teacher roles, and instructional methods these students suggest are most effective and some of the causes of the strained relationships to schools represented by low graduation rate statistics.