Examining Community with Pre-service Teachers Through the Use of Participatory Photography Projects
Book Chapter
Mathews, SA, Adams, EC. (2015). Examining Community with Pre-service Teachers Through the Use of Participatory Photography Projects
. 295-319. 10.1007/978-3-319-22939-3_16
Mathews, SA, Adams, EC. (2015). Examining Community with Pre-service Teachers Through the Use of Participatory Photography Projects
. 295-319. 10.1007/978-3-319-22939-3_16
In this chapter we advocate for pedagogies that utilize photography to elicit observations about communities in ways that help pre-service teachers interrogate their assumptions about these spaces. The projects described in this chapter aim to help pre-service teachers think critically about the spaces and places they occupy. We hope to help students develop a spatial perspective so they can “make better theoretical and practical sense of how social justice is created, maintained, and brought into question as a target for democratic social action” (Soja, Seeking spatial justice, vol 16, p 2. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2010). We see photography as an important tool for conceiving of space as Soja challenges us to do, not as a static backdrop but as ever-changing and malleable. The examples we feature are intended to help elementary and secondary pre-service teachers become aware of, articulate, challenge, or disrupt how they think about communities.
