About the Project

What stories might children tell about their spaces, contexts, and everyday lives and their responsibilities and roles as local and global citizens? Photographer-educator, Wendy Ewald, has collaborated with children around the world to develop their storytelling expertise through photography. Ewald believes that “having a camera gives anyone power, but particularly children” (Ewald, Barrett & Salyer, 2020).

Images shape our lives more than ever. In The Social Photo, Jurgenson, writes, “With every passing decade, it is always said that photography now matters more than ever, and the statement is always true (2020, p. 11). Today, people constantly take and share images to document everyday life, raising questions about how this widespread visual culture affects society. 

Photos can reveal, disturb, or numb us (Sontag, 1977), yet images are still often overlooked in education. We must learn to analyze the images that surround us. According to UNESCO researchers (Hopkins et al., 2020), today’s children are “visualizers,” but schools often miss the opportunity to support visual learning. They argue that the 21st century is the “age of the image,”. Critical visual literacies must be tied to real social issues.

Participatory or collaborative research shifts power by involving participants as co-researchers rather than subjects. This approach is valued because it is inclusive and provides deeper insight into how young people communicate and make meaning through images and visual culture. When researchers and children share roles in this way, it can also influence classroom practice—teachers, like researchers, become learners alongside students.

This research examines what it looks like to shift from an adult gaze on children, to children viewing and framing their own lives through their visual literacy practices, and children offering insights into research data.