2023
The Selfie Project
Children aged 9-13 years old came to a weekly photography club where the focus was disrupting usual ways of doing selfies. We were asking the research question: How do children interpret and analyze their own photography and artworks in terms of their subject positions at home, at school and in the community?
Research story
Over a period of three months, children, their teacher, and academic researchers engaged in playful encounters with each other, iPads (as cameras), art materials, and their familiar spaces and places.
We asked children to take and modify photos to tell about themselves as learners at school, as family members at home, and as members of their larger community. Everyday visual literacies, critical visual (digital) literacies and collaborative research with children formed the framework. In this study, weekly photographic provocations were posed to the children (i.e., take photos of who you are in this school; edit photos of your local community to show your relationship with these spaces), and their connection to images that relate to everyday identities, positions, and relationships. A visual artist, Vanessa Crosbie Ramsay, led the children in a daylong culminating event where children made collages from the photographic images they had generated. The project ended with a public art exhibit at our university. This project also left with questions about how we might engage more deeply with participants regarding analysis of the process and products.
Children as research collaborators
Children acted as researchers in this project by generating photos and by analyzing the processes and products through group discussions. Through this work, they reflected on their sense of self. We worked together to build their understanding of what researchers do when they ask questions and collect data. We also focused agency of participants to decide on what they do and do not share.
Images created by children (selected)
Playful Selfie
Self as a Learner
Feelings about Community
