Producing Visual Research with Children: Exploring Power and Meaning Making

Abstract

Visual methods are often seen as a helpful way of eliciting children’s voices (Clark and Moss, 2011; Greene and Hogan, 2005; Prosser and Burke, 2008; Thomson, 2008). Using visual research methods, it is argued, can provide the potential for children and young people to record aspects of their lives and to generate multi-layered data (Piper and Frankham, 2007). It is suggested that these methods are not only accessible to children, but can also help to address the power imbalance between adults and children in research. For example, Prosser and Burke (2008) state that research using visual methods can be empowering as images are central to children’s culture and everyday lives. They argue that ‘words are the domain of adult researchers and therefore can be disempowering to the young. Images and their mode of production, on the other hand, are central to children’s culture from a very early age and are therefore empowering’ (Prosser and Burke, 2008, p. 407). Whilst we recognise that relating research approaches to children’s everyday experiences and the way they express themselves can provide opportunities for children to participate in the research process in meaningful ways and on their own terms (Greene and Hill, 2005), we also aim to critically orientate ourselves within the literature on visual research with children by examining the relationships between power and meaning making through the research process.