| Session Title: Telling Our Story: School Transformation Documented Through an Ethnographic Photo Gallery |
| Demonstration Session 620 to be held in Coronado on Friday, Nov 4, 10:45 AM to 11:30 AM |
| Sponsored by the AEA Conference Committee |
| Presenter(s): |
| Leanne Kallemeyn, Loyola University, Chicago, lkallemeyn@luc.edu |
| Margaret Policastro, Roosevelt University, mpolicas@roosevelt.edu |
| Julie Wren, Loyola University, Chicago, jwren@luc.edu |
| Lisa Hood, Illinois State University, lhood@ilstu.edu |
| Abstract: This presentation shares experiences with “visual ethnography” in the first year (2010—2011) of implementing a three-year literacy professional development initiative, which is a collaboration between two Chicago public elementary schools and the College of Education at Roosevelt University with the support of an Illinois Board of Higher Education Improving Teacher Quality grant. The purpose of this presentation is to explore how four strategies for using photographs in visual research may apply to evaluation practice: empirical evidence to support a logic model, visual narratives, photo elicitation interviewing, and interpreting pictures from the phenomenological mode of the photographer. These strategies demonstrate how photographs represent an evaluand in a particular way, and thus privilege certain values, such as beautification of the school environment and relationship building. Also, the photographs seem to facilitate the dissemination of “the story” to multiple stakeholder audiences. |