Photography as a System for Representing the Teacher’s Theories and Beliefs

Abstract

 In this chapter, we offer teachers a practical vision on how photography can be used to represent their practical knowledge (theories and beliefs) that shape their teaching methodology. We analyse the semiotic value of images, and how the language of the image can create meaningful actions and provoke reflections on significant educational events and classroom situations.

We begin by explaining how photography has become an enticing resource for educational research and training by providing a multimodal tool to express our feelings or narrate our experiences. Recent studies on teachers' theories and beliefs have explored the use of photography as a way of enabling them to speak through their camera. This approach to research has rarely been used in the field of in-service teacher education; however, it is of significant interest because of the contributions that photography makes to our identification and understanding of teachers' practical knowledge. From these studies, we illustrate and exemplify how photography, with its own language, enables teachers to capture what they experience in their classrooms and thereby explain more effectively the theories and beliefs that underpin their methodology.

Introduction

In this chapter, we give teachers a practical overview of how photography can be used to create a record of images representing the theories and beliefs that shape their method of teaching. We emphasis the value of discussing classroom situations using the photographs taken by the teachers themselves. We analyse which semiotic elements of the photographic language need to be considered when we express ourselves with images. In other words, the language of the image, like all language, has the ability to create meaningful actions.

We begin by briefly explaining how photography has become an interesting resource for educational research and training by providing a multimodal tool for expressing our feelings, narrating our experiences, and showing our particular world view. This is particularly useful for educational inquiry, as it facilitates access to subjective views and focuses the student’s attention. Recent studies into the theories and beliefs of teachers have discussed the use of photography as a way of allowing them to speak through their camera. This investigative approach has rarely been used in the field of in-service teacher training; however, it is interesting due to the contributions made by photography to our identification and understanding of the teacher’s practical knowledge. These contributions will be identified at the beginning of the chapter. We will dwell on one of the issues that emerge from these studies, and that defines the purpose of this chapter: if photography has its own language that facilitates the communication of messages and ideas, it would be interesting to reflect on how this language can enable teachers to capture what they experience in their classrooms and, in this way, explain more effectively the theories and beliefs that shape their methodology.

Representing the Teacher’s Practical Knowledge Through Photography

In recent years, interest in the use of photography for recording data for educational research has increased. Audio-visual media have transcended positivism and have given rise to other rich, interesting approaches to research in different areas of the social sciences (Mannay, 2017). Today, photography is conceived as a valuable educational research tool because it gives access to a series of data that can hardly be expressed with words (Burke & Grosvenor, 2004). Authors such as Schwartz (1994) highlight the value of photography as a tool for narrating experiences, evoking feelings, and revealing the participants’ beliefs and points of view. In this way, photography complements verbal narration by facilitating an understanding of the reality and the actions of the subjects. Photography is conceptualized by Ardèvol (2006) as self-records, defined as the presentation and collection of data by a social actor who shows us information about their culture or their social group through their subjective experience. This new perspective places the teacher in the role of creator of cultural records and documents, a person who not only illustrates a reality, but who is understood on the basis of the meanings they contribute as creators of these productions (Ball & Smith, 1992; Thompson, 2008). This way of understanding the role of the camera in inquiry and education shows that photography is a symbolic tool, one that is capable of generating meanings through the voices and worlds of teachers who use them in the democratic work process in which they take part as creators and key narrators of reality (Harper, 2002; Pink, 2007, 2009). In the words of Ardèvol (2006, p. 32) “the study of visual forms of social practices in modern societies should allow us to go beyond simply pointing out their importance - it should allow us to describe, understand and explain each specific practice”.

On the basis of these arguments, various studies have been performed with teachers in which photography plays a key role in in-service teacher training (Bautista, 2017; Bautista et al., 2018; Hamilton, 2015; Mukeredzi & Nyachowe, 2018; Ruto-Korir & Lubbe-De Beer, 2012; Stockall & Davis, 2011; Taylor, 2016). In these studies, teachers photograph important situations in their classroom that are later presented to a working team together with the reasons that prompted them to take the photograph. This creates a space for dialogue and discussion about the teacher's practice that gives insight into the beliefs and theories that shape their method of teaching. In other words, photo-elicitation involves telling a story from a photograph, and with it, interpreting and giving meaning to the actions, objects or events shown in the photograph (Harper, 2002). This allows us to see “through eyes of the teacher” and access their particular interpretation of the image. In these studies, photography is used in teacher training to first record important situations arising in their classroom, and later to prompt discussion on these situations. In addition, the following advantages of photography have been identified, showing its importance in in-service teacher training:

• i. Photographs give insight into the teacher’s experience: using a photograph taken in an interactive situation in the classroom, teachers can use photo-elicitation to highlight professional dilemmas and conflicts arising during their classes (Bautista, 2017). This study was conducted with two primary school teachers who analysed and discussed the situation shown in the photographs. The resulting dialogue prompted questions that allowed the teachers to stop to think about the decisions they made and reflect on their experience. This process gradually allowed these teachers to become aware of the theories, beliefs and values that underlie their method of teaching.

  The experiential image in the context of in-service teacher training is the mental image that teachers make of the events experienced in their classroom and their work environment. These mental images, the result of experience to some extent, give substance to the theories and beliefs of male and female teachers, and can therefore be used to relive the events they represent when they are thought about outside the classroom. (Bautista, 2017, pp. 205–206)

• ii. Photographs give access to tacit knowledge, thereby facilitating deeper insight in reality as it is experienced and interpreted by the teacher. This idea is clearly presented by Ruto-Korir and Lubbe-De Beer’s (2012) study in four kindergarten teachers, and by Taylor’s (2016) study in adult education. These papers analyse the value of photography and photo-elicitation and their contributions to teacher training by reflecting on the practice itself. These two studies show that it would have been difficult to access this type of information with other investigative methods. Photography makes it possible because, unlike other data records, it provides us with a more intuitive language with which to access thoughts and generate discussion that allows us to talk about our emotional and rational thinking to obtain more complex, richer information on school life (Bautista, 2011). Photographs, therefore, give us a deeper understanding by revealing issues that are either part of our subconscious or are part of the school’s hidden agenda (Prosser, 2010).

• iii. Photo elicitation facilitates collaboration between teachers and researchers (Ruto-Korir & Lubbe-De Beer, 2012), and allows them to establish the democratic procedures that are so essential for accessing knowledge in education and for improving teaching practices. For Tardif (2004), it is crucial to involve teachers as co-researchers in order to know and understand the knowledge on which they base their teaching practice.

  If we assume that teachers are competent actors - active subjects - we must acknowledge that the classroom is not only a space for the application of theoretical know-how, but also a space for the production of specific know-how that comes from teaching practice. In other words, the teacher’s job should be thought of as a specific practical space for the production, transformation and mobilization of know-how, and with it, theories, knowledge and the know-how specific to the teaching profession. This perspective is equivalent to making the teacher - like the university lecturer or the educational researcher - a scholar or actor who always develops and possesses theories, knowledge and know-how about his own activity. (Tardif, 2004, p. 172)

• iv. The use of photography and photo elicitation to transform beliefs and teaching practice has been another major findings in various studies, such as that of Bautista (2017), who shows how two teachers with extensive experience start to change different aspects of their practice as a result of the process of enquiry involved in photo elicitation. Stockall and Davis (2011) draw similar conclusions in their work with trainee teachers. In an earlier study (Bautista et al., 2018), we showed the analysis of the first 26 photographs taken by four teachers in which they identify the most relevant theories and beliefs that guided their actions in problematic situations. The photo elicitation sessions became a forum for debate in which the teachers themselves question some of their professional beliefs and suggest new ways of responding to the problems experienced. In this study, we were able to show the richness of the collective and deliberative dialogue generated by photo elicitation of the situations captured in the photographs. This dialogue prompted participants to come up with alternative actions to resolve, and in some cases change, certain dilemmas and conflicts. Similar findings were reported by Mukeredzi and Nyachowe (2018) in a longitudinal, 20-year study in newly qualified teachers to analyse the evolution of professional theories. Among the most relevant results, the authors observed how practical thinking became transformed as theory and practice shaped a more coherent discourse. By studying teachers who are just starting their professional careers, these authors show how photo elicitation helped shape their professional identity.

• v. Photographs provide users with a different language to express their thoughts and narrate a richer story. This can also help teachers achieve audio-visual literacy, as understood by Bautista (2007). The study by Bautista et al. (2018) shows the evocative and expressive power of photographic language when they present the teachers’ mental image and analyse how this cognitive representation materializes in the photographs. This confirms the importance of rhetorical figures, particularly metonymy, to understand the semiotic process of conceptualization and signification of objects and events experienced in classrooms and their photographic representation. Bautista (2017), meanwhile, has shown how metaphor and hyperbole were the prominent rhetorical figures used by two teachers to evoke situations and emotions they had experienced in their photographs. This, as Hamilton (2015) also observes, shows the value of the expressive resources typically found in the language of photography. It reveals how the use of multimodal languages and the expression of metaphorical ideas allow teachers to showcase their knowledge of teaching and its practice, and how this has favourable implications for their professional development.

In the rest of this chapter we will develop the latter aspect in detail in order to show the different ways in which the language of photography helps represent and evoke elements of practical knowledge. Specifically, we identify the potential of rhetorical figures and photographs taken using meta-representations, and the connotative possibilities offered by different types of framing and angulation selected to organize the space of the representations.

Photographic Representation and Elicitation of Teachers’ Theories and Beliefs

We conceive photography as a visual sign, and like any sign that facilitates communication, it uses a series of codes that enhance the transmission of messages. The communicative potential of imagery is now studied in various fields, but we are interested in highlighting how semiotics allow us to understand the power of signification inherent in images. Contrary to the positivist approach to photography, we believe that these signs are culturally and subjectively conditioned, and their representation cannot be separated from the interpretation inherent in each photograph. According to Barthes (1990), imagery is intention and interaction between the object shown, the author and the audience. Therefore, it forms a link between the reality, the person taking the photograph, and the spectator, highlighting the need to pay attention to the semiotic signification that occurs when visualising and interpreting the image. Therefore, we grasp the idea of Dubois, who says that “the photographic image, we tried to show, is not a neutral mirror but a tool for transposition, analysis, interpretation, even transformation of what is real, in the same way as, for example, language, and like it, is culturally encoded” (Dubois, 1986, p. 20).

Peirce's (1986) study of signs has been interpreted from the perspective of visual semiotics, and his contributions are included in books by authors such as Dubois (1986) and Eco (1974) when analysing the signification of photographic messages. We would like to elaborate on the second trichotomy of Peirce's signs, which explains the existence of three types of signs that have been associated with the signification of photography:

• i. The photograph can be an icon that expresses quality, verisimilitude between what is shown and the message created with the intention of being a true reflection of reality.

• ii. The image can be a symbol, i.e. a set of codes that evokes a reality through association of ideas, which “is analysed as an interpretation-transformation of what is real, as an arbitrary, cultural, ideological and perceptually encoded creation” (Dubois, 1986, p. 51).

• iii. The image can be an index, insofar as its significance is linked to experience and, therefore, it acquires significance from the more subjective and personal ideas with which we establish a real connection through the represented object. “Any visual index communicates something to me by means of a more or less blind impulse, based on a system of conventions or a system of learned experiences” (Eco, 1974, p. 219).

The difference established between the sign and its signification leads us to mention the two planes of analysis of photographs: denotation and connotation. These have already been mentioned by Barthes (1977), who claims that an image can transmit signification on two planes—the literal and what he calls concealed messages, both of which are necessary for reading and understanding the image.

Now, we will show how visual rhetoric and the different elements that make up the image can be used in photographic representations. These give particular meanings to the image, and can therefore be used by teachers to take a look at reality and capture it in an photograph that tells us about their experience and the conceptual references used to analyse and interpret this experience. We illustrate the ideas put forward with some photographs taken in schools by a principal and three teachers that show the beliefs and professional theories that guide their teaching practice. These four teachers took part in the study Narraciones visuales basadas en imágenes experienciales en la formación del profesorado [Visual narratives based on experiential images in teacher training] (R&D + i project, reference EDU2014-57103-R).

The Rhetoric of Imagery

Rhetorical figures have the advantage of enhancing the meaning and expressiveness of a photograph. They are creative resources used to communicate meanings (López Fernández-Cao, 1998; Moliné, 2000) and allow us to provide information about our internal representations and world views (Lakoff & Johnson, 2009). The potential of rhetorical figures lies in the many different ways they can transmit messages, and they play a particularly important role in accessing subjective interpretations of an event or reality. This idea is well expressed by Lakoff and Johnson (2009):

Metaphorical imagination is a crucial skill for creating relationships and communicating the nature of experiences that are not common. This skill largely consists of the ability to shape one's own vision of the world and adjust it to the way in which each individual categorizes their experiences. (p. 276)

We focus here on the possibilities offered by five rhetorical figures: metonymy, synecdoche, metaphor, antithesis and irony, due to their considerable expressive and symbolic value. They also played an important role in our aforementioned research project.

Metonymy consists of the substitution of one term for another with which it establishes a causal relationship or of the association between an object and its purpose. It is a useful rhetorical figure for accessing theories and beliefs that determine a teaching activity or an event by means of a photograph of an object or place that teachers consider representative of their practice.

This is the case of Fig. 3.1, in which the school principal reflects on the excessive use of textbooks by some primary education teachers, criticizing their inherently academic approach. Photo elicitation revealed educational innovation-related teaching theories the analyse the situation experienced in the school.

This undermines issues we are later asked to teach, such as values, or anything else. For example, working with an external association or from the city council, many teachers answer: We can't because we can't waste time. This, for them, is a waste of time. I am worried about all that.

Fig. 3.1

Textbooks (taken by head teacher SI)

As we can see in the discourse elicited from the photograph, the image serves as a reference to the context and the knowledge of the teacher, for whom textbooks evoke educational practices based on a technical curricular approach.

Synecdoche is a type of metonymy that establishes a relationship between the part and the whole. In other words, a part is photographed to represent a complete entity. What is interesting about this rhetorical figure is what is highlighted, that part on which we focus and that signifies the construction of the photographic message. The photograph shown in Fig. 3.2 evokes a theory about the need for continuing professional training to improve teaching practices. In this situation, a school principal spoke about the difficulties she is experiencing with some colleagues who have an individualistic and traditional teaching style. To illustrate this concern, she took a photograph of part of the door to the classroom of a teacher known for her innovative teaching style.

This girl has a lot of training, and she is always on the go. She wrote to tell me that she’s going to do a course this weekend … Great, I told her, let me know how you get on.

Fig. 3.2

Third-year primary school teacher (taken by SI)

What is significant in this photograph is the idea of showing the glass inset in the door, which signifies opening by allowing us to observe what happens inside. This highlights the teacher's teaching style while evoking the place, the classroom, where the main teacher in this story works.

The visual metaphor establishes an analogy between two elements, that is, due to the presence of similar attributes in both objects, people, etc. Therefore, one element is used in the place of another to acquire or highlight its qualities. This often consists in associating a real term with an imaginary or abstract term with which it has a certain similarity. According to Moliné (2000), metaphor transports the meaning of one idea to another, in such a way that our mind establishes a comparison between the two. An example of this in our study is shown in Fig. 3.3. At the start of the school year, the teacher took a photograph of her suitcase to talk about her return to work after the holidays. According to her, this period was not only one of leisure, but also a time to rekindle her enthusiasm and collect ideas and materials and think of new projects for her classroom. In other words, the teacher packs her bag with renewed strength and new learning. This is an example of Lakoff and Johnson’s (2009) notion of the personal nature of metaphors.

Just as we seek out metaphors to highlight and make coherent what we have in common with someone else, so we seek out personal metaphors to highlight and make coherent our own pasts, our present activities, and our dreams, hopes, and goals as well. (pp. 277–278)

Fig. 3.3

The suitcase (taken by teacher PI)

In this example, the photograph presents a belief in the need to stop and look at the effects of lessons taught in the classroom, and how that requires taking time to enjoy, analyse the progress made during the school year, and continue to develop new lessons. In other words, it shows the need for down-time that allows the teacher to reflect on and improve their practice.

Antithesis is a tool that allows us to show how one image contrasts with another that has the opposite meaning, or how two opposite or contrary ideas can be contained in a single image. The importance of this rhetorical figure lie in its capacity to give us access to valuable knowledge about the teacher's thinking, since it reveals the assessments made and the position taken by the teacher when faced with a practical dilemma, identifying what they view as positive and correct versus what is incorrect or unwanted. In our study, teachers expressed a variety of beliefs in connection with classroom conflicts, describing pupils’ behaviour and the situation the teacher wants to achieve. They also allow us to reflect on teaching, identifying underlying beliefs and theories and examining it to identify what teachers do and what they would like to do. Another interesting use of antithesis involves an exercise in reflection and observation in which two antagonistic situations are represented in order to show the evolution or transformation of an event over time. Figure 3.4 shows this latter use of antithesis, where one of the teachers shows how the use of interventions based on behavioural theories have changed students’ attitudes and shows how their relationships have improved.

Fig. 3.4

White hearts and coloured hearts (taken by teacher PI)

This is shown by objects that represent a behaviour modification technique she used during the school year. The teacher modifies the behaviour of the students by using coloured hearts which the students can use each day to thank a classmate for a good deed. The technique consists of writing the name of the boy or girl and the good deed done, and hanging the heart on a board. The white hearts seen in the image are used when a classmate wants to report a conflictive situation or has felt hurt by another student. The image shows how the teacher draws attention to the difference in quantity between some hearts and others, thereby illustrating the change in student behaviour.

Irony magnifies an object or a person by means of exaggeration, and is therefore a rhetorical figure that seeks to cause a greater impact on the spectator. An image of exaggeration is shown in Fig. 3.5, which highlights the difference between the size of the chair and the girl to symbolise that she has fallen a year behind in her school work. The image evokes an emotion in the form of the empathy that the teacher feels for the student. The problems that arise prompted the teacher to talk about the interventions involving the girl that evoked behavioural theories such as positive reinforcement, and also refer to the student's motivation.

Fig. 3.5

Student’s back (taken by teacher CA)

We can see how this rhetorical figure is useful for showing situations that disrupt the logical order of things and how teachers perceive them. This gives rise to significances that reveal their world view, how they interpret the reality that exists in their classrooms.

Meta-Representations

Another form of representation that is particularly interesting in the field of teacher training is the meta-representation—a written production that allows us to capture complex or abstract processes. An example of such images can be a sheet of paper from an exam, student notebooks, and report cards. These objects allow the teacher to represent different learning processes that involve both theoretical and proprietary teaching. Figures 3.6 and 3.7 explain this concept. They show the interactive notebooks made by students as an example of their teaching style and the theories and beliefs on which it is based.

Fig. 3.6

Photographs of interactive notebooks (taken by teacher PI)

Fig. 3.7

Photographs of interactive notebooks (taken by teacher PI)

They stick all the pieces in, then it’s a kind of lift-the-flap book. The same with this one, you lift the flaps. This one was of invertebrate animals, here it is, this is the outline of the whole subject (..) And they know that they put the blood in on one side, and it comes out the other. At least that’s how they see it. Because they do, they draw it, they colour it, they paste it in, and they draw it and so they remember the idea … and the truth is that they get into it, they love it, they love it (…) This is the outline. Instead of having an outline with little arrows, this is the outline. These are all the groups of invertebrates and then they lift the flap and underneath they write the characteristics of each group, for example the heart came out very well […] and then I also put them on the blackboard… I label them … I label them, I take time to label them, to draw them on the board.

With this type of photograph, which evokes different teaching theories, such as meaningful and observational learning and stories, beliefs in the usefulness of different teaching tasks, such as manual activities, drawing or schematization emerge. These images allowed the teacher to think about and confirm the effectiveness of her learning enhancement strategies.

Spatial Organization: Camera Angle and Shot

The frame or shot in the world of photography involves selecting a fragment of the scene that allows us to identify what we are interested in capturing. This act of selection and exclusion determines the photographic message, and highlights the significance of the scene in terms of what is shown and what is excluded (Gauthier, 1996; Sontag, 2003).

According to visual semiotic analysis, the frame shows the existence of a relationship between the type of shot and the physical distance between what is represented and the photographer. This is closely related to the concept of social distance and the type of relationships that the photograph is intended to represent (Hall, 1966; Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006). This distance, they point out, has to do with the type of relationship that the photographer establishes with the object, person or context represented. The message of the photograph can focus more on showing a context or a specific action, or the meanings can be intended to provide information about a specific person or an object represented. Table 3.1 summarizes the meaning that Fernández Ibáñez (1986), Hall (1966) and Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) give to each type of shot. As can be seen, the closer the photographer is to the person or object photographed, the closer and more intimate are the personal discourses evoked, making the photograph more expressive and giving it a greater symbolic value.

Table 3.1 Photographic significance of different planes

Teachers can use long shots (for example, the wide and establishing shot) to illustrate teaching situations where the story of the action is emphasized; for example, situations that evoke professional theories on student learning by photographing the classroom, the narration of educational experiences that reveal their teaching style, while the atmosphere and relationships between their students can be illustrated in different spaces, such as the classroom or the playground, among others. Short shots, in contrast, (such as close-ups or detail shots) offer endless possibilities of showing personal, intimate ideas and opinions and expressing feelings. These shots highlight the importance of the object or person represented, giving them prominence in the narration that accompanies the photograph. In the case in hand, short shots can build stories aimed at revealing a more personal dimension of the teacher, creating more subjectively weighted messages related to the events shown. This happens because the teacher's eye is focused on a specific aspect that he or she wants to draw attention to. Therefore, these types of shots can be used to represent feelings, such as joy, sadness and the concerns caused by conflictive situations or professional dilemmas. In this type of photograph we typically find beliefs that reveal the teacher’s point of view on the conflicts that occur in school, and are also useful for eliciting theories and beliefs relating to scenarios and teaching practice that not are instructive in nature.

The camera angle shows the point from where the photographer looks at the reality represented. It is considered one of the most expressive imaging tools for creating connotations. According to Balázs (1957),

The camera angle is the film maker’s most intense means of characterization; only by using unusual and unexpected configurations created using surprising shots can old and familiar objects strike us as new (…) Camera placement and angle can make objects hateful, kind, terrifying or ridiculous. (p. 11)

Some of the most common and the most useful angles for the subject at hand are the eye level angle, the high angle and the low angle. In the normal angle, the camera is positioned parallel to the ground so that the photograph is taken at eye level of the person represented or at the same height as the object. This angle is usually used by people with no audio-visual literacy. It does not give the representation any significant connotations, or simply shows a point of view of equality, or implication with the object photographed (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006). The other two types of angle, however, are more expressive because they give the person or object represented certain attributes. “Seeing from top to bottom or from bottom to top is equivalent to feeling unconsciously taller or smaller, and correlatively, feeling reality as dominated or dominant” (Fernández Ibánez, 1986, p. 65). Similarly, experts in visual semiotics have studied how the use of the camera evokes the power relations between the subjects represented and the photographer or the person who visualizes the image (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006). In the high angle, the camera is tilted slightly towards the ground at the time the picture is taken. The meanings conveyed by the author of the image using the high angle are inferiority, innocence, weakness, fragility. It is also used to portray a person we consider harmless, or even to ridicule the subject. When the photographer represents a person or object by tilting the camera slightly upwards, this is the low angle. This gives the image connotations of uplifting and magnifying the subject or object.

For teachers, camera angle is an interesting tool for expressing evaluations and opinions with their photographs. They can use the high angle to show aspects that are not to their liking or to criticise events, and the low angle to achieve the opposite. This is the case of the photograph shown in Fig. 3.1, where the high angle clearly reinforces the teacher's message: to criticise over-reliance on instructive teaching methods. The high angle can also be used when beliefs involving conflictive situations emerge, and can be used to imply criticism and dislike of a particular situation. This shot is also useful for showing aspects of the teacher’s practical knowledge, such as when they analyse injustices suffered by their students.

Figures 3.8 and 3.9, taken by one of the teachers, illustrate how the type of shot and camera angle used give a particular meaning to the photographs, In these cases, the representation fulfils a different communicative function while conveying the different extent to which the teacher is involved with each of the events narrated.

Fig. 3.8

Students exhibiting their work (taken by teacher PI)

This photograph is an eye-level, wide angle shot that narrates the task set for that day: the students were asked to apply their knowledge to everyday objects and show the results.

I gave them the idea: I want you to present me with a simple machine that is one of the three types of machine we have studied. I don’t care if you make the machine yourselves, or bring a simple machine that you have at home. One of them simply brought a pair of scissors and described it … this is the fulcrum, this is effort arm, this is the load arm…

In this way, the teacher reveals the theories, such as meaningful learning, that are part of her daily practice. The message is not one of judgement—it is not primarily intended to portray the students represented, but rather to report the activities carried out in the classroom that morning. The subject of this photograph can be compared to Fig. 3.9, which shows a close up of the hands of a child who bites his nails.

Fig. 3.9

Bitten nails (taken by teacher PI)

The teacher uses this image to tell the story of the arrival of a new child to her class. She says that she had certain misgivings about the student, prompted by her initial understanding of his family situation.

He doesn’t live with his parents but with his uncle and aunt, and I thought, oh no, this child is going to be a potential problem

During the session, the teacher narrated an emotional story based on her concerns. She explained the child’s precarious home situation, where beliefs involving the extent to which the influence of his family and sociocultural environment in which this child lived would determine his behaviour and involvement in academic tasks. However, the most significant aspect involves the moment when the photograph was taken, saying:

The boy stayed, I sat him next to me like this, and then I started to think, I was watching him, and I saw that he was a good little boy, and then I felt guilty, and said to myself What an awful person I am, what a bad person! I mean, a child is not like a football card - now I get it, now I don’t want it, now I swop it. And I saw him, and I realized that he had bitten all his nails. When a child bites … well, when a person bites their nails, it’s due to anxiety, … that's why I took the picture, I felt terrible, absolutely awful

The close up, reinforced by the high angle of the shot of the student's hands, is significant in that it show the emotions, at times contradictory, expressed by the teacher. In any event, these elements help draw our attention, to become involved in this situation, and highlight the element that acted as the photographic punctum (Barthes, 1990): the child's hands.

In conclusion, based on what we have seen in the chapter, knowledge of photographic language is particularly interesting in the case of these teachers, as it allowed them to convey the dilemmas they face in their work and show their thoughts about these problems. They reveal to us the foundations on which their practical knowledge is built. Cao and Pérez (2000) have already shown the importance of understanding the language of imagery when they discuss how this language allows us to become critical readers of audio-visual messages.

The point of view, the focus, the shot, the composition, the stereotype they define or fight against, the symbols and rhetorical elements they use must be analysed and deconstructed in order to be able to fully capture them. (p. 56)

This becomes particularly relevant when we place teachers in the role of co-researchers and creators of visual productions that allow them to become aware of the theories and beliefs that shape and determine their teaching practice. Thus, we see how rhetorical figures and meta-representations allow teachers to evoke abstract ideas and concepts that are difficult to represent and express. Rhetorical figures in particular show a more complex degree of communication—one that correlates ideas, concepts or realities that gradually reveal the teacher's experience and how it is built on the bases of different ideas and beliefs acquired by experience. These ideas and beliefs emerge when teachers explain the reasons for taking a particular photograph. This is why rhetorical figures are valuable tools for allowing the theories and beliefs of teachers to come to the surface during photo elicitation. This process allows teachers to become aware of the knowledge that shapes their teaching practice.

With regard to shots, we have shown how those that establish the greatest distance between the person or object represented have a more descriptive and narrative communicative intention. These photographs can show the theories and beliefs that emerge in classroom interventions. This was illustrated in Fig. 3.8, where the teacher explains the learning theories that underlie her daily practice. But shots can also capture group situations that show the relationships between the elements of the group, such as conflicts that, primarily, describe this dilemma and how it is analysed. On the other hand, placing the camera closer to the people or entities represented allow the photographs to show professional dilemmas in which the teacher is emotionally involved. These representations are useful for showing situations involving specific issues or dilemmas that cause teachers to question what happened, such as the case of the teacher who took photographs 7 and 1. In the photo elicitation sessions, these images lead to deeper reflection that can help teachers question their own teaching practices and come up with new strategies.

Different camera angles allows teachers to critically evaluate the situation represented. This gives greater insight into how they interpret the situations presented and how they feel about them. Therefore, a low angle can facilitate reaffirmation of the reality shown, elicit a feeling of satisfaction and surprise. A high angle, meanwhile, as we have seen, can be used to criticise a situation that worries and displeases the teacher, or, as shown in Fig. 3.9, it can also prompt the narrator to question his or her motives and reveal how their beliefs have been transformed.

In short, photography as a tool for in-service teacher education is conceived as an index, as presented by Peirce (1986). It is a sign built on the basis of our own experience. In our case, we have seen that it allows teachers to become aware of all the elements that determine their points of view and actions. Imagery can help teachers observe reality, become aware of the elements that conform their practical knowledge, question this knowledge, and gradually extend their theoretical repertoire by identifying practices that require other conceptual references. That is to say, like any communicative act, the image can reveal the teacher’s educational know-how, and knowledge, in education, can touch our emotions and appeal to our feelings. It is a knowledge that determines us personally and professionally and, when we expand our conceptual references, can sometimes transform us.