Introduction

Teaching involves an on-going process of inquiry into our own teaching practice in order to resolve the educational problems encountered and to optimise our methodology through innovation and improvement. Teachers also need to update their theoretical and practical knowledge to keep abreast of new developments that emerge from research into the spheres of knowledge that affect their broad and complex pedagogy. Hence the need for in-service training, an activity that allows teachers to grow both personally and professionally, and to provide their students with comprehensive, integrated education that is relevant to their sociocultural reality.

The meaning of in-service training is changing, and varies between countries, as the international review carried out by Villegas-Reimers (2003) has shown. In most developed countries, this type of education includes all training activities engaged in by primary and secondary teachers and school principals after obtaining their undergraduate degree. The training is aimed mainly, or exclusively, at improving their professional knowledge, skills and attitudes so that they can educate children more effectively (Bolam in Villegas-Reimers, 2003, p. 55). In Spain and other countries, in-service education takes place at different educational levels. One of the fundamental factors involved in achieving quality education is the ethical and professional strength of teachers and professors, in other words, the possession of strong values and professional resources (Braslavsky, 2005). This, in turn, means that these elements need to be present in both their undergraduate education and in the activities undertaken to update and perfect their in-service education.

In 2015, schools boards at the regional (autonomous community) and national level in Spain embarked on a systematic study of the teachers of the twenty-first century. The study identified several challenges faced by teachers in their in-service education, some of which have also been reported by other authors. Of these, the following have particular relevance in this chapter: the ability to detect their training needs, the need to enhance in-service education, the need to update their scientific and didactic knowledge to meet the needs of their students, and the need to use information and communication technologies as teaching aids, together with the resources needed to improve their teaching activity (pp 17–18). The study was followed by a forum “Educar para el siglo XXI. Desafíos y propuestas sobre la profesión docente” [Educate for the XXI century. Challenges and proposals for teachers] sponsored by the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, which is taking place at the time of writing, in which participants outlined proposals to reform teacher training. From our perspective, the tradition of engaging in action research is a valuable part of teacher training, both at the undergraduate level and in all aspects of in-service education. Both these stages can be linked by means of participatory action research during the practicum, leading to innovation.

In recent decades, new processes linking photography with narrative and dialogue, namely, photo-voice and photo-elicitation, have gradually been incorporated in research activities and the practicum stage in various fields, including education. In this chapter, we will study and compare approaches, and explore their potential as a tool in in-service education for teacher.

Conceptualization and Methodological Delimitation of Photovoice

The literature on photo-voice unanimously dates the origin of this practice to the works of Wang and Burris on health promotion. In 1997, these authors published an article in which they described the concept, methodology, and use of photo-voice in participatory needs evaluation. Later, Wang (2006) noted that both authors had created this methodology, and defined its use in participatory action research (p. 148). Both authors describe this method as a subtle, flexible process that can be adapted to participatory objectives, groups or communities and any problems or issues that need to be addressed. Photovoice has been defined as “a process by which people can identify, represent and enhance their community through a specific photographic technique” (Wang & Burris, 1997, p. 369). It does not merely involve the use of photographs to talk about or teach something; instead, the photographs must make it possible to know the point of view of the participants who take them on a problem or community issue, in other words, their experience or individual knowledge and also social, through dialogue, with the aim of conveying their views to social and political leaders who can introduce changes and improvements. The visual image thus becomes a means for people in certain situations of vulnerability to communicate their needs, problems or perspectives on the social issues that affect them. These opinions are contextualized and discussed by the participants and can stimulate social action to improve community welfare. Photovoice, as a practice based on the production of knowledge has three main objectives:

  • To enable people to record and reflect their community’s strengths and concerns,

  • To promote critical dialogue and knowledge about important community issues through large and small group discussion of photographs,

  • To reach policymakers (Wang & Burris, 1997, p. 369).

In the definition put forward by these authors, photovoice, as a participatory method, is intended to elicit living folk wisdom, observation, and community stories in visual and oral terms. Photography is the vehicle for the emergence of the political voice. The concept of photovoice was developed from the following sources:

  • The theoretical literature on education for critical consciousness, particularly the work of Paulo Freire.

  • Feminist theory.

  • A community-based approach to documentary photography.

  • Health promotion principles (Wang, 2006, p. 148; Wang & Burris, 1997, p. 369).

Wang (2006) has described this methodology as a nine-step strategy; the order of the first two is interchangeable:

  • Select and recruit a target audience of policy makers or community leaders.

  • Recruit a group of photovoice participants, ideally consisting of between 7 and 10 individuals.

  • Introduce the photovoice methodology to participants, and facilitate a group discussion about cameras, power and ethics.

  • Obtain informed consent. This should include: a statement of project activities and significance, specific potential risks and benefits, the voluntary nature of participation and freedom to withdraw at any time for any reason, and the understanding that no photographs identifying specific individuals will be released without separate written consent of not only the photographer but also the identified individuals. This must be put in writing. In the case of minors, informed consent must be obtained from their parents or guardians. This also applies to youth participants.

  • Pose an initial theme or themes for taking pictures.

  • Distribute cameras to participants and review how to use the camera.

  • Provide time for participants to take pictures.

  • Meet to discuss photographs and identify themes. This discussion is divided into three stages: selecting photographs, contextualizing or storytelling, and codifying issues, themes, or theories. These stages are carried out in each round of photographs taken by the participants. The number of photovoice rounds will depend on various factors, such as facilitators’ and participants’ preferences, overall project scope and budget, and other practical considerations.

  • Plan with participants a format to share photographs and stories with policy makers or community leaders, for example, a PowerPoint slide presentation or a exhibition (pp. 149–152).

By way of synthesis, the methodology involves providing participants with cameras so that they can photograph their everyday realities. Images teach concepts and can influence policy. This is why community members ought to participate in creating and defining the images that shape healthful public policy (p. 148).

According to Rabadán and Contreras (2014), participatory photography is known internationally as photovoice. With regard to photovoice terminology, Doval (2015) has shown that it is referred to by different names in the academic literature, and is sometimes confused with photo-elicitation. It is not uncommon for both to merge - a phenomenon that will be discussed later in this chapter. The author goes on to say that “there continues to be a lack of consistency in the identification of methodology in studies using photovoice” (p. 246) a consideration present in the scientific literature. Likewise, it is common to find it referred to both as a method and a technique.

The potentialities of photovoice as described in several of the forgoing studies, particularly Wang and Burris (1997), are fundamentally the following:

  • To provide a glimpse of the reality experienced by groups of people or communities as a means of facilitating transformation.

  • To people who have not learnt to read and write, it is a way of visually representing their reality, and thus giving them a voice.

  • To show different behavioural and social contexts, such as settings, moments and ideas, of which the community is unaware.

  • To include participants from different practicum fields who are not professionals or who are not outsiders in these fields.

  • To provide benefits to people and their social networks.

  • To determine the community’s needs, resources and assets.

  • To identify shortcomings in the theories underlying social programmes or policies by highlighting the evidence obtained from the participatory approach.

  • To evaluate, based on a needs analysis, the beliefs or philosophies that drive different programmes, and the approaches, goals and values that sustain them.

  • To motivate change in the goals, objectives, beliefs and theories found in social practices.

  • To promote problem-solving, organization and social action in favour of personal and community well-being.

Although photovoice has several advantage, it is also important to bear in mind its disadvantages:

  • The potential risk to participants derived from the political intent of the photograph and the critical nature of the dialogue for action.

  • The personal judgement of the photographer, and with it, their intent, may made it difficult to identify elements that have been omitted.

  • The broader stratification of classes can be reproduced by controlling resources.

  • The complexity and difficulty of analysing the photographs.

  • Methodological ideals may not tally with reality.

  • In addition to the foregoing limitations, we believe the fundamental limitation of photovoice is that participatory dialogue and consensus does not guarantee that the voice obtained expresses reality as it. This, therefore, can undermine the effectiveness of programmes or practices that require everyone to participate. This is an epistemological limitation.

In the last two decades, photovoice has been used in art, in community development and social action, health, gender studies and education. It has been found to be especially useful in children, adolescents and young people, in addition to the most vulnerable populations. Doval (2015) identified the themes that have been addressed in our field: education in general and in particular, teaching and learning strategies, educational and intellectual disability, autism, education in orphanages, right to education, coeducation, inclusive education, literacy, perception of school spaces, and university education (p. 220). Photovoice is rarely used in Spain, and few studies have been published so far. In this respect, according to Rabadán and Contreras (2014), “using participatory photography as an educational experience can be quite a challenge” (p. 153).

Having outlined the conceptualization of photovoice, we will now do the same with photo-elicitation.

Conceptual and Methodological Overview of Photo-Elicitation

The origin of photo-elicitation is generally considered to be article on mental health published by John Collier in 1957, who mentioned the term when comparing interviews based on photographs with traditional interviews, used as controls. In this study, he showed the advantages of the photo-interview in terms of the nature of the information provided. He continued to investigate this type of open interview, using it in various anthropological investigations that led to other publications. Harper (2002) gave a widely cited definition of photo elicitation, described the history of its development in anthropology and sociology, where it originates, and evaluated its current use and future potential. Very briefly, “Photo elicitation is based on the simple idea of inserting a photograph into a research interview” (p. 13). He had previously suggested that photo elicitation “be regarded as a postmodern dialogue based on the authority of the subject rather than the researcher” (p. 15). Harper found that anthropological studies that rely primarily on photo elicitation are few and far between, and that it has played a greater role in visual sociology, although it was given marginal importance compared to mainstream research methodology. Nevertheless, it has also penetrated fields such as psychology, education, and organizational studies. In addition, he placed the photographs used in photo elicitation research along a continuum, depending on what they represented, and identified the potentialities of photo-elicitation as (briefly): it evokes different information, feelings and memories than those obtained through traditional empirical research, and thus expands its possibilities; it can reduce areas of misunderstanding in in-depth interviews by bringing researchers and subjects to a common understanding, either by opening their perspectives or by bridging their cultures through research collaboration (pp. 15 and 20–23).

Angulo (2007), based on Harper (2002), describes the nature of photo-elicitation as being “about dialoguing about and with images, recalling what they show, linking with memories, experiences (past and present), sensations, and emotions (p. 1). We believe that although this involves combing two data collection techniques typical of observation and survey methods, in which visual and verbal forms come together, this combination makes sense within research methodology of which is a part, and more specifically, within the framework of the issue investigated and the knowledge to be obtained, which always fall within a certain paradigm that guides such research. It is in the absence of this incorporation where we consider that the confusion and lack of unanimity present in the scientfic literarure lies, when referring to photo elicitation, indistinctly, as a methodology, a method, a technique or a research tool. 

The greatest differences between the approaches that have been established in photo-elicitation are found in paradigmatic context of research. 

In a study that uses photo-elicitation, a series of decisions have to be made that, according to Lapenta (2011), revolve around the following three questions:

  • Who is going to make or select the images to be used in the interviews?

  • What is the content of the images going to be?

  • Where are the images going to be used and how? (p. 204)

From our perspective, the answer to these questions depends on the paradigm that guides the research, and this will resolve any dilemmas presented by the use of this technique.

Lapenta (2011) has identified four approaches to photo-elicitation that we will briefly describe below, following their systematization:

  • Photo-elicitation (classic)

This is the first perspective that arose from the theoretical-methodological debate that questioned the principles of traditional structured surveys/interviews, the nature of the interaction between the researcher and the interviewee, and the supposed knowledge that this interaction produced. Photo-elicitation is a variation on an open-ended interview. It is a non-directive procedure that creates a relaxed atmosphere that allows the researcher, according to the object of study, to use images taken or selected of the subject’s world that they assume to be meaningful in order to elicit comments, memories and discussions. These photographs or images may also be taken by the researcher while accompanied by one or more informants to guide him or her on their content and how to take them. This approach has been used to test research hypotheses and to compare results and interpretations with other interviews or with studies that may use the same or similar images. The photographs generated by the researcher can produce descriptions and meanings that illuminate issues not initially visible to the researcher, but visible to the interviewees, and enable the researcher to develop new hypotheses and interpretations. New images can be added to stimulate the analysis, and such groups of photographs can help open up the interviewee’s perspectives. The epistemological dilemma that arises from this approach, and that has led to the development of others, concerns the following questions: Whose knowledge do the selected photographs really represent? Who were those images really made for? What topics of interest, discourse or aesthetics do they represent?

  • Reflexive photography or photo elicitation autodriven

Harper first introduced the idea of reflective photography by formulating the hypothesis that in the reflective photographic method the subject shares the definition of the meaning. In this approach, the production or selection of the images is done by the interviewees. Like other forms of photo-elicitation, photographs are used to increase the respondent’s engagement in the interview, but they are typically encouraged to delve into the content and meaning of the photographs they have produced. The respondent’s responses to the research questions are motivated by the stimulus directly drawn from the photographs they have taken. Thus, the interview is conducted by the informants themselves, who see their behaviour through the processes of selection, observation and interpretation of their photographs. This not only enables the researcher and the respondents to negotiate the interpretations of the images, but also gives the latter a greater voice and authority to interpret their lives and social contexts, and an “action perspective” that helps to make their observations on life and social systems meaningful to outsiders. One advantage of this approach is its ability to reduce the investigator bias that is inherent to the selection of specific images, subjects, and themes used in interviews, thereby producing a body of knowledge that concerns events as perceived by the respondents. Another advantage is that the images chosen can reinforce and deepen the findings of quantitative approaches, and they can also be used in other qualitative research methods, such as focus groups.

  • Photovoice

This is the third of the photo-elicitation approaches identified by Lapenta (2011), who claims that it enriches image-based interview methods. As this approach has already been discussed in the previous section, we will only add here that it involves community-based image production that is followed by a critical, individual and collective dialogue on the significance and meaning of the images in terms of transforming the community. According to Lapenta, citing Wang, photovoice is unique in that following a similarly participatory approach, it engages all the members of the community to select those photos that most accurately reflect their concerns and assets. These might include those they consider most significant, or simply like best (p. 207). The author adds that this approach distinctly separates photovoice from other methods in that is conceives the photographs as catalysts of participatory stories that emerge from the composed voices, meanings and interpretations elaborated by the members of a small or large group.

  • Collaborative or participatory image production

This fourth approach to photo-elicitation, referred to by its descriptive name, is another participatory approach that involves, according to Lapenta (2011), following Banks (1995), images generated by the researcher “together” with respondents as a “collaborative representation” which serves to remove obstacles between the observer and the observed. Banks later argued that to some degree all research results are collaborative, and concluded that the very presence of the researcher when using a camera among a group of people is necessarily the result of a series of earlier contacts and negotiations. In collaborative research, these negotiations are a methodological dilemma, since the researcher has to decide how much information to share with respondents about the research agenda. Photographing together provides opportunities to discuss how the researcher sees what he or she photographs, and how informants interpret the researcher’s photographs. These interactions can bring researchers closer to understanding their visual knowledge, and provide criteria for evaluating what they and the responders see differently. This reflective process can be used as part of learning to see how others do in a directed way. Researchers, by collaboratively representing everyday experiences, empower responders to produce shared understandings of their past experiences and current practices. The images and audio-visual materials provide data that informants can comment on to produce further knowledge. The production of collaborative images can also empower the interviewees by granting them a role in the selection and framing of images, thereby uncovering their experiences, perspectives and histories (Lapenta, 2011, pp. 204–209). Photo-elicitation can provide trainee teachers with this same educational content, together with others that will be presented in the next chapter.

From the epistemological and paradigmatic perspective, photo-elicitation is belong fundamentally a hermeneutical or interpretative paradigm, because it attempts to grasp the significance and meaning of people’s objects, behaviours and actions. However, regardless of this common purpose, photovoice goes one step further because it is rooted and based in the critical paradigm, as indicated in its theoretical basis, and its classic approach  in the context of exploratory qualitative studies, lies in the post-positivist framework.

We believe that photo-elicitation, in the context of a comprehensive epistemology, can be used in different ways, among them, Gadamer's hermeneutical approach and the interpretative and constructive perspectives.

Having explained the specific procedure involved in photovoice, and despite the variations that exist when using photo-elicitation in different research processes, we will now give an overview of the stages involved in this procedure. Ndione and Remy (2018) identify two phases in the implementation of photo-elicitation: the photo-essay phase and the interview and elicitation phase. The latter, in some cases, can be followed by classification. The methodology of photo-elicitation can be described thus:

  • Identification of the issue under study by the researcher or the team and contact with participants to include them in the project using communication and dialogue.

  • Planning of the data collection processes and establishment of the session schedule.

  • Training or introduction to the technique of photo-elicitation.

  • Obtaining informed consent to take and use the photographs.

  • Taking the photographs or compiling them from a source (photo-essay phase) in which the images will be obtained in the amount set by those determined in planning phase within an established time.

  • Photographic narration sessions, or the interview and elicitation phase, in which the researcher, or some members of the team, interact with the participant/s to elicit verbally the significance and meaning that the images have for him, her or them, and in some approach, for the researcher. In this way they express their beliefs, theories, concepts or values, while revealing their sensations and feelings. In some types of photo-elicitation, the final phase of the interviews may be followed by further questions aimed at deepening the inquiry by classifying the photographs and the resulting narratives. Ndione and Remy call the final part of this phase “classification”. All narrations are recorded.

  • Analysis and interpretation of the data obtained, in which the recordings are transcribed, the analysis categories are established, and the information obtained from the narrations is classified using content analysis. This is followed by interpretation of the narrations, in which, according to Warhurst and Black (2015), one of the approaches used is symbolic interpretation based on semiotic.

  • Conclusions, reporting and dissemination of results.

In our view, the potential of photo-elicitation, considering all its different approaches described by the foregoing sources, are as follows:

  • It enables the expression of tacit knowledge.

  • It facilitates a deeper understanding of the phenomena and practices that are investigated, by combining its two linguistic forms.

  • It can help to discovery and solve problems.

  • It enables participants to question the most consolidated knowledge and open new perspectives and theoretical frameworks.

  • It enables participant to identify beliefs or misconceptions.

  • It manifests and clarifies possible dilemmas experienced by participants.

  • It has the potential to train participants.

  • It makes the relationships between researchers and other participants more flexible.

  • It encourages collaborative and participatory inquiry.

  • It optimizes actions based on improved understanding.

Photo-elicitation has the limitations inherent to each of its paradigms and approaches. However, the main limitations, generally speaking, are the following:

  • Difficulty in establishing, relating and integrating categories in the analysis and interpretation of the data.

  • The understandings are not put into practice.

  • The observations, together with their theories and values, despite their dual representation, may not be consistent with reality, and if this is the case, the practices associated with them will not be effective.

Based on the foregoing description of photo voice and photo-elicitation, we will now discuss their similarities and differences.

Similarities and Differences Between Photovoice and Photo-Elicitation

Despite the terminological diversity and semantic plurality surrounding the different approaches and techniques of photo-elicitation, I believe the paradigmatic perspective provides clarity and allows us to differentiate between its terms.

 Photo elicitaton and photovoice have in common the linking of their two constituents techniques, one from the observation method and the other from the survey method; therefore, both use visual and verbal languages. Both involve taking photographs followed by narrative sessions regardless of the number of phases involved in this process. This may explain why photovoice is regarded as a type of photo-elicitation.

The main difference between photovoice and photo-elicitation is that the former is based on the critical paradigm, which provides the framework for its application and distinguishes, fundamentally, its participatory and community-based nature. In other words, photographs are produced by the members of the community who, individually and collectively, express their experiences critically, seeking consensus and the dissemination of their interpretation and significance to political leaders and leaders of society for the purpose of bringing about a change in the community. The latter, photo-elicitation, is mainly based on interpretative paradigm and its different traditions, but can be based on the post-positivist paradigm. Therefore, this paradigmatic difference, with its traditions, determines the approaches of photo elicitation and differences arise above all in the researcher–participants-images triad. From the post-positivist, qualitative approach, the researcher produces photographs and plays an external, directive role; the collaborative role of the participants is limited to the answers they provide, and the photographs play the role of information inputs or objective inventories. These characteristics are found in classic photo-elicitation. The interpretive paradigm, likewise, determines differences in the other two approaches to photo-elicitation, and with respect to the previous ones, which are reflected in the aforementioned triad. First, in reflexive photography, the subject or subjects interviewed take or select the images, the aim being to understand their worlds. The researcher plays a collaborative role with minimal leadership; the interviewees are self-driven. The images, due to their content, are located along a continuum—inventories, contextual images or intimate images (the last two being important), and due to their function, are informative, analytical-reflexive or unitary report, the last two being important. On the other hand, in the collaborative or participatory image production approach, images are produced by the researcher/s “together” with the interviewees in order to obtain a shared understanding. The relationships between the researcher/s and the responders are of participation and collaboration to varying degrees. The content and function of the images are the first two of each of the aforementioned continuums.

New approaches to photo-elicitation may emerge in the light of new paradigms, and criticism and transformation may be included in the interpretation. The last aspect will be discussed in chapter six, which deals with the process of eliciting information from photographs—not, in this case, for research purposes (to answer questions or hypotheses), but as part of in-service education described in chapter four.

Having conceptualized, compared and delimited photovoice and photo-elicitation, we will now describe how they have been incorporated into in-service teacher education.

Application and Value of Photovoice and Photo-Elicitation in In-Service Teachers Education

We searched the main educational and multidisciplinary databases available, namely REDINED, ERIC, Dialnet, TESEO, CISNE, Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar to determine the extent to which these methodologies are present in in-service education in the teaching profession. The search was performed using search terms in the natural language of the databases, and combining these languages with the indexing language of each database and with strings containing the following keywords in Spanish: fotovoz, foto-elicitation, formación permanente, formación en el servicio, desarrollo profesional, and profesor. After eliminating unsuitable results, we finally retrieved 31 documents. Although our search was not exhaustive, we believe it was comprehensive enough to obtain a meaningful overview of the use and potential of these methods in in-service teacher education. This number of documents retrieved shows the gradual incursion of photo-elicitation and photovoice in this field of training. Most studies were published within the last 5 years. The analysis of the use of each procedure in the documents retrieved, based on the author’s assignment, yielded the following: photo-elicitation is used in 25 studies, photovoice in 3, and another 3 studies used a combination of both. This shows that photovoice is still rarely used in in-service education in teachers. In the studies in which photovoice was used focussed on empowerment, social criticism, and transformation. Regarding the use of these procedures in Spain, based on the institutional affiliation of the authors or the location of the study, 26% studies were conducted in Spain, with the group authoring this book accounting for 16% of papers.

Our review of the content of the studies obtained revealed a number of different of themes in which photovoice and photo-elicitation were used in in-service education. These themes have been established by means of an assignation that has prioritized exclusivity and are described below.

Many of these studies have investigated the potential of photo-elicitation, and to a lesser extent photovoice, to train adult educators, teachers of deaf children, and pre-school and primary school teachers in issues such as expression and assignment of meaning to their beliefs, the development of critical reflection and dialogue skills in their teaching practice, the understanding and the introduction of changes in their teaching practice, the representation of the mental image of their experiences in the classroom with elicitation, the presence of dilemmas and decision-making in their educational action, the emergence of theories, values and feelings; teacher thinking and the use of digital hybrids (Bautista, 2017; Bautista et al., 2016, 2017, 2018; Taylor, 2002; McCracken, 2015; Parker et al., 2016; Rayón et al., 2017; Ruto-Korir & Lubbe-De Beer, 2012; Wolfenden & Buckler, 2015).

The identity of the teacher and, in particular, mathematics teachers, has been studied using photovoice, photo-elicitation and a combination of both. The studies have analysed the identity of the teacher on the basis of education in social justice, on the basis of the teachers’ perspectives providing a proposal of action for their re-professionalization, and the identity of mathematics teachers has been explored from the perspective of visual narrative linked to positioning (Chao, 2012, 2014; Hage, 2016; Santamaría-Goicuría & Stuardo-Concha, 2018).

Teacher training and professional development programmes have been developed with a view to incorporating new approaches and teaching procedures in subjects such as geography, science, mathematics or physical education, and also in undergraduate degrees in engineering and in early education. Likewise, in training in rural schools, outside the teacher training institution (Hunter, 2016, 2017; Mukeredzi, 2016; Mukeredzi & Nyachowe, 2018; Murakami et al., 2018; Parker et al., 2016; Pears et al., 2008; Ring, 2017; Ring-Whalen et al., 2018; Ruiz, 2017).

The presence of social and cultural diversity in schools and higher education centres has led to the implementation of teacher training programmes in critical understanding of these realities and in achieving the goal of inclusive and multicultural education (Boucher, 2018; Behari-Leak, 2017; Mount, 2018; Perez et al., 2016; Strickland et al., 2010; Strickland & Marinak, 2016).

Finally, tools combining photography and text have been developed and used, on the one hand, as a in-service education strategy for teaching art, and on the other, to help kindergarten teachers create learning stories using a digital system (Mesías-Lema, 2017; Shida et al., 2017).

In this chapter we have shown that photovoice and photo-elicitation have only recently been incorporated into in-service education and are rarely used in this context. However, bearing in mind existing research and other publications focussing on the use of these technique, we believe that they will be a valuable tool for training teachers at all levels of education, insofar as they will encourage their professional and personal growth by incorporating cognitive, theoretical and practical components and their corresponding values, These values include, among others: awareness of tacit experiential knowledge; expression and reflection on ideas, theories and beliefs, and identification of misconceptions; opening of theoretical frameworks and perspectives; expression and reflection on values and feelings; clarification of dilemmas encountered in teaching practice; development of dialogue together with critical thinking and reflection skills; perception of teaching practice, the progress made in the profession, and the transformations brought about; mastery of action research techniques and performance of teaching projects; broadening the awareness of identity and development of identity.

Photovoice and photo-elicitation have the potential and limitations inherent to the epistemological paradigm of which they are part. In this regard, and to conclude, we believe that a participatory inquiry paradigm, developed by Heron and Reason (1997), is an ideal framework for the application of photovoice and photo-elicitation techniques, and that it could give rise to a new, value-added approach to photo-elicitation for teacher training and education that is truly participatory and community-based.