'James always hangs out here': making space for place in studying masculinities in school.

Donal O'Donoghue's (2007) article "'James always hangs out here': making space for place in studying masculinities in school" looks at an urban, single-sex, primary (5 - 11 year olds) school in Ireland.  O'Donoghue's research draws on social constructivist, feminist informed and post-structuralist narratives of masculinity and theories of space and place.  When conducting the research his methods draw on Art Based Educational Research A/r/tography and arts informed research.  The study centred on 17 boys age 10 to 11 years old.  The boys were involved in conversation and discussion regarding space, place, photography and different ways photographers represent themselves in their work.  They were then each given a disposable camera and asked to take photos of spaces and places with meaning within their school environment.  These, along with written testimony, were analysed in terms of what they depicted and revealed about notions of masculinity in spaces in schools outside the classroom.

What does this particular visual research method offer and what does it not offer?
This particular visual research method offers the participants an opportunity to reflect their individual perspectives, literally as they are taking photos and figuratively as they were given free range to take photos of what they wanted (although it wasn't random, but systematic, as a result of discussions prior to the photos being taken). The photos were accompanied by written accounts / narratives which gave the participants the opportunity to add further depth to their photos and explain their artistic intention.
As the boys were only 10-11 and needed some guidance in how to take photos what they produced was in a way guided by the researcher.  In terms of visual research, this lack of creativity could be a limitation to the research.

How does this method compare to interviewing both in terms of collection strategies and analysis methods?
O'Donoghue makes the point that when considering space and place the experiences that people remember, create and speak to are non-verbal, multimodal, multidimensional and non-verbal. Research practices into space and place should therefore reflect this.  I think, for this research, the used of visual research methods was very useful and powerful as it allowed the participants to reveal ideas about masculinity that they may not have considered before of been able to put into words.  Sometimes what was revealed probably was not something that the participants even knew they felt or thought.  It is a more complicated form of collection, and would need an expert (in this case an artist with experience of photography) in order to guide the research to produce fruitful data to analyse.

Jacyntha England, Histories of forgetting, geographies of remembering: Exploring processes of witnessing and performing in senior secondary humanities classroom(s).

I studied history at university for my BA.  I then, as part of my teacher training, studied to become a history teacher - and solely a history teacher. The British system is different, your teacher-training is catered specifically to the subject you are going to teach.  Since arriving in Canada in September I have explored the issues with history's supposed 'objectivity' more deeply than I have ever done before and my own assumptions about history, the past and my educational background and training have been challenged.  That said, I am still 'saturated' in history to a certain extent and I am used to reading historical articles or literature related to history.  Jacyntha England's thesis was therefore surprising to me in terms of its open positionality and subjectivity.  Post-modern critiques of history as a discipline have called into question the idea of objective historical inquiry but within the discipline there is a general coherence and acceptance of a certain narrative style and the use of narrator voice in writing (mainly that this should be limited, and if heard, matter-of-fact rather than infused with emotion). Jacyntha's thesis does not follow this format, as she is not an historian so it is not surprising. Even though I have explored alternative academic literature, I still found the openness to positionality and sense of self surprising. 

Three things that I can take away from this thesis:

1. You can adopt multiple narrative styles within one thesis.

2. You can use anecdotal snippets from research data to emphasise a point or theme without analysing them in detail or even explaining them or where they came from.

3.  It is helpful to ground your world view / theoretical standpoint / positionality in the literature.  Jacyntha England does this very successfully by offering clear definitions of the different elements that contribute to her own position and the theoretical grounding of her research.