This article reports on the findings of a photography and literacy project ("Through Students' Eyes") the authors conducted with middle level English language learners and alternative high school youth from a mid-Atlantic (US) ex-urban area. In order to bridge middle and high school settings, the authors used multimodal and photo…

The high school dropout crisis in diverse urban communities in the United States is evidence of an endemic disengagement from formal education. The project on which this essay reports utilized visual sociology methods to explore city students' perceptions of schools' purposes, as well as the supports for and impediments to their school success.…