In this article, inspired by the idea of using data to think "with" theory [Jackson, A., and L. Mazzei. 2012. "Thinking with Theory in Qualitative Research: Viewing Data Across Multiple Perspectives." London: Routledge], we explore how our ethnographic visual data will be 'thought', 'theorised' and verbalised using concepts…

Issues of social justice associated with photography based educational research (PBER) are under-explored and under-theorised. In Part 1 of this paper, a practical synthesis of social justice in education is used to interrogate the purposes and processes of PBER, which then frames discussion of the particular affordances of images and the ethical…

Education ethnographies show that observing bodies, objects and settings can illuminate previously hidden learning practices but the relational characteristics of these practices presents methodological challenges for conventional qualitative analyses. Using an example from an ethnographic study of everyday learning, I show how methods from art…

The aim of this article is to explore loss experiences within a counselling and psychotherapy training arena, an environment that effects individual change. We use an auto-ethnographic case study format and data in the form of photographs, hybridised client material, journal entries and commentaries in order to reflexively consider loss material.…

This article uses vignettes and photographs taken from ethnographic research to reframe the methodological assumptions within school garden research. New theoretical perspectives are applied to previous empirical school garden research that provides deeper understandings of both the teaching and the learning of ecoliteracy in such material…

Informed by the results of a collaborative project carried out with six secondary school students, this paper reflects on the methodological and epistemological issues related to the representation of informal learning practices. Borrowing a concept from the arts, I suggest that a representationalist logic in both schooling and educational…

In this paper, we try to move beyond fixed narratives of child/ren and childhoods, a fixity that comes, in part, as a consequence of the adult/child dyad. We undertake a cutting together-apart of childhood photographs which allows us to explore the complex machinery that produces the categories of child/ren as human beings that are, variously,…

With the increasing recognition of the importance of developing intercultural competence in foreign language education, there is now much discussion amongst scholars and teachers as to how to move beyond fact-based approaches to teaching culture by promoting more interpretive and reflective learning within a critical frame. Whilst study abroad is…

The over-arching aim of this study was to elucidate and interpret topics that are relevant to how we understand children's experiences and creation of meaning in natural landscapes and places within these landscapes. Following two nature-kindergarten groups regularly over ten months, the data for this ethnographic study consist of constructed…

Learning communities (LCs) provide an ideal context for civic learning because they foreground the integrative and interactive nature of learning and skills development. While the academic benefits of LCs have been well documented, their potential to promote civic learning and engagement has received less attention. Indeed, the potential of LCs to…

This article considers what the repercussions are when the concept of "quality" is examined within the epistemological and ontological theoretical shifts that are afforded by post-humanism. In particular, Braidotti's configuring of thinking as "nomadic activity" and the need for "process ontology", together with…

Concepts of school "ethos" or "culture" have been widely debated in education since the 1980s. This is partly as a consequence of marketisation, partly because ethos has been identified as a low-cost route to school improvement. Corporate, authoritarian, and most recently "military" models of ethos have been widely…

This paper will offer a reflexive account of the research approaches used in linguistically and culturally diverse education contexts by an academic researcher from the hegemonic cultural mainstream. The discussion will cover some of the potential barriers to research with linguistically, ethnically and/or culturally diverse "others" and…

This article explores the way that discourses of smartness and whiteness are produced and reproduced in schooling. Using an approach grounded in narrative research, I explore the convergences and contradictions between my own educational autobiography and the representations of schooling found in my school pictures and yearbooks. In my analysis, I…

Young people with English as an Additional Language/Dialect backgrounds are often identified in public health messages and popular media as "bodies at risk" because they do not conform to the health regimens of contemporary Western societies. With increasing numbers of Chinese students in Australian schools, it is necessary to advance…