Picturing the history of teacher education: photographs and methodology

Abstract

Pictures are routinely identified as possible sources for researching history yet they are widely either neglected or underused. This article explores the use of pictorial materials, in particular photographs, in historical analysis. It describes some common, or standard, uses of photographs in historical writing, and critically discusses them. It identifies and examines methodological and ethical issues in using photographs as evidence. And it draws on a current project which is using a rich body of photographs as an integral part of its analysis of the history of one educational institution to explore these issues.