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Pupil mortification: digital photography and identity construction in classroom assessment

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 12:14 authored by Barbara CrossouardBarbara Crossouard
Cultural theorists have illuminated how photographic images contribute to autobiographical remembering and identity formation. This has new significance given that digital photography now allows personal images to circulate rapidly amongst peer groups. Taking these insights into classroom contexts, this paper draws on recent case-study data to explore a teacher’s use of digital photography to provide ‘feedback’ to pupils. Critiquing dominant psychological understandings of classroom assessment for their lack of recognition of power relations, it takes up post-structuralist theories of discourse, embodiment and affect to consider how these digital photographs became ‘sticky’ with memories of peer derision, ‘mortifying’ pupils and marking them as ‘other’ in ways that were intensified through later display to the class. Thus, rather than providing benign support for learning, the circulation of these images as part of feedback processes in this classroom context seems to have functioned as a powerful technology of individualization and normalization.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

British Journal of Sociology of Education

ISSN

0142-5692

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Issue

6

Volume

33

Page range

893-911

Department affiliated with

  • Education Publications

Notes

Online first

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2012-08-15

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