Abstract
Sociology instructors strive not only to teach their students the essential aspects of sociology but also to help students develop their critical thinking abilities. One way to help students become better critical thinkers is to assign projects that encourage students to critically assess their world by relating the course content to their everyday world. This article details a photography project that has been assigned in lower level sociology courses at a four-year university and a community college. The project has been successful in encouraging students to develop their critical thinking skills and locate course material within the context of their everyday lived experiences. Examples from projects and a content analysis of 87 anonymous reflection papers demonstrate that the project allows students to (1) relate the course material to their everyday world, (2) engage in an intellectually challenging assignment, (3) critically examine their taken-for-granted worlds, and (4) have fun while completing a challenging academic exercise.
Although sociology instructors seek to develop students’ understandings of sociological concepts, theories, and research methods, they should also strive to foster students’ sociological imaginations and critical thinking skills (Adriance 1982; Mills 1959; Misra 2000; Persell, Pfeiffer, and Syed 2007). Although many scholars (Arum and Roksa 2011; Chance 1986; Freire 1970; hooks 2010; Huitt 1998; Mayer and Goodchild 1990; Mertes 1991; Thomas and Smoot 1994) have attempted to define “critical thinking,” I refer to critical thinking as a student’s ability to engage in higher order analytical processes, such as the comprehension, analysis, and synthesis of ideas (Anderson and Krathwohl 2001). Students who are able to engage in higher order thinking often have the ability “to unpack; to move beneath the surface; [and] to work for knowledge” (hooks 2010:10). This ability is important because it allows students to question what is often taken for granted and create a space for dialogue, where students can critically examine values, beliefs, and structures. When students engage in these dialogues, they are often able to move away from the generic process of memorization and into a process of actual knowledge creation (Freire 1970).
Creating critical thinkers may be one of the most effective strategies to allow students to grasp the course content. This occurs because students who are critical thinkers engage with the course material, become excited about and analyze the course material, and incorporate the course content into their understanding of their daily worlds. It has been argued that one of the most effective ways to foster students’ critical thinking skills is to draw connections between the course content and the real world, especially if the real-world connections are directly relatable to students’ personal lived experiences (Burns and Martinez 1993; Misra 2000; Rafalovich 2006). Sociology instructors have developed numerous innovative techniques to bridge the gap between course material and real-world experience, which include the use of breaching experiments (Rafalovich 2006), simulation exercises and activities (Dundes and Harlow 2005; Holtzman 2005; Wills, Brewster, and Fulkerson 2005), popular television shows and movies (Livingston 2004; Loewen 1991; Misra 2000) and many other techniques that develop students’ critical thinking abilities.
Although I have used many of these techniques and found them successful, I also created an assignment to develop students’ critical thinking abilities and encourage them to incorporate the course material into the evaluation of their everyday lived experiences. The assignment is a photography project that requires students to create photographs of real-world events and situations to represent the various topics discussed in an introduction to sociology course. The project was successfully implemented in a total of eight courses, five sections of introduction to sociology courses and three sections of introduction to social problems courses, in the past two years at a four-year university and a community college. A total of 169 students have completed the project, and 87 students have completed anonymous reflection papers discussing their experiences with the project. A modified grounded-theory analysis of the reflection papers demonstrates that the project successfully helps students master the course content, relate the course content to their everyday lives, and develop their ability to critically analyze the world around them.
A description of the project and the rationale for creating the project is presented below. This description is followed by a discussion of three exemplary examples of student work that demonstrate the effectiveness of the project. Finally, an analysis of the students’ anonymous reflection papers is presented. This discussion provides insights into students’ reactions to the project and, most important, how students report that completing the project has increased their ability to critically analyze their world.
The Assignment
The overwhelming popularity of digital photography has made ownership of and the ability to use a digital camera quite common. Digital photography has become so popular and commonplace that one does not need to own a stand-alone digital camera to have access to one, as they are built into other consumer goods, such as cell phones, portable music players, and computers. The widespread access to digital photography technology allows digital photography to become an excellent resource for sociology instructors to use in their efforts to develop students’ critical thinking abilities.
On the first day of my introduction to sociology courses, I inform students that in addition to the two exams and two papers assigned, they are required to complete a comprehensive photography project. The photography project is the students’ final project for the class. Students are told that they must have access to a digital camera and the ability to transfer the digital images to a computer to complete the project. Also, students are informed that because the project was designed to be a comprehensive overview of a student’s semester, the project is worth a substantial portion (usually 30 percent) of their final grades. Therefore, students are introduced to the photography project and the importance of completing the project from the first day of class.
As with any final exam or project, the assigned photography project was designed for the student to demonstrate his or her understanding of the course content. The project accomplishes this because students are required to take a minimum of one photograph for each subject area (e.g., conflict theory, culture, social stratification, sociology of education) discussed in the class and complete a detailed description of each photograph. The description that students must write to accompany each photograph must include (1) a context for the photograph, such as where the photograph was taken, what is depicted in the photograph, and what was occurring beyond the frame of the photograph; (2) a detailed description of the sociological theories or concepts that are portrayed in the photograph; and (3) a discussion of how the sociological theories or concepts are related to the photograph. Because I discuss approximately 20 different subject areas in my introduction to sociology courses, the project typically consists of 20 images and 14 to 20 pages of writing.
Students are also told that all photographs must abide by the following guidelines: (1) photographs must be taken during the semester that the student is enrolled in the course, (2) photographs must be the work of the student enrolled in the course, and, most important, (3) the photographs must be “candid photographs.” To ensure that the first two criteria are met, students are required to submit electronically their projects via the Internet or as files saved on CDs. Collecting the project electronically allows the instructor to examine each photograph’s exchangeable image file format data, which are easily obtained by viewing the “properties” of each photograph on a computer. Although viewing a photograph’s exchangeable image file format data provides a plethora of information, such as aperture and shutter speed settings, the most important data provided are the make and model of the camera that created the image and the date and time the photograph was taken (Miller 2008). This information can help the instructor verify that the images were taken with a single camera and were indeed taken during the current semester.
It is common for students to become apprehensive about the project when they hear that included photographs must be candid. This apprehension arises because they believe that candid photography must include people they do not know. I explain to students that, as photographers, they have the right to capture photographs of individuals in a public setting and that, although they cannot publish the photographs without the consent of those depicted in the photographs, they can include the images in their projects. The institutional review boards at the institutions where this project has been assigned have supported this position and concluded that as long as the photographs are not published or shared in a public forum outside of the classroom, students do not need to obtain institutional review board approval to complete the class project. Furthermore, I explain to students that candid photography does not have to include people and simply refers to photographs of settings that have not been staged by the photographer. When these issues are clarified, students become less hesitant about the project, as they begin to understand that they can take photographs of containers of medicine they find in their homes, posters they encounter in public, books they find in libraries, and many other everyday settings.
Students also become slightly apprehensive about the project because they believe they do not have the ability to produce “professional photographs.” Therefore, I explain to students that they will not be graded on the artistic qualities of the photographs. Although each photograph and its accompanying description is worth 10 points, the photograph is only worth a total of 2 points. Students receive full credit for photographs if they were taken during the semester and are appropriate for the project. Five of the remaining 8 points are earned from the content the student provides in the description of the photograph. Descriptions that provide a detailed context for the photograph, a comprehensive overview of the concept being applied to the photograph, and a strong argument for how the concept is linked to the photograph earn full credit. As with any written assignment, points are deducted if students do not present a comprehensive and compelling argument. Students earn the final 3 points from the organization of the description, mechanics, and grammar. It is important to explain this grading structure to students, as it eases their anxiety about not “knowing much about photography” and not being able to produce “professional-quality photos.”
Overall, the rationale for creating this project was to design an assignment that allowed students to be creative and engage in higher-order or critical thinking processes. Encouraging students to engage in these processes forces students to move beyond simply memorizing facts and concepts, as it allows them to critically assess their lived experiences and synthesize the course content with taken-for-granted worlds (Anderson and Krathwohl 2001). After designing the project, implementing it for the past two years in a total of eight classes, and analyzing student work and reflection essays about the project, I believe that the project successfully demonstrates students’ (1) knowledge of the course content, (2) ability to think critically about the world around them, (3) ability to observe everyday occurrences and relate them to sociology, and (4) ability to write coherently about sociological theories and concepts. These are all demonstrated through students’ ability to define and describe sociological concepts and theories and relate that knowledge to the real-life experiences depicted in the accompanying photographs.
Methods
Over the course of two years, 169 students, 99 in introduction to sociology and 70 in introduction to social problems, have completed the project. Although the demographics of the individuals who completed the project are unknown, the demographics of the university and community college where this project was assigned suggest that those who completed the project were very diverse in terms of gender, race, social class, and age. Also, because the project was assigned in introductory-level courses, which students at these institutions often take to meet core graduation requirements, it can be assumed that the students also represent a wide variety of college majors and class levels.
The first part of the analysis presented below, which demonstrates that the project encourages students to critically examine their everyday worlds, is a discussion of three examples from student work that are believed to exemplify the effectiveness of the project. Each semester, there are many students who produce very creative and well-written projects. These students’ work is often saved and used as examples in future classes to help students understand what they are expected to do to complete the project. Although some students are uncreative and attempt to complete the project by doing the least amount of work, the majority of students put a lot of effort into “thinking outside the box” and are quite creative with their projects. Therefore, the discussion that showcases how the project encourages students to examine critically their everyday world is based on exemplary examples of student work that demonstrate the potential that assigning a project such as this can have in an introductory-level course in sociology.
Although 169 students completed the photography project, in the first classes in which the project was assigned, students were not asked to complete reflection essays about their experiences with the project. Therefore, only 87 individuals completed reflection essays. When students were asked to complete reflection essays, they were asked to respond to the broad prompt to “reflect upon your experiences with the photography project” and to submit their essays anonymously. This was done to obtain an accurate assessment of students’ responses to the project.
A modified grounded-theory approach (Charmaz 2006; Glaser and Strauss 1967; Strauss and Corbin 1998), which allows the researcher to enter the field with little or no preconceived notions of what trends exist in the data, was used to analyze students’ anonymous reflection essays. I chose this methodological approach because I believed it would help maintain my objectivity in assessing a project that I wanted to be a success. Line-by-line coding techniques were used initially to code the essays. These coding techniques were used and deemed to be the most effective approach, as it forces the researcher to focus on small bits of data, which are often incomplete thoughts because thoughts usually span numerous lines (Strauss and Corbin 1998). Therefore, line-by-line coding was a crucial step to objectively analyze the effectiveness of the project, as it allowed the students’ thoughts to guide the creation of codes and themes.
Upon completing line-by-line coding, focused coding (Charmaz 2006) was used to identify any emergent themes that existed within the data. Focused coding was completed by analyzing and grouping the line-by-line codes to identify commonalities that existed among the reflection papers. This process yielded the following three themes: (1) the project was challenging, (2) the project helped students rethink their surroundings, and (3) the project was a fun learning experience.
After these emergent themes were identified, all 87 reflection papers were recoded for evidence of the themes. This process identified the number of students who discussed the various themes in their reflective essay. This further helped demonstrate the effectiveness of the project, as the themes were present in a majority of all the reflection essays. Specifically, this recoding process demonstrated that 53 percent of students stated that the project was challenging, 80 percent stated that the project encouraged them to rethink their surroundings, and 62 percent stated that the project was a learning experience they enjoyed completing.
Results
Are Connections Being Made to the Real World?
While creating the photography project, I knew what I wanted to accomplish through the assignment, but I was unsure about the quality of work students would produce. This anxiety came from the fact that I did not know anyone who had successfully incorporated photography in their classes. Therefore, when I sat down to grade the first student’s project and saw a page headed “The Sociological Imagination” with a photograph of an individual skydiving I became wary of the project’s success. I scrolled down to the next page and read the student’s discussion of the sociological imagination and explanations for why he chose the photograph to represent the sociological imagination. His description of C. Wright Mills’s (1959) concept was a typical answer about blending history with biography and being able to differentiate between public issues and private troubles. Although the description was well written and thoroughly explained, I still failed to see the connection between the photograph and the concept of the sociological imagination.
The second half of the student’s description helped restore my confidence in the project and piqued my interest about the creativity that other students put into their work. In the second half of the description, the student wrote, “this picture represented the sociological perspective and sociological imagination because the view that I had while skydiving was one that I never had before in my life.” The justification for including the photograph continued:
The sociological perspective is supposed to be a new perspective of the same world. This is exactly what skydiving was; I had a view of the North Shore that I never had before. I had been to the North Shore many times, but only got to experience it from the ground level. When I got to see the North Shore while skydiving it was as if I was seeing a completely different shore. This is what the sociological perspective and sociological imagination is all about—seeing the same world with new eyes.
Here the student demonstrates an understanding of the critical nature of the sociological imagination, which allows one to step away from one’s limited worldview and see the larger social picture that blends the effects of history and biography. Therefore, a discussion such as this provides evidence that students not only understand the course material but can relate the underlying critical nature of sociology to an event that may not seem sociological on the surface.
A second student’s project contained a page headed “Socialization,” which included a photograph of a baby dressed in blue clothing. The baby is in a crib that contains a blue dinosaur blanket and a plush car toy. The link between this photograph and the selected term was more obvious than the previous example, but this example provides evidence that students are able to apply the course concepts to their everyday lives. The student wrote,
This is a picture of my cousin, who was recently born. Looking at his clothes, blanket, and toy it is obvious that he is a boy. Basically, his parents are setting him up to adopt a masculine identity, as they are clearly showcasing his sex as male. When others see him, they will know that he is a boy and will treat him accordingly. Since he will be treated like a boy, he will adopt male gender roles and behave in a manner that is consistent with society’s expectations for males.
The student continues the discussion of socialization by describing the human life course and explaining that socialization is an ongoing process that helps develop and support an individual’s values, attitudes, and behaviors. This example, like the first example, demonstrates that students are not only understanding the course material but can take what is learned in the classroom and apply it to “real world” situations.
Although students are successful in using photographs to explain sociological concepts, they are also very successful in using photographs to explain the sociological theories that they see represented in their everyday experiences. One student included two photographs of the university’s volleyball team to depict structural functionalism. The student acknowledged that structural functionalism views society as an organism that is made up of numerous systems, which are all important to the functioning of society and the ability to maintain equilibrium. The student argued that this view of the world could be exemplified through the image of the volleyball team, because
in volleyball, there are only six positions on the court that can be fielded by a team, yet there are 18 total players on the roster. Each player, therefore, must learn their role and contribute to the entire team. Without everyone’s role being performed the team does not function properly. Obviously, not everyone on the team gets to play, but they are also vital to the overall team concept because they serve as practice squad players. Without the practice squad, the starting players won’t have anyone to practice against.
The student strengthened the connection between the photograph and structural functionalism by examining various roles of other individuals who are associated with the functioning of the volleyball team. This discussion included a description of the coach, the athletic trainer, the booster club, and the fans. The student stressed in the discussion that all these individuals fill positions that create the broader system of the volleyball team and that if these individuals failed to complete their assigned roles, the team may fail to function. Essentially, the student identified a broad social system (the volleyball team), its various subsystems (team members, coach, etc.), and the function each subsystem must fulfill to establish equilibrium and maintain the broader system of the volleyball team.
Because 169 students completed the project, there are numerous examples, just as creative and innovative, that could be used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the project. The students’ use of creative and innovative examples provides evidence that they are not simply memorizing the course material to pass a test. Instead, the students are comprehending the material in a way that allows them to assess critically the world around them and apply the course content to a wide variety of “real world” settings.
The Project Was Very Challenging
A common theme that appeared in a majority (53 percent) of the reflection papers was that the project was intellectually challenging. For some students, this difficulty arose because the project was not a traditional essay or final exam, which students are regularly required to complete. One student wrote, “This was definitely one of the harder assignments. I didn’t know what to expect . . . it wasn’t as simple as a regular essay, which I can usually crank out with no problem. This was interactive. I actually had to get in there and do something.” This was often the first hurdle students encountered: They were not accustomed to being required to complete an interactive and creative project as a final exam.
Many students reflected on the fact that the project was “time-consuming” and that difficulties occurred when they attempted to complete the written portion of the project. Students often stated that they believed the connections between their photographs and the sociological concepts they were thinking about when taking the photographs were clear, but when they attempted to write about the photographs, they struggled. One student keenly observed that this difficulty arose because she did not fully understand the concepts she was trying to apply and therefore had to return to her lecture notes and textbook to review the material before completing her written discussion. Another student wrote that he was positive he understood the concept of sexism, but when he attempted to write about his photograph, he found that “it was rather difficult to explain how sexism was depicted in the photograph.” Like the previous student, he stated that before he could adequately complete the explanation of the photograph, he had to review his lecture notes and textbook to “really understand the concept.” Therefore, the difficulty of the project led students to review the course material and gain a better understanding of the various sociological theories and concepts to complete successfully the project.
It is also important to note that many students underestimated the difficulty of this project, often thinking the project was going to be “a piece of cake.” One student wrote, “overall this photography project was much more difficult to accomplish than I had expected,” and another wrote, “it may seem easy because it’s just ‘snapping’ photos, but really it was a lot harder than I thought.” Students often wrote that at the start of the project, they had difficulties finding images to photograph, but it “got easier as [they] got into the project.” It is arguable that this difficulty in finding the initial photographs for the project arose because students began the project with an uncritical approach to the world and the project became easier as their ability to critically assess their world developed. One student wrote,
During the completion of this project, I found out how hard looking for the pictures was. This was not because the subjects themselves were difficult to find, but primarily because we are so used to living the way we are in our society that it is not surprising that we often ignore the sociological problems around us because we have been conditioned to ignore them.
Another student expressed the need to be more critical of his taken-for-granted world by writing,
when we first found out about this project I though piece of cake . . . but it was rather difficult . . . you literally have to put a lot of thought into it and dig deeper within the term itself . . . and then you have to start to think about yourself and if the term relates to you.
Therefore, these reflection essays suggest that as students became more critical about their everyday worlds, the project became easier to complete, as they were able to view their world through a different lens and see things they never saw before.
The Project Encouraged Me to Rethink My Surroundings
Eighty percent of the students (n = 69) stated that completing the photography project helped them develop a sociological imagination or critically assess their environment. This development allowed students to conclude that “sociology is always around us, whether we know it or not,” “sociology is a part of our everyday life, and . . . pretty much everything we do every day, sociology can be related to it,” and “it was cool how there is sociology everywhere!” The students’ ability to see how sociology could be applied to “almost anything” in their lives was facilitated by the ability to “think outside the box” and “critique surroundings.” One student wrote that she realized how “brainwashed and passive [she] was to the issues” until she was willing to open her mind to a new perspective, allowing her to see that “social issues were right under [her] nose and entirely invisible.” Another student reflected that although the textbook referenced real-world examples, many of the example were not applicable to his everyday life and he “felt proud that [he] could actually apply something [he] learned [in introduction to sociology] to real life.”
By becoming critical of their surroundings, students developed their understanding of the course content and began to see how the course material was present in their everyday world. One student wrote that the project allowed her to see how sexism and issues related to gender and sexuality were ingrained in her daily life. She wrote,
The project pronounced gender bias in my everyday activities. While I walked down the school halls, used the bathroom, conversed with my boyfriend, watched a volleyball game, took a shower, sat in class, I perceived gender bias and sexism. This hyperconsciousness of gender bias encouraged me to rethink and change my behavior.
Another student had a similar experience and realized “how common sexism actually is.” This student felt the need to reevaluate her behavior because she realized that “even I help perpetuate aspects of sexism in my actions, my goals, and my dreams.” These epiphanies about the real world were not limited to experiences with the topic of sex and gender. Another student detailed his experience while attempting to take a photograph to represent social stratification. The student wrote that he just carried his camera around and details the moment of epiphany as
I rode my bike . . . and I started to see things and make connections with the way things work. I noticed a homeless man pushing a shopping cart, while a man sped by in a BMW. That’s when it hit me that images like this can depict social class.
Overall, students reported becoming more aware and interested in the world that they once passively inhabited. Many students reported that they started to notice new things, which allowed them to see that the course material was directly related to the real world.
Another interesting trend in the reflection essays was that students discovered that they did not have to “seek out” specific scenarios to complete the project. Many students began the project by setting out to take photographs of very specific things, such as homeless individuals for social class, toy stores with “boy” and “girl” toys for gender, or sports competitions for conflict theory. However, many students wrote that as they progressed through the project, they realized that they just had to become more aware of their surroundings. Therefore, students simply had to become critical thinkers and analyze what they often took for granted to become aware of how social class and social stratification are integral parts of everyday life. One student reflected on this realization and wrote,
Almost six of my nineteen slides contained pictures taken inside my house or right outside it. I was amazed that I didn’t have to stray far from home or even go out of my way in order to find adequate photo subjects.
This experience was common for students and most students stated that it was hard to find adequate examples because they did not want to see them. In a powerful statement, one student wrote, “I started to realize that finding [examples] wasn’t the problem, but accepting that I had found it was.”
The Project Was a Fun Learning Experience
It is not often that students, especially those in lower level courses, will use words and phrases such as “difficult,” “challenging,” “a lot of work,” “time-consuming,” and “fun” to describe the same project. Therefore, although it is encouraging that students find the photography project to be challenging and effective at developing their critical thinking abilities, it is more encouraging to know that they also find the learning process “fun.” Sixty-two percent of the students (n = 54) reported that they enjoyed completing the photography project, found it engaging, or found it fun. One student wrote that “the process of taking pictures to illustrate each concept reminded me of a scavenger hunt, which was fun.” Another student wrote that the process of completing the project was fun because “the project allowed [him] to be creative and innovative.”
Although many students enjoyed the project because it was not a traditional essay or exam and enjoyed the opportunity to be creative, innovative, and “in the field,” many students enjoyed the project because it allowed them to gained a new perspective on the world. One student wrote that the project was an “interesting and engaging experience to complete and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I found it very entertaining to try and apply topics we learned in class to objects, interactions, and signs that I see in daily life.” Another student wrote that the project was fun because “it really summed up [her] experience with sociology quite well . . . [she] realized that [she] needed to step back and look at the bigger picture, instead of all the small things that [she] tended to focus on.”
A few students reported that the project was fun because it encouraged them to have new experiences. One student, who was interested in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues, wrote that the project encouraged her to attend a civil rights rally at the state capitol. While at the event, she learned about the long and complex history of the civil union bill that has stalled in the state legislature numerous times. That day, the state senate approved the civil union bill, and the student was “invited by a member of Pride Alliance to join the group for a celebratory lunch.” She stated that she would not have had this “fun” experience if she had not had to complete the photography project. Many other students wrote about that the project encouraged them to explore new areas of the state, which led to many positive and eye-opening experiences.
Finally, students reported that the project was fun because they were able to use the information they learned in class and the textbook in real-life situations. Comments in students’ reflection essays suggest that students may have become disenfranchised with the standard essay assignment and final exams administered in many college courses, often stating that they usually just have to memorize information to get through a test. However, the reflection papers also suggest that when given a project that allows them to be critical thinkers and creative, students enjoy learning and are willing to put a lot of effort into their work. One student summed up many students’ feelings when she wrote, “I enjoyed the project because I was allowed to connect what I learned in sociology class to the real world [and] there are few classes that I am able to do this in.”
Conclusion
The examples of student work and the analysis of anonymous reflection papers suggest that the photography project achieved many of its goals. Student work demonstrates that students are developing a deep understanding of the course material, as they are able to apply the material to their real world. The examples presented earlier suggest that students were able to apply the course content to examples that were not discussed in class or the textbook, which demonstrates the students’ abilities to analyze and synthesize the material with their everyday experiences. To accomplish this, the students needed to develop a clear understanding of the course content. Therefore, many students reported having to return to their lecture notes and textbook to review the course material before adequately completing their descriptions of their photographs.
The project was also successful in developing the students’ critical thinking skills, as they began to view their worlds through a new perspective. They began to relate everyday events and situations to the sociological concepts and theories they learned in class. Furthermore, they began to see that “sociology is everywhere,” which suggests that students became critical of their everyday surroundings. As students progressed through the project, they reported that they developed their ability to examine their world critically and the project became easier because they no longer had to seek out specific scenarios. Instead, students found that they were constantly surrounded by sociology, allowing them to incorporate the course material into their everyday lives.
It is important to note that a project such as this, although effective in developing students’ understanding of the course material and critical thinking skills, is time-consuming, and students often underestimate the difficulty of the project. The project, however, is the appropriate amount of work for a semester-long project. Therefore, it is suggested that instructors who choose to assign this project give the assignment to their students during the first three weeks of the semester and continuously encourage students to work on it. Providing this amount of time allows students to meet with the instructor throughout the semester for assistance and to obtain help from fellow classmates.
It is also vital to stress that candid photography does not imply that people need to be in the photograph; it just means that the scene photographed was not staged by the student. If this is not stressed, students believe that the photographs they include in the project need to include people and describe the project as “creepy.” Therefore, stressing the definition of candid photography when assigning the project helps students overcome the uneasiness they may feel about the project. This is vital, as this sense of uneasiness is a barrier that prevents students from producing quality work. When it is clear to students that they do not have to include “random people” in their photographs, they do not find the project to be “creepy” and become very creative and critical in completing their project.
In my experiences with the project, I have found that clearly defining “candid photography” and allowing adequate time for the students to complete the project produces an overwhelming positive student experience with the project. This positive response to the project and the quality of work that students produce to complete the project suggest that it could be adapted and used in most sociology courses. In its current form, the project is best suited for courses that survey a wide variety of topics (e.g., introduction to sociology courses that briefly examine numerous substantive areas of sociology), because the project requires students to understand and summarize broad topic areas discussed throughout the course. Because these courses examine broad areas in the field of sociology (e.g., racism, sexism, social movements), students are presented with many scenes that they can photograph to apply the course content. I believe, however, that the project can easily be adapted to more concentrated courses (e.g., a course in the sociology of consumption). In courses such as these, it is perhaps more effective to adapt the project into a photo essay, required as an assignment rather than a semester-long project that focuses on a specific topic in the course (e.g., cathedrals of consumption, advertising in daily life, or product placement). Students could be asked to create four or five images that represent a certain concept discussed in the course. This would allow the instructors of these more focused courses, which are often upper-division courses, to ensure that the students thoroughly understand the concept they are capturing images to represent and force students to be more thorough in their analyses.
Regardless of how the project is implemented in various sociology courses, my experiences with the project suggest that this type of assignment often has the ability to increase students’ enthusiasm about the course and transform the relationships between students. This transformation occurs because students discuss their projects with one another. In my classes, I have observed that students become teachers for other students, as they share their experiences with one another. Although I have not collected data on this phenomenon, I have observed numerous occasions when students share the photographs they have completed with other students. Many times, a student viewing a photograph will ask how it relates to the course content. Therefore, the first student must explain the photograph, the rationale for creating the photograph, and the connection between the photograph and the course content. This dialogue allows students to develop further their understanding of the course content, as they begin to teach other students about the concepts and theories that they have incorporated into their projects.
Therefore, I believe that the photography project described in this article has been a positive addition to my courses and would be beneficial in other courses. The work students create to complete this project, the students’ reactions to the project, and the transformation that takes place in the classroom as students discuss their projects all suggest that students are developing their critical thinking skills. This development of their critical thinking abilities helps students better understand the course content. Ultimately, this allows students to move away from simply memorizing the course material and move toward critically applying the content to their everyday experiences, which helps with the creation of knowledge. Overall, the implementation of the digital photography project has been a great success, as it presents an academic challenge for students, helps them develop their critical thinking skills, and allows them to have fun while completing a challenging and educational task.