Visual literacy: An unexplored field. Teaching photography to high school students in five district schools in three localities of Bogotá

Abstract

<p>This research describes photography teaching practices developed by high school teachers within the area of Artistic Education in five district schools in three localities of Bogotá: Fontibón, Usme, and Ciudad Bolívar. The constitutive elements of these practices were identified and described: objectives, planning, themes, execution and development, and resources; some considerations were proposed regarding visual literacy developed from photography as an artistic expression. The qualitative methodological design is descriptive-explanatory; techniques used to collect information consisted of survey, first, to identify key informants and, second, semi-structured interviews to take a closer look at the specific field. Information was examined using the proposal of “Distilling information” for content analysis. Results evidenced that teaching practices are personal approaches that teachers developed based on their complementary training, with an emphasis on the teaching of photography technique, focusing on the context and immediate reality of students.</p>