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discourses or ideologies they convey. Furthermore, captions attributed to images are an
important component for analysis, as Hall drawing on Barthes, states: “…frequently it is the
caption which selects one out of the many possible meaning from the image, and anchors it
with words” (2001, p. 326).
The following explanation of an understanding that images provide a context for the written
content contained within History textbooks draws on and follows Harper’s description of
analysing visual data, contextualised to textbooks, writing “visual documentation becomes a
part of research triangulation, confirming theories using different forms of data” (2005, p.
748). A focus in the analysis of visual data, then is what the images contained within
textbooks communicate, and whether they are aligned closely with written text, or treated
superficially, used as a way to break-up the density of the narrative. As Harper explains, at
times:
The visual dimension is not integrated into the research; the images are added by an
editor who has the challenging job of securing photos from a variety of sources. The
result is that useful photos are often found and published, but so are images that fall
short of their mandate to visually tell a sociological story. (2005, p. 749)
Tying in with representations of power that CDA attempts to uncover, the following
statement by Kress et al. guides the preliminary analysis of images in school texts:
…indications of social distance may be coded by the size of the element represented,
or by its coded distance from the viewer: attitudinal relations may be coded by the
viewer’s lateral position in relation to an element (such as ‘front on’, ‘to the side of’,
‘from the margin’). Relations of power are coded by the position of the viewer in
vertical relation to the object: if the object is more powerful we look up to it; if we
are more powerful, we look down on it; and so on. Forms of ‘factuality’ may be
coded by kinds of realism, so that in relation to our main example we might say that
the mode of representation is in a hyper-realist form (perhaps a surrealist form) of
everyday realism. (1997, p. 276)
3.5.3 Visual analysis and this project.
The impact of visual images in school curriculum cannot be underestimated, as critical
pedagogue, bell hooks (1994) explains. Although a vivid description of remembering, the
following statement nevertheless exemplifies the impact images can have on students’ long
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