VRMISR Chapter 7: Inner-City Children in Sharper Focus: Sociology of Childhood and Photo Elicitation

In this chapter Marisol Clark-Ibáñez captures the lives of her young participants lives using a photo elicitation as a methodology approach. Her study was on school-age children who resided in Los Angeles. She noticed through her ethnographic field work that these inner-city children lived a rich complex life. Through photo elicitation the children lead the interviews, they were the story tellers, the children made the decisions on what and how they wanted to share. They study consisted of 55 children participated in the research and of those 55 children 47 completed the interviews. Marisol Clark-Ibáñez spent the summer months conducting photo elicitation and returned to Los Angeles to conduct the rest of her interviews. Her instructions to the children regarding the project were for the children to take pictures of people and the things that are the most important to them. They were instructed to have fun and Marisol would collect the cameras up in a week. There was no cost to the participants or their parents for this project. While conducting interviews Marisol Clark-Ibáñez notices the following in the home of the participants:

Sitting on bales of clothes…

Mariachi clothing

Teachers thought parents were taking advantage,

Teachers did not value students musical talent

Participants seen as poor inner city children

Parental involvement

• Parents held two jobs

• Parents made an attempt to attend all meetings

• Parents tried to control the use of the camera

• Some children took photos of:

• Cat… child moved into a home where her family was able to finally afford a pet

• Inside looking out ---> girls

• Outside ---> boys

• Tree ---> girl was undocumented and was unable to be out, wished to climb the tree, was left home alone until 9p

• Inventory of household items ---> computer, stereos. Took these photos because of the neighborhood they lived in would be robbed.

• Mattress: mattress was put away during the day and at night mattresses placed out for child's sleeping arrangements.

• Children are almost always with family & friends

• Parents were unaware that their children had a rich play life: toys, Leo Dicaprio, etc.

- Note: Professor Casso also attempted to create a similar study, but her photos were not similar to Marisol's.