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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: April 20, 2004
Latest Update: April 20, 2004
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

School Projects that Enhance Answerability

Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, April 2004.
"Fair use" encouraged.

We often repeat that answerability is not an epiphany in which someone suddenly says "You have a voice and you can answer the Other, even the authoritative Other," and then you are suddenly able to argue the validity of your own situational understanding. Instead, we slowly come to realize from modeling those who do answer, that we have voices. Then we must learn the skills of language and art and spirtuality that enable us to answer effectively.

Many of those in the International Visual Sociology Association are interested in how we learn to answer, how we teach that to others. I would like you to read the following message from the listserv, and consider the possibility of using this technique for learning answerability right here in our own backyard.

"Dear Kevin, I hope the following description of the mapping tool we used in research on school violence will help you:

The mapping tool has been developed as a qualitative methodological tool by Astor, Meyer, & Behre, (1999), particularly in educational research. With this tool, the researcher asks students, teachers and principals to identify safe or violence-prone locations in and around their schools. Each student/ teacher uses a small school blueprint and marks the three most violent or pleasant events during the past month. They then write down the age, gender, culture, of the participants, what was done by the student bystanders and school staff and what should be done to reduce such events. The student maps are compiled into one large school map that shows danger areas and organizational strengths and weaknesses in responding to aggressive behaviour. The students then discuss these violence- prone areas in a focus group and state their sometimes conflicting opinions what can be done to secure "safe" schools.

In a large-scale research into a-typical school violence in Israel, in which I was directing the qualitative part of the research, a total of 16 mapping tools were administered in nine schools encompassing a total of 121 students from Jewish religious and secular schools, and Arab schools in 39 different classes . The discussion of safe or violence- prone areas proved to be well suited to students, and particularly younger ones. Utilizing the mapping tool as a 'trigger', the students highlighted violent incidents and other stories of school aggression that had not been discovered by other methodological means. The incidents involved student-student, principal-student, teacher-student and parent-student aggression, sexual harassment, the use of drugs, and more.

I hope this was relevant. Best regards, Dr. Shalva Weil, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Further References:

• The Nottingham Psychogeographical Unit Mental Mapping Seminar . . . Backup. On how the mapping works.