The early 2000s were still a time of optimism and exuberance in newly democratic South Africa. Transformations were afoot, and there was a courageous desire for change, even with the stark realities of HIV and AIDS-related illnesses looming. At the 13th International AIDS Conference in Durban in 2000, Nkosi Johnson, aged 11, took the stage to give an impassioned speech emphasizing the importance of young people in responding to the AIDS pandemic. His call heralded an explosion of youth-focused initiatives, including the project that started this book. In My life follows the paths of a group of racially diverse young AIDS activists from Khayelitsha and Atlantis, first brought together as part of an educational HIV-prevention programme in Cape Town in 2002.

Over the next twenty years, we follow their inspiring and harrowing journeys, as they move from hopeful and passionate teen activists, through the tragedies and triumphs of transitioning to adulthood. With candour, they tell stories of hardships and loss, mental health issues, grief and violence, but also of personal transformations, love, friendship, artistic achievements, community connection and thrilling social justice wins. Connected to each other, and to their communities, their stories provide a glimpse into the long tale of activism and of educational work, forever asking the question: what difference does it make.

As the early post-apartheid enthusiasm and activism transformed and changed, stories have been a place where one could find solace and refuge, or find ways to be connected again. The stories in In My Life reflect the shifting times and context in South Africa, the transformation of the country and the complicated life stories of everyday life in the cracks of those who are artists, writers, creators, activists, researchers, teachers and many other things in between and beyond.

Examining context-specific conditions in which girls live, learn, work, play, and organize deepens the understanding of place-making practices of girls and young women worldwide. Focusing on place across health, literary and historical studies, art history, communications, media studies, sociology, and education allows for investigations of how girlhood is positioned in relation to interdisciplinary and transnational research methodologies, media environments, geographic locations, history, and social spaces. This book offers a comprehensive reading on how girlhood scholars construct and deploy research frameworks that directly engage girls in the research process.

Examining context-specific conditions in which girls live, learn, work, play, and organize deepens the understanding of place-making practices of girls and young women worldwide. Focusing on place across health, literary and historical studies, art history, communications, media studies, sociology, and education allows for investigations of how girlhood is positioned in relation to interdisciplinary and transnational research methodologies, media environments, geographic locations, history, and social spaces. This book offers a comprehensive reading on how girlhood scholars construct and deploy research frameworks that directly engage girls in the research process.

As seen in previous pandemics, girls and young women are particularly vulnerable as social issues such as homelessness, mental healthcare, access to education, and child labor are often exacerbated. The Girl in the Pandemic considers what academics, community activists, and those working in local, national, and global NGOs are learning about the lives of girls and young women during pandemics. Drawing from a range of responses during the pandemic including first person narratives, community ethnographies, and participatory action research, this collection offers a picture of how the COVID-19 pandemic played out in eight different countries.

What do you see when you think of "teacher"? Where does what you see come from? This is a book about the images of teachers and teaching which permeate the everyday lives of children and adults, shaping in important but unrecognised ways their notions of whom teachers are and what they do. The authors show how, using a creative interdisciplinary approach, it is possible to analyse drawings of teachers, television programmes, films, cartooons, comics and even Barbie dolls. Illustrated with colour reproductions and excerpts from interviews and journals, this book should appeal to teachers, academics and anyone who is interested in the popular culture of childhood, gender issues, professional identity and teacher education.

Participatory Visual Methodologies in Global Public Health focuses on the use of participatory visual methodologies such as photovoice, participatory video (including cellphilming or the use of cell phones to make videos), drawing and mapping in public health research. These approaches are modes of inquiry that can engage participants and communities, eliciting evidence about their own health and well-being, as well as modes of representation and modes of production in the co-creation of knowledge, and modes of dissemination in relation to knowledge translation and mobilization. Thus, the production by a group of girls or young women of a set of photos or videos from their own visual perspective can offer new evidence on how, for example, they see sexual violence. Unlike other data such as those collected through surveys or even conventional interviews, the images they have produced not only inform the empirical evidence, but also do not need to remain in a laboratory or the office of a researcher. They can, through exhibitions and screenings, reach various audiences: school or health personnel, parents and community members, and perhaps also policy-makers. This collection offers a critical overview for students, practitioners, researchers and policy-makers working in or concerned with the use of participatory methodologies in public health around the globe. This book was originally published as a special issue of Global Public Health.

Participatory Visual Methodologies in Global Public Health focuses on the use of participatory visual methodologies such as photovoice, participatory video (including cellphilming or the use of cell phones to make videos), drawing and mapping in public health research. These approaches are modes of inquiry that can engage participants and communities, eliciting evidence about their own health and well-being, as well as modes of representation and modes of production in the co-creation of knowledge, and modes of dissemination in relation to knowledge translation and mobilization. Thus, the production by a group of girls or young women of a set of photos or videos from their own visual perspective can offer new evidence on how, for example, they see sexual violence. Unlike other data such as those collected through surveys or even conventional interviews, the images they have produced not only inform the empirical evidence, but also do not need to remain in a laboratory or the office of a researcher. They can, through exhibitions and screenings, reach various audiences: school or health personnel, parents and community members, and perhaps also policy-makers. This collection offers a critical overview for students, practitioners, researchers and policy-makers working in or concerned with the use of participatory methodologies in public health around the globe. This book was originally published as a special issue of Global Public Health.

As 'method' takes centre stage in educational and social scientific research, and self-study becomes a key tool for research, training and practice and professional development in education, Just Who Do We Think We Are? provides an invaluable resource for anyone undertaking this form of practitioner research. Drawing upon diverse and specific examples of self-study, described here by the practitioners themselves, the book formulates a methodological framework for self-study in education. This collection brings together a diverse and international range of self studies carried out in teacher education, each of which has a different perspective to offer on issues of method and methodology, including memory work, fictional practice, life histories, collaborative autobiography, auto-ethnography, phenomenology and image-based approaches. Such ethical issues likely to arise from self study as informed consent, self-disclosure and crises of representation are also explored with depth and clarity. Ruth Prescesky, Acadia University Will Penny, McGill University Faith Butler, College of the Bahamas Anna Rumin, Bishop's University Jo Visser, McGill University Kathleen O'Reilly Scanl

As method takes center stage in educational and social scientific research, and self-study becomes a key tool for research, training and practice, and professional development in education, "Just Who Do We Think Are?" provides an invaluable resource for anyone undertaking this form of practitioner research. Drawing on diverse and specific examples of self-study, described here by the practitioners themselves, the book formulates a methodological framework for self-study in education.
This collection brings together a diverse and international range of self-studies carried out in teacher education, each of which has a different perspective to offer on issues of method and methodology, including memory work, fictional practice, life histories, collaborative autobiography, auto-ethnography, phenomenology, and image-based approaches. Such ethical issues likely to arise from self-study as informed consent, self-disclosure, and crises of representation are also explored with depth and clarity.

If dresses could talk, what stories might they tell? This compelling collection of short stories, essays, and poems features dress as the structural grounding for autobiographical accounts from women's lives in Western society. Often personal in nature, these « dress stories point unfailingly to matters of social and cultural import. Some of the dresses described inhabit the popular imagination: the little girl dress, the communion dress, the school uniform, the prom dress, the wedding dress, the little black dress, and the burial dress. Beyond the semiotic, tactile, and visual aspects of the dresses themselves, the narratives delve into what dresses reveal about fundamental aspects of human experience: identity, embodiment, relationship, and mortality. Bought or made, then worn, forgotten, remembered, re-constructed, and re-interpreted, each dress offers a new glimpse into how we construct meaning in our daily lives, and how dresses serve to reinforce or resist social structures and cultural expectations.

The place of childhood in popular culture is one that invites new readings both on childhood itself, but also on approaches to studying childhood. Discussing different methods of researching children's popular culture, they argue that the interplay of the age of the players, the status of their popular culture, the transience of the objects, and indeed the ephemerality - and long lastingness - of childhood, all contribute to what could be regarded as a particularized space for childhood studies - and one that challenges many of the conventions of "doing research" involving children.

The place of childhood in popular culture is one that invites new readings both on childhood itself, but also on approaches to studying childhood. Discussing different methods of researching children's popular culture, the authors argue that the interplay of the age of the players, the status of their popular culture, the transience of the objects, and indeed the ephemerality - and long lastingness - of childhood, all contribute to what could be regarded as a particularized space for childhood studies - and one that challenges many of the conventions of "doing research" involving children.

Designed for use by teachers and teacher educators, this text should help both novice and experienced teachers reinterpret their working lives. The reader is led on a path of personal exploration that goes beyond standard approaches and leads from the personal to the critical. Illustrative material is drawn from all levels, from kindergarten to high school, to illuminate issues and questions fundamental to teachers' lives. Film and literary narratives supply further case studies and contribute to the fusion of critical reflection and everyday realities that typically inform teachers' experiences of work.

Memory work - the conscious remembering and study of individual and shared memories - is increasingly being acknowledged as a key pedagogical tool in working with children. Giving students opportunities and support to remember and study their selves as individuals and as communities allows them to see their future as something that belongs to them, and that they can influence in some way for the better. This edited volume brings together essays from scholars who are studying the interconnections between pedagogy and memory in the context of social themes and social inquiry within educational research. The book provides a range of perspectives on the social and pedagogical relevance of memory studies to the educational arena in relation to the themes of memory and method, revisiting childhood, memory and place, addressing political conflict, sexuality and embodiment, and inter-generational studies.

Memory work -- the conscious remembering and study of individual and shared memories -- is increasingly being acknowledged as a key pedagogical tool in working with children. Giving students opportunities and support to remember and study their selves as individuals and as communities allows them to see their future as something that belongs to them, and that they can influence in some way for the better. This edited volume brings together essays from scholars who are studying the interconnections between pedagogy and memory in the context of social themes and social inquiry within educational research. The book provides a range of perspectives on the social and pedagogical relevance of memory studies to the educational arena in relation to the themes of memory and method, revisiting childhood, memory and place, addressing political conflict, sexuality and embodiment, and inter-generational studies.

How might study of the self illuminate and inspire social action? This book presents a trans-disciplinary, trans-cultural discussion of the dynamic interplay between self-study and our social world. Building on work done in the education field, essays in the four themed sections of this edited volume provide diverse perspectives on the social relevance of self-study in relation to the self in memory, (re)positioning the self, creative (re)presentations of the self, and the development of self-knowledge. Scholars, educators, researchers, and students across the arts, humanities, and social sciences will find much in this volume to inform their engagement with self-study both as a social phenomenon and as a methodology for social inquiry and action.

Positionality and researcher reflexivity – how to account for one’s subject position – remain as challenges for new researchers. But they also remain as challenges for experienced researchers, who are often involved in multiple research projects simultaneously. Where Am I in the Picture? sheds light on the idea of researcher positionality through visual methodologies, particularly in the context of studying rurality in Canada, Sweden, and South Africa. The book is intended for new and experienced researchers seeking to decolonize their own perspectives in research in the social sciences and humanities. It incorporates photographs, drawings, and memory work to highlight the social constructedness of what counts as rural. Drawing together compelling narratives from researchers about their positionality in studying rurality, the book highlights a need for greater attention to "where we are in the picture" more broadly. It suggests that when it comes to the rural, researchers need to rethink the interplay of dominant images, insider and outsider perspectives, and what this interplay means in relation to interpretation. Where Am I in the Picture? presents a new vision of how to take into consideration positionality in research.

What do you see when you think of "teacher"? Where does what you see come from? This is a book about the images of teachers and teaching which permeate the everyday lives of children and adults, shaping in important but unrecognised ways their notions of whom teachers are and what they do. The authors show how, using a creative interdisciplinary approach, it is possible to analyse drawings of teachers, television programmes, films, cartooons, comics and even Barbie dolls. Illustrated with colour reproductions and excerpts from interviews and journals, this book should appeal to teachers, academics and anyone who is interested in the popular culture of childhood, gender issues, professional identity and teacher education.

People often wear their causes on their t-shirts, in their choice of traditional attire or other garments, or by way of specific costumes, pieces of jewellery or particular accessories. In Was It Something I Wore? Dress; identity; materiality, the contributors explore the construction and performance of personal and social identities. The essays point to the significance of dress as material culture in social science research not only in their content but also in their focus on a variety of methodologies including memory work, visual studies, autoethnography, object biographies and other forms of textual analysis. The framing question, Was it something I wore? is central to the many dress questions the book raises; questions that challenge the socio-political status quo. To what extent does dress visually signify the construction of a chosen identity and a chosen performance? How does dress position the body and identity in different social and cultural spaces? How does dress signify oppression and/or liberation for women and how might this differ for men? What is the role of dress in the constructions of schooling and contemporary childhood? In its exploration of these and other questions, Was it something I wore? addresses a variety of pertinent social issues that confront communities in southern Africa.

This book communicates new voices, insights, and possibilities for working with the arts and memory in researching teacher professional learning. The book reveals how, through the arts, teacher-researchers can reimagine and reinvigorate moments of the past as embodied and empowering scholarly experiences. The peer-reviewed chapters were composed from juxtaposing unique "mosaic" pieces written by 21 new and emerging scholars in South Africa and Canada. Their research explores diverse arts-based practices and resources including collage, film, drawing, narrative, poetry, photography, storytelling and television alongside related ethical issues. Critically, Memory Mosaics also demonstrates how artful memory-work can engender agency in professional learning with teacher-researchers taking up pressing issues of social justice such as inclusion and decolonisation. Overall, the book offers a multidimensional, polyvocal exploration of how artful memory-work can bring about future-oriented professional learning enacted as pedagogies of reinvention and productive remembering. Memory Mosaics: Researching Teacher Professional Learning Through Artful Memory-Work, by Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan, Daisy Pillay, and Claudia Mitchell, along with teacher-researchers on two continents, is a ground-breaking book. It models a collaborative approach to arts-based research that melds memory-work, visual and poetic arts, and reflective practice to promote professional learning, personal transformation, decolonisation, and a more just future. Like colourful pebbles and bits of glass, the authors place teachers' self-stories in relation to one another in an artful design, creating thematic coherence that evokes a deep sense of knowing. Judith C. Lapadat, Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Education, University of Lethbridge, Canada Memory Mosaics: Researching Teacher Professional Learning Through Artful Memory-Workassembles exemplars of professional learning in an intriguing mosaic format. A topic is introduced, followed by memory-pieces; then: discussion and/or creative response. This lively juxtaposition generates momentum for highly productive forms of remembering around social justice issues, even as the reader is invited into an intimate circle of shared concern: for these issues, with these (and other) teacher-researchers. It is a beautiful, original, and practical book. Teresa Strong-Wilson, Associate Professor, Faculty of Education, McGill University, Canada

This book demonstrates how data from participatory visual methods can take people and communities beyond ideological engagement, initiating new conversations and changing perspectives, policy debates, and policy development. These methods include, for example, photo-voice, participatory video, drawing/mapping, and digital storytelling. Organised around a series of tools that have been used across health, education, environmental, and sociological research, Participatory Visual Methodologies illustrates how to maintain participant engagement in decision-making, navigate critical issues around ethics, track policies, and maximize the potential of longitudinal studies. Tools discussed include: Pedagogical screenings Digital dialogue devices Upcycling and 'speaking back' interventions Participant-led policy briefs An authoritative and accessible guide to how participatory visual methods and arts-based methods can influence social change, this book will help any postgraduate researcher looking to contribute to policy dialogue.

This book demonstrates how data from participatory visual methods can take people and communities beyond ideological engagement, initiating new conversations and changing perspectives, policy debates, and policy development. These methods include, for example, photo-voice, participatory video, drawing/mapping, and digital storytelling. Organised around a series of tools that have been used across health, education, environmental, and sociological research, Participatory Visual Methodologies illustrates how to maintain participant engagement in decision-making, navigate critical issues around ethics, track policies, and maximize the potential of longitudinal studies. Tools discussed include: Pedagogical screenings Digital dialogue devices Upcycling and 'speaking back' interventions Participant-led policy briefs An authoritative and accessible guide to how participatory visual methods and arts-based methods can influence social change, this book will help any postgraduate researcher looking to contribute to policy dialogue.

In today's society, more and more mass media and popular culture is being produced for, about, and by pre-adolescent and adolescent girls than ever before. "Girls" (and/or their behavior, dress, relationships, education, and more) have driven investigative documentaries and fueled plot lines for mainstream films and prime-time television dramas. In addition, young women have become a valuable target market as the rise of "girl power" scripted young women as--at once--a commercially lucrative and hyper-sexualized population. Reaction to the "new" girl of the millennium has been as diverse as it has been swift, due in part to the unclear definition of what constitutes a "girl."

"Girlhood "is a collection of essays on girls, girlhood, and girl culture. Drawing from the works of national and international scholars, this book focuses on the multifaceted nature of girls' "lived "experiences. Examined is racism, sexism, and classism; girlhood and girl gangs; the power and politics of schoolgirl style; encounters with violence; chatrooms; sexuality; and identity formation and popular culture.

This groundbreaking collection offers a complicated portrait of girls in the twenty-first century: good girls and bad girls, girls who are creating their own girl culture and giving a whole new meaning to girl power. These provocative essays cover all aspects of girlhood as they bring to life the ever-changing identities of today's young women.

Yasmin Jiwani received a Doctor of Philosophy in communication studies from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. She is the author of "Discourses of Denial: Uncovering Race, Gender, and Violence in Society."

Claudia Mitchell, PhD, is a professor and chair in the faculty of education at the University of Natal, involved in developing a curriculum on girl-child education in Zambi.

Candis Steenbergen holds a PhD in interdisciplinary studies in society and culture from Concordia University in Quebec. She is the editor of "good girl magazine."