The Seen and Unseen: Critical Visual Methods to Advance Racial Justice in Educational Research advances critical research methodologies for analyzing visual and multimodal data, with particular attention to racial justice and minoritized communities. It presents innovative theoretical frameworks and analytical approaches for examining how visual representations impact, perpetuate, and potentially transform systemic inequities in educational research.

Organized into three sections, this book explores analytic frameworks, methods for critical visual analysis, and visual praxis in schools and communities. Contributors weave together transformative theories while demonstrating innovative approaches to visual analysis including photovoice, collage, slow looking, and radical curation that center participant perspectives. The book showcases rigorous approaches to analyzing visual data while maintaining methodological depth. Key findings illustrate how visual methodologies can reveal hidden power structures, document lived experiences, and generate new knowledge about how minoritized communities engage with and create visual meaning. The work advances understanding of perspectives across the lifespan—from children to youth to adults—through visual and multimodal research methods.

This book is designed for emerging and established educational scholars interested in critical visual and multimodal methodologies, and serves as an ideal text for undergraduate and graduate research courses. It offers valuable insights for researchers studying representation, identity, and equity, while advancing innovative approaches for analyzing visual and multimodal data in educational research.