{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.02127659574468085, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0060790273556231, 'mean_word_length': 4.731343283582089, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Unpacking and complicating the ethics and pedagogy of visual studies with youth

In the spring of 2019, we had the opportunity to team teach a doctoral course on Visual Ethnography. Most of the students came to the class because they were either intrigued by the concept of visual data, or the course just fit best with their schedules that semester. In short, we were working with graduate students who were a relatively blank slate when it came to visual research and visual methodologies. Inevitably, when the class discussion focused on ethics, the students were always confused and fuzzy about how to approach visual research in education. This bewilderment, in part, comes from how modern (but especially Western) societies use camera-enabled cell phones in daily life. For example, many of us can go to the park and quite simply capture the moment by taking a picture of our child on a playground slide. Unbeknownst to us, there could be other children in the shot, hiding in plain sight in the background. Given that a photo like this could be taken in any public space, and given that it contains young people who have not given us their consent to capture or share an image of their likeness, how do we answer the ever-pressing 21 century question: should we share this picture on social media? Would it be unethical? Since ethics have to do with highly subjective moral principles we employ to govern our behaviors and decisions, it may or may not be unethical; this all depends on how we define and apply ethics to our dilemma. If this same photo was used in a research project with children, (how) would that change our answer? To complicate matters even further, many visual researchers do not mention or address ethics in their work. Wang and Redwood-Jones (2001) were the first to discuss the ethics of visual research in the public health sphere in their seminal study. Public health research is also where visual methods like photovoice were originally created (Wang & Burris, 1997), but visual studies, and photovoice in particular, has recently spread into the educational research world. This can obscure matters further, as educational research often deals with minors and in spaces where adults and researchers can easily disempower participants. This is why we wanted to create a