Using drawings to understand perceptions of civic engagement across disciplines: ‘Seeing is understanding’
| Published date | 01 May 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0263395717740033 |
| Author | Sharon Feeney,John Hogan |
| Date | 01 May 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Learning and Teaching in Politics and International Studies |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263395717740033
Politics
2019, Vol. 39(2) 233 –251
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0263395717740033
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Using drawings to understand
perceptions of civic
engagement across disciplines:
‘Seeing is understanding’
Sharon Feeney and John Hogan
Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland
Abstract
In this article, we wish to investigate if disciplinary differences exist among students when considering
the topic of civic engagement. We use freehand drawing to create a learning environment in the
classroom wherein students can seek to develop meaningful associations with civic engagement.
The drawings examined here, produced by three different class groups, provide insights into how
young adults perceive their society and their place in it, and thus communicate their understanding
of civic engagement. Freehand drawing, in bypassing cognitive verbal processing routes, leads
students to produce clearer and more holistic images. It allows them to put into visuals a level of
comprehension that is sometimes difficult for them to articulate with words. This use of the visual
method can help students to identify the tacit knowledge that they already possess.
Keywords
civic engagement, critical pedagogy, disciplinary difference, drawing, freehand, interpretation
Received: 27th October 2016; Revised version received: 21st August 2017; Accepted: 8th September 2017
Introduction
As educators, we want our students to reflect critically on society and their place in it. We
desire that they can evaluate various perspectives and come to reasoned conclusions. This
will involve their questioning taken for granted assumptions, many of which can be dis-
cipline biased. Science, for example, is usually considered as being ‘based on a represen-
tational view of knowledge, in which organizational phenomena are approached as
empirical objects with descriptive properties’ (Romme, 2003: 558). This analytic approach
is useful when considering existing or emerging organisational phenomena (Mohr, 1982;
Ziman, 2000). Alternatively, the humanities are usually seen to use models that consider
knowledge more ‘constructivist and narrative’ in approach (Gergen, 1992; Parker, 1995).
Corresponding author:
John Hogan, College of Business, Dublin Institute of Technology, Office 3-062, Aungier Street, Dublin 2,
Ireland.
Email: john.hogan@dit.ie
740033POL0010.1177/0263395717740033PoliticsFeeney and Hogan
research-article2017
Learning and Teaching in Politics and
International Studies
234 Politics 39(2)
Freehand drawing – a visual elicitation technique that permits students to see that there
are potentially multiple ways to analyse and challenge any issue (Feeney et al., 2015) –
serves as a useful tool to aid understanding of a topic. As a teaching approach, capable of
generating a critically reflective stance (Rose, 2008), freehand drawings can build stu-
dents’ ability to engage in critical thinking as well as providing insights into their percep-
tions (Dean, 2015; Donnelly and Hogan, 2013). By enabling students to draw their own
interpretation, they have a visual representation of their thoughts that transcend verbal
reasoning. This approach tends towards complication and complexity, rather than simpli-
fication as in instructional pedagogies (Dehler et al., 2004: 168).
Our aim in using this approach, with final year degree students from the sciences and
humanities, is to compare and contrast their understanding of civic engagement, a topic
that is transdisciplinary in nature. The activity involves the learners representing through
freehand drawings their personal, non-verbal, interpretation of what they understand
civic engagement to mean. The article presents a sample of these student-generated
images to see if they represent a discipline biased conceptualisation of civic engagement.
In recent years, many Irish higher education institutions (HEIs) have reimagined their
missions. HEIs can no longer focus only on teaching and research but must now embrace
a third purpose: developing students’ civic capacity and preparing them to become active
democratic citizens. However, there is no agreed definition of civic engagement (Jacoby,
2009). But, for simplicity, we take ‘civic engagement’ to mean the ‘ways in which citi-
zens participate in the life of a community in order to improve conditions for others or to
help shape the community’s future’ (Adler and Goggin, 2005: 236).
The article begins with a section on the utility of visual representation, followed by a
consideration of the use of drawings in the context of critical pedagogy. After this comes
a section on the embedding of civic engagement in the Irish higher education curriculum.
We then discuss how our drawings were created in the classroom. Thereafter, we examine
the drawings and what they tell us about the students’ critical understanding of civic
engagement. Finally, we discuss the pedagogical implications of our approach before
concluding the article.
The utility of visual representation
The youth of today are ‘inundated with more visual images than any generation in his-
tory’ (Bennis, 2007: 4). Consequently, visual representation occupies a ‘central role in
promoting and facilitating the formation, reflection and inflection of what we “take for
granted”’ (Slutskaya et al., 2012: 17). As Williams (2003) points out, in an increasingly
media dominated environment, it is wrong to ignore the importance of visual images.
However, despite its ubiquity, the visual is still largely missing from the university class-
room; and, the nexus between politics and visual representation remains insufficiently
explored (Sylvest, 2013).
The employment of visual techniques encourages a more vibrant exploration of a phe-
nomenon and challenges conventional wisdom (Parker, 2009). Gauntlett (2007) has used
visual and creative methods, including video, drawings, and Lego, to explore identity
creation among children and professionals, while Ingram (2011) and Abrahams and
Ingram (2013) have used plasticine models to explore identities in secondary school and
university settings. The production of these drawings, pictures or models serve as a
springboard to detailed in-class discussions. As Dean (2015) points out, there is a need for
verbal explanation post-drawing.
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