Review of Arts and Humanities

Illustrating Educational Knowledge and Social Interactions; Analyzing Images in a Greek History Textbook
Vassileios Zagkotas, Ioannis Fykaris, Sousanna-Maria Nikolaou

Abstract
Visual representations are present in modern societies to such an extent that it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to characterize the modern civilization as “Civilization of the Images”. Facing this reality, the modern educational systems are obliged to upgrade their traditional methods by adapting practices and processes to multimodality and visual literacy. Based on M.A.K. Halliday’s three metafunctions of non-verbal communication, Gunter Kress’s and Theo van Leeuwen’s Grammar of Visual Design could provide a very useful methodological tool in analyzing each textbook’s visual material. The authors of this survey have focused on the relationship among the represented participants and the observer, by emphasizing on every representation’s arrangement of structural elements, use of perspective and social distance. After analyzing each image, they make didactic proposals by exploiting a variety of techniques. The research was being conducted on the 6th grade’s History textbook, which covers the historical period from 1453 to now. Regarding the ideological and didactical expectations of the illustration, the findings proved very useful.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/rah.v6n1a1