Value of Audiovisual Records in Intercultural Education

Abstract

This article discusses the possibilities of audiovisual records as research data in intercultural relationships, or those that allow us to understand the Other. The research aims to contribute to the theory that is being developed on the nature and value of narratives in photographic and video representation and analysis of basic realities of teaching that are difficult to capture and quantify. Specifically, we examine whether audiovisual recording is a good tool for gathering and analysing information about intentions and interpretations contained in human relationships and practices. After presenting some epistemological and methodological dilemmas such as the crisis of representation in the social sciences or the «etic-emic» conflict and proposing some solutions taken from audiovisual anthropology, we analyse the nature of intercultural relationships in two schools –ethnographies– that support the study completed in 2011 and funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation: the use of visual narratives as a substrate of intercultural relationships between culturally diverse kindergarten and primary education pupils. As an example, we describe how we discovered some categories that allow us to understand the universe of meanings that make sense of, determine and shape their cultural relations. Finally, we describe the contributions of NVivo 9, a software package that facilitates the analysis of photo and video recordings and narratives..