Unit Two: Studying Africa through the Social Studies

Teacher Discussion:

Each of these photographs is a representation of an aspect of life in some part of Africa. Students should first understand that life varies greatly from region to region. The way of life of a group of people who have common beliefs and customs is often referred to as culture. There are many varieties of cultures and societies in the world. Students should find that in addition to the diversity they see in the photos, there are also things that they recognize from life in their own cultures and societies. This exercise is meant to get the students thinking about these similarities and differences. They should also begin to understand that many aspects of life fit under the words "culture" and "society." These include things pertaining to religion, food, clothing, celebrations, architecture, and many other areas of daily living.

The point should also be made that what students are seeing are representations of African cultures. Photographs, like written texts, offer a limited and mediated image of reality. What we see in the photograph is shaped by the point-of-view of the photographer and excludes everything outside of the frame of the picture. How we understand what we see also is influenced by the presentation of the photograph. Hence, placing a photograph of African women weaving baskets in a lesson on culture encourages us to define basket-weaving as a component of African culture.

For explanations of the photographs, click here.

To initiate discussion after students have answered the questions above, refer to the discussion questions below.

1. Were there some pictures that you guessed right about? Which ones?
2. What were some pictures that you did not understand when you first looked at them?
3. Are there any pictures that remind you of life in your own culture/society?
4. For several of the pictures, ask students to pay attention to the headings that provide information about who took the picture, when, and why. Based on this information, ask students to consider why the photographer took the picture? Was he/she a tourist? An anthropologist? A journalist? Does the photograph give you any clues about what the photographer did with the photograph? Place it in an album? Publish it in a book or newspaper? Mount it in a museum?
5. To encourage students to think about the photograph as a representation of reality, you might ask them to speculate about what is happening outside the frame of the photograph? What did the photographer leave out or ignore? Does the photographer seem to appreciate what he/she has photographed? Or is he/she taking a picture of something he/she finds offensive, scary, or strange? How do you know?