Image reading and critical understanding of the visual culture: unraveling concepts

Abstract

Almost everything from the little we know relating to manufactured knowledge comes to us by means of information and communication. This in turn also build images of the world. Images for pleasure, entertainment, trade, telling us what to wear, to eat, to think, how to look. In our contemporary society there is a debate about the need of a visual education that expresses itself in different denominations such as image reading and critical understanding of the visual culture. Frequent changes in expressions and concepts cause more difficulties in understanding these propositions in the national curriculum, the definition of the teachers responsible for this knowledge and the theoretical reference of it. This article intends to unravel the concepts that establish these different propositions, pointing out their similarities and differences. It contrasts theoretical references of the anthropology, art, education, history, sociology and suggests lines work in environments of learning with the intention of thinking our continued formation as teachers.