Class Pictures: Representations of Race, Gender, and Ability in a Century of School of Photography

For over a century, school photographs have served as a ritual of American education — class pictures, yearbook portraits, and group shots that seem to capture innocent moments of childhood. In Class Pictures, Eric Margolis looks beneath the surface of this familiar genre to reveal how school photography has systematically represented and reinforced hierarchies of race, gender, and ability.

Analyzing photographs spanning from the late nineteenth century to the present, Margolis demonstrates how the composition, staging, and distribution of school images reflect the social order of their time — who is centered and who is marginalized, who is shown as capable and who as dependent, whose bodies are disciplined and whose are celebrated.

The article contributes to the growing field of visual studies in education, showing how everyday photographic practices participate in the construction of social categories that students carry with them long after they leave school.