The current study builds on previous research and theory in social studies curriculum to address how democracy is interpreted by secondary students through visual texts. The author begins with a brief exploration of hermeneutics as a theoretical framework for this work and a sketch of methodology employed in this study. The author then presents and interprets data from focus groups of secondary students in three high schools who viewed democratic visual texts. The author concludes by reweaving insights generated from focus group data around hermeneutic concepts which suggest implications for social studies curriculum. The main question of this research is: What insights about democracy do students construct in light of visual texts? (Contains 5 notes.)