Negotiating grasp : embodied experience with three-dimensional materials and the negotiation of meaning in early childhood education
Original version
Fredriksen, Biljana C. (2011). Negotiating grasp: embodied experience with three-dimensional materials and the negotiation of meaning in early childhood education. [Oslo]: Oslo School of Architecture and Design.Abstract
Abstract:
Recent international acknowledgement of young children as competent active
individuals raises questions about what their competences are, and what
significance embodiment has for their learning. This thesis has two primary
objectives: 1) to explore and clarify young children’s competences (ages 3-5),
and 2) to uncover how children negotiate meaning through embodied
experiences with physical and social environments.
Building on the theories of John Dewey, Elliot Eisner and Arthur Efland, this
thesis adopts an understanding that cognition is closely related to children’s
experience with 3D-materials’ affordances and resistance. More specifically,
this thesis examines what happens during aesthetic learning processes when
children experience and explore materials’ affordances and resistance
through art-based activities in early childhood educational contexts.
This empirical, interactionist study was conducted in one Norwegian early
childhood education centre, inspired by arts-based educational research and
ART-ography. As such, the researcher gained access to the complex
processes of children’s experiencing and expressing through interactions with
children during visual art activities with 3D-materials. Two children took part
in each of the activities and a total of nine educational contexts (cases) were
filmed and analyzed. The data were analyzed using cross-case methods, and
five selected cases were analyzed contextually. The software NVivo was
used, and multiple case study methods were applied throughout the crosscase
analysis.
The following four findings emerged from the cross-case analysis:
1. Through their embodied experiences and physical activities the
children explored the 3D-materials’ qualities, simultaneously as they
explored the possibilities of their own bodies.
2. The embodied experiences and verbal language mutually supported
each other. The children connected earlier and new experiences
through imagination and metaphor development, and negotiated
personal meanings.
3. The materials’ resistance initiated problem-solving activities and
engaged creativity. Unique solutions and new meanings emerged in
form of micro-discoveries.
4. What was possible to learn was highly dependent on the quality of
inter-subjective relations between the teacher and the children. The
researcher’s choices of materials and tools structured what was
possible to negotiate meanings about, but her attitudes (expressed
though body language, tone of voice etc.) were as important.
The close focus on children’s actions and expressions lead to an insight that
negotiation of meaning is a complex process that interweaves material,
individual, and social phenomena, and where imagination, creativity, and
metaphor play essential roles. The contextual analysis uncovered materials’
resistance as a significant source of motivation to self-initiated problem
solving. The thesis discusses young children’s imaginative connections
between past and present experiences and suggests that their microdiscoveries
are the essence of creativity.
The findings in this thesis contribute to understanding children’s holistic
learning strategies and exemplify how aesthetic experiences can support
cognitive activities. The thesis promotes a holistic view on learning, but also
problematizes the tensions between the embodied and linguistic nature of
learning, which is a significant tension in many educational systems. It
further suggests that the present international educational testing race
demands extensive discussions about what quality of education is, how it is
measured, and what quality of early childhood- and school education should
be.