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Intention and Meaning in Young Children's Drawing

2005; Wiley; Volume: 24; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1476-8070.2005.00432.x

1476-8070

Sue Cox,

Education and Technology Integration

International Journal of Art & Design EducationVolume 24, Issue 2 p. 115-125 Intention and Meaning in Young Children's Drawing Sue Cox, Sue Cox The University of East AngliaSearch for more papers by this author Sue Cox, Sue Cox The University of East AngliaSearch for more papers by this author First published: 05 May 2005 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1476-8070.2005.00432.xCitations: 109AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Abstract In this article I present some ideas, based on qualitative research into young children's drawing, related to the developing discourse on young children's thinking and meaning making. I question the relationship between perception and conception and the nature of representation, challenging traditional ideas around stage theory and shifting the focus from the drawings themselves to the process of drawing, and thus to the children's own purposes. I analyse examples of my observations (made in naturalistic settings within a nursery classroom) to reveal the range of representational purposes and meaning in children's drawing activity. My analysis shows that, rather than being developmentally determined, the way children configure their drawings is purposeful; children can recognise the power of drawing to represent, and that they themselves can be in control of this. I explore aspects of the process, including transformation and talk to show the importance of understanding drawing in its specific contexts. I show how children's drawing activity is illuminated by the way in which it occurs and the other activities linked to it, presenting drawing as part of children's broader, intentional, meaning-making activity. As an aspect of the interactive, communicative practices through which children's thinking develops, representation is a constructive, self-directed, intentional process of thinking in action, through which children bring shape and order to their experience, rather than a developing ability to make visual reference to objects in the world. I suggest that in playing with the process, children are actively defining reality rather than passively reflecting a given reality. References 1 Athey, C. (1990) Extending Thought in Young Children: A Parent Teacher Partnership. London: Paul Chapman. 2 Kress, G. (1997) Before Writing: Re-thinking the Paths to Literacy. London: Routledge. 3 Pahl, K. (1999a) Transformations: Meaning Making in Nursery Education. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books. 4 Matthews, J. (1999) The Art of Childhood and Adolescence: The Construction of Meaning London and Philadelphia: Falmer Press. 5 Matthews, J. (2003) Drawing and Painting: Children and Visual Representation, 2nd edn. London: Paul Chapman. 6 Burgin, V. (1986) The End of Art Theory: Criticism and Post-Modernity. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education. 7 Davey, N. (1999) The Hermeneutics of Seeing, in I. Heywood & B. Sandywell [Eds] Interpreting Visual Culture: Explorations in the Hermeneutics of the Visual. London: Routledge. 8 Gombrich, E. (1960) Art and Illusion. London: Phaidon Press, p. 251. 9 Arnheim R. (1954) Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye. Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 167. 10 Costall, A. (1985) How Meaning Covers the Traces, in N. H. Freeman & M. V. Cox [Eds] Visual Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 11 Costall, A. (1995) The Myth of the Sensory Core: The Traditional Versus the Ecological Approach to Children's Drawings, in C. Lange-Kuttner & G. V. Thomas [Eds] Drawing and Looking. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf. 12 Gibson, J. J. (1973) On the Concept of 'Formless Invariants' in Visual Perception, Leonardo, Vol 6, pp. 43– 5. 13 Costall, A. (1995) op. cit, p. 220. 14 Golomb, C. (1974) Young Children's Sculpture and Drawing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 186. 15 Luquet, G. H. (1927/1977) Les Dessins enfantin. Paris: Alcan (3rd edn reprinted Lausanne and Paris: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1977). 16 Piaget, J. & Inhelder, B. (1948/1956) The Child's Conception of Space. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 17 Costall, A. (1995) op. cit. 18 Lange-Kuttner, C. & Reith, E. (1995) The Transformation of Figurative Thought: Implications of Piaget and Inhelder's Developmental Theory for Children's Drawings, in C. Lange-Kuttner & G. V. Thomas [Eds] op. cit, p. 79. 19 N. H. Freeman & M. V. Cox [Eds] op. cit, cited in Matthews, J. (1999) op. cit, p. 85. 20 Thomas G. V. (1995) The Role of Drawing Strategies and Skills, in C. Lange-Kuttner & G. V. Thomas [Eds] op. cit. 21 Matthews, J. (1999) op. cit. 22 Costall, A. (1995) op. cit. 23 Ibid. p. 24. 24 Matthews, J. (1999) op. cit. 25 Ibid. p. 101. 26 Golomb, C. op. cit. 27 Matthews, J. (1999) op. cit, p. 93. 28 Ibid. p. 31. 29 Athey, C. op. cit, p. 106. 30 Kellogg, R. (1969) Analysing Children's Art. Palo Alto: National Press Books. 31 Athey, C. op. cit. 32 Arnheim, R. op. cit. 33 Kress, G. op. cit. 34 Matthews, J. (1999) op. cit. 35 Kress, G. op. cit, p. 36. 36 Golomb, C. op. cit, p. 60. 37 Gardner, H. (1980) Artful Scribbles: The Significance of Children's Drawings. New York: Basic Books. 38 Goodman, N. (1976) Languages of Art, 2nd edn. Indianapolis: Hackett. 39 Cox, M. (1997) Drawings of People by the Under-5s. London: Falmer Press, p. 7. 40 Kress, G. op. cit. 41 Matthews, J. (1999) op. cit. 42 Kress, G. op. cit, p. 6. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. 45 Matthews, J. (1999) op. cit, p. 93. 46 Pahl, K. (1999a) op. cit. 47 Pahl, K. (1999b) Making Models as a Communicative Practice: Observing Meaning-Making in a Nursery, Reading, November. 48 Light, P. (1985) The Development of View Specific Representation Considered from a Socio-Cognitive Standpoint, in N. H. Freeman & M. V. Cox [Eds] op. cit. 49 Vygotsky, L. (1978) Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 50 Wales, R. (1990) Children's Pictures, in R. Grieve & M. Hughes [Eds] Understanding Children: Essays in Honour of Margaret Donaldson. Oxford: Blackwell, p. 144. 51 Stetsenko, A. (1995) The Psychological Function of Children's Drawing: a Vygotskian Perspective, in C. Lange-Kuttner & G. V. Thomas [Eds] op. cit, p. 147. Citing Literature Volume24, Issue2May 2005Pages 115-125 ReferencesRelatedInformation