New Book Exploring Identity Through Children’s Drawings
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A fruitful collaboration between Sheffield alumni has resulted in a new book: ‘Children Making Meaning: Exploring Drawings, Narratives, and Identities’. Dr Josephine Deguara of the University of Malta and Dame Cathy Nutbrown, Emeritus Professor of the School of Education, University of Sheffield, worked on the book whilst Josephine was a Visiting Scholar of the School of Education in Sheffield. It shows how drawing is inextricably linked with children’s everyday communications, experiences, thinking processes, imaginations, emotions, and learning. Over 100 unique drawings, explore and explain the processes, relationships, and modes children use, and the meanings that emerge from them.
Case studies of three children illuminate their drawing lives and the complexity of their thinking, intentions, and knowledge. The children found creative and individual ways to convey their thoughts, fears, excitements, contentments, and fascinations. The children’s rich and unique geo-cultural capital of the Mediterranean island of Malta, is reflected in their drawings. They show how children’s ongoing drawing-narratives help them to develop and change their meanings as they draw. The children’s drawings illuminated with theories of social semiotics to demonstrate the intrinsic place of drawings in children’s moral, social, and family lives. The book is a catalogue of young children’s cultural knowledge – their funds of knowledge – derived from their unique familial, geographical and cultural contexts. It demonstrates what children know about many things, including: their sea, landscapes, heritage of fireworks, festas, food, and family.
Josephine said that working on the book with Cathy was:
“a profoundly meaningful and enriching experience, that deepened my belief in the quiet power of children’s voices and the importance of trusting them — even when we are uncertain about how to listen to them. Children have much to teach us, if only we remain open to learning. Through our collaboration I came to appreciate that children’s drawings hold far more depth than we often recognise. As educators and researchers, we must be willing to slow down — to pause, observe, ask, and truly listen. When we do, children reveal not only how they see the world but also who they are within it. Moreover, in children’s drawings, simplicity and complexity coexist. Children’s simple drawings can carry layers of meaning – about identity, imagination, belonging; while the complexity of children’s drawings is simple to understand if we know them and the richness of their socio-cultural world. Only then can we begin to truly understand.”
The book was launched at the University of Malta, attended in person by several alumni and Dr Liz Chesworth, and online by Cathy and Head of School Professor Rebecca Lawthom. Reflecting on her writing partnership with Josephine, Cathy said:
“You taught me much about open watchfulness, patient thoughtfulness, humble reflection and human approaches to ethical practice, as we listened to the children who taught us so much about drawing (and their worlds).”
Children Making Meaning: Exploring Drawings, Narratives, and Identities
Professor Emeritus, Dame Cathy Nutbrown
Professor Emeritus, Dame Cathy Nutbrown
c.e.nutbrown@sheffield.ac.uk
Dr Josephine Deguara
Dr Josephine Deguara
josephine.deguara@um.edu.mt
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