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Dr Josephine Deguara and Professor Dame Cathy Nutbrown
When Dr Josephine Deguara chose to focus on meaning-making in children’s drawings for her doctoral thesis, little did she know that it would, one day, be the subject of a book, co-authored with her former supervisor Professor Cathy Nutbrown.
Focussing on the value of drawing as an important communication tool for young children, Josephine’s study took a social semiotics perspective, investigating children’s representations around their social and cultural interests. Data included 223 drawings which were analysed to uncover the ordinary and the extraordinary. Young children use drawings to make and communicate meaning, illuminating the complexity of their ideas and imagination, as they find creative and personal ways to convey their thoughts, fears, excitements, contentment and fascinations. There is an important relationship between drawing and talk, and children’s ongoing drawing-narratives help them to develop and change their meanings as they draw.
From a children’s rights standpoint, drawing can be valued as a means of listening to their perspectives and understand more clearly what intrigues and concerns them. We suggest that drawing can be part of child-focussed early years pedagogy, when educators attend to children’s funds of knowledge and build learning experiences around children’s socio-cultural contexts.
This study contributes to international research and practice focusing on young children as participants in their own learning, showing how research can be conducted with young participants, how their opinions and voices can be respected in research processes, and how ethical issues can be identified and positively navigated.
Educators, and other professionals working with young children, can benefit from a deeper understanding of children’s experiences as conveyed through their drawings, and a focus on their drawings can be used to inform curriculum planning, pedagogical practice and assessment of children’s knowledge and understanding of their worlds. More information about the importance of drawing can help parents to further support children’s drawing activity and extend the drawing opportunities they offer their children at home.
Insights gained from understanding children as they draw, and listening to their talk as they draw, can be used to enhance children’s lives and learning. When adults sensitively listen to children drawing, they are better placed to use those insights to facilitate young children’s holistic living, development and learning. Really understanding children’s drawings brings an understanding that drawing is no mere childhood pastime, but is inextricably linked with children’s everyday experiences, their thinking processes, their emotions, their rights, and their learning; in other words, who they are.
Josephine is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Malta and visiting scholar at the University of Sheffield. Cathy is Professor of Education at the University of Sheffield. Children Making Meaning: Exploring Drawings, Narratives and Identities is in production and will be published by Routledge
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