Beyond Words:Engaging young children and families in gallery education
type: CreativeWork
description: Beyond Words: Engaging Young Children and Families in Gallery Education at Tate Liverpool, is a three year ethnographic case study that explores what happens when preschool children, parents and nursery practitioners from a Sure Start Children’s Centre, visit Tate to participate in an extended series of gallery visits and workshops with artists. This study explores the potential value and tensions of these creative and cultural experiences, particularly for young children and families, by critically examining different perspectives, discourses and possible constructs of effective creative engagement. A theoretical bricolage is used for presenting various insights into the relationship between exploratory creative processes, children’s artistic flow, experiential learning and matters of inclusion. Bringing structuralist theories of learning together with non-representational theories, this study draws on Reggio Emilia, Deweyan and Deleuzian philosophies for thinking about children’s learning in art galleries. In doing so, it makes a case for new materialist and posthuman discourses to be considered alongside cognitive, linguistic and social constructivist pedagogies. This PhD study also contributes to debates on involving young children and families from marginalised communities in cultural visits and creative practices by opening up existing discussions on poverty and negative stereotypes. It also argues for a more creative, democratic and process driven education for young children which does not sit comfortably within current structures of formal teacher-led education, and therefore requires a messier, unbounded and rhizomatic way of thinking.
abstract: Beyond Words: Engaging Young Children and Families in Gallery Education at Tate Liverpool, is a three year ethnographic case study that explores what happens when preschool children, parents and nursery practitioners from a Sure Start Children’s Centre, visit Tate to participate in an extended series of gallery visits and workshops with artists. This study explores the potential value and tensions of these creative and cultural experiences, particularly for young children and families, by critically examining different perspectives, discourses and possible constructs of effective creative engagement. A theoretical bricolage is used for presenting various insights into the relationship between exploratory creative processes, children’s artistic flow, experiential learning and matters of inclusion. Bringing structuralist theories of learning together with non-representational theories, this study draws on Reggio Emilia, Deweyan and Deleuzian philosophies for thinking about children’s learning in art galleries. In doing so, it makes a case for new materialist and posthuman discourses to be considered alongside cognitive, linguistic and social constructivist pedagogies. This PhD study also contributes to debates on involving young children and families from marginalised communities in cultural visits and creative practices by opening up existing discussions on poverty and negative stereotypes. It also argues for a more creative, democratic and process driven education for young children which does not sit comfortably within current structures of formal teacher-led education, and therefore requires a messier, unbounded and rhizomatic way of thinking.
author: Wright, D
keywords: L Education (General), N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR, LB1139.2 Early childhood education
date published: 2020-04
date modified: 2026-07-24T06:30:31Z
provider: Liverpool Jon Moores University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Liverpool John Moores University

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.24377/LJMU.t.00012707