| This is a narrative study that explores the subjectivities of knowing within discursive spaces of the social. My examination of young children's belief in the iconic and multi-vocal mythical figure of Santa Claus addresses the epistemological questions of children's meaning making through liminal spaces of artistic and aesthetic experiences. Focusing on peer mediated art practices and ritual, my research explores the ways that children's knowledge construction is mediated by their positioning as "child" within culture and how their lived experiences with families, peers, and schools intersect in the formation and transformation of their knowing. I use a socio-cultural framework to approach this research. Additionally, this research is multi-disciplinary, informed by perspectives in the field of childhood studies and art to consider childhood from the lived perspectives of the children involved in my study. I invited children, ages 4 and 5, to draw with me in their classrooms in the month of the December, 2009. I observed local community sites where rituals of Santa Claus are enacted, I facilitated an art-making session with adolescents (aged 15 to 16), and I mined the special collections at Patee/ Paterno libraries at University Park. What emerges is a study that attends to both broad and specific influences on the processes of learning and knowledge construction. I explore history, memory, classrooms, and community sites to situate children's knowing within social, historical, and cultural contexts. This qualitative research addresses theoretical understandings of children's knowledge construction in the arts as a key ingredient to the epistemic base of pedagogical practices in the classroom. It distinguishes art as a way of thinking and knowing replete with affordances for inquiry, exploration, and creation. The results of this research point to advocacy for art education practices to be situated within the contextual spaces of children's experiences. It suggests that spaces of art are relational and considers how teachers can re/conceptualize the terrain of early childhood art education. |
