Full Citation Hallam J L Lee H A N

full citation hallam, j. l., lee, h. a. n., & das gupta, m. (2014). collaborative cognition: co-creating children’s artwork in an educationa

Full citation
Hallam, J. L., Lee, H. A. N., & Das Gupta, M. (2014). Collaborative
cognition: Co-creating children’s artwork in an educational context
Theory and Psychology. 24(2) 166–185 DOI: 10.1177/0959354314526088
Abstract
This paper presents an empirical analysis which addresses discursive
and extra-discursive practices. A range of data which examines the
co–creation of art in English primary schools is used to explore the
use of ethnography within a critical realist framework. Case studies
are presented to systematically analyse the different contextual
layers which shaped the creation of children’s artwork. These are
analysed multi-dimensionally presenting i) a photograph of a piece of
artwork created during the lesson and ethnographic notes about the
aims and scope of the class; ii) analysis of classroom interaction
between children which shaped the creation of the artwork and iii)
video stills and ethnographic notes to analyse the ways in which space
and materials, shaped interaction and the creation of a material
object – the artwork. Attention to meso, micro and extra-discursive
contexts demonstrates how ethnographic methods might be used to
examine interaction between discursive and extra-discursive practices.
Key words: Discourse, cognitivism, critical realism, developmental
psychology, extra-discursive, materiality
The study of child art within developmental psychology
Child art has been studied within developmental psychology since the
19th century and is an established area of research (Coates & Coates,
2006). Broadly speaking interest in children’s drawings has been
informed by two different approaches - one centring on mapping out
developmental patterns and the other on psychological assessment. An
experimental approach has largely informed research which aims to
identify key milestones in children’s drawing development. Within this
body of research drawings completed by children of various ages were
used to propose stage theories relating to specific areas of
children’s artistic development such as the representation of the
human figure (Cox, 1993). It is argued that the invariant stages of
development identified in this research revealed what normal children
of a certain age would include in their drawings. This ‘gold standard’
of normal development along with psychoanalytic theory has informed
the use of children’s drawings as assessment tools. In a clinical
context children’s drawings are construed as ‘‘an expression of their
(children’s) unconscious mind, something which isn’t easily
accessible’’ (Wilson, 1993 p. 37). Consequently, drawing tasks have
been used to access the child’s personality (Machover, 1949), current
emotional state (Koppitz, 1968, 1984) and attitudes towards
significant people or events in their life (Fox & Thomas, 1990;
Sechrest & Wallace 1964; Thomas, Chaigne and Fox 1989). Outside of a
clinical context drawings have been used to access cognitive
functioning and measure IQ (Harris, 1963; Silver 1978, 1988, 1993,
1996). Within an assessment context it is assumed that the level of
detail in drawings completed by children can be analysed by a trained
adult to gain access to the child’s inner world or mental functioning.
This brief overview highlights that within developmental psychology
children’s drawings have been largely conceptualised as a direct
reflection of the child’s cognitive functioning, their inner emotional
world and their developmental maturity. As such the majority of
research investigating children’s drawings conforms to what Potter
(2000) has termed a ‘cognitivist agenda’ within psychology. The
cognitivist agenda is characterised by an individualist approach which
privileges the internal workings of individual people and considers
these to be the key source of psychological explanation. Consequently,
children are conceptualised as “autonomous individuals” who are
reducible to measurable mental phenomena (Stetsenko & Arievitch, 2004,
p. 475). Consequently, the wider context which shaped the creation of
the artwork is not examined and experimental research within
developmental psychology has focused on what Potter (2000 p. 35) has
termed the “output” (drawings) of the “cognitive system” (the child).
Drawings completed by children have been considered to be of value
because they give insight into the underlying cognitive and emotional
processes located within the child.
An alternative to cognitivism
In recent years a number of researchers who use discursive
psychological (DP) approaches have developed an alternative framework
to cognitivism which suggests that cognitive phenomena are situated in
discursive practices (Wiggins & Potter, 2003). Early research in this
area conducted by Edwards and Middleton (1986) demonstrated that in
some contexts memory is constructed through social interaction and
that collective remembering is a well practised activity in which
people use a number of linguistic devices to prompt, correct each
other and add in extra pieces of information to create a sequential
narrative. Following the argument that memory is not simply an
internal cognitive process, Middleton and Edwards (1990, p. 110)
called for research to explore “how people construct versions of
events and their own mental processes within the practices of everyday
conversation”. A discursive approach to cognition has been applied to
a number of processes such as shared knowledge, emotion and child
cognition (Edwards, 1997), attitudes (Wiggins & Potter, 2003) and the
perception of noise (Stokoe & Hepburn, 2005). This body of discursive
research suggests that a limitation of cognitivism is that it does not
attend to the action orientation and co-construction of cognitive
activities (Potter, 2000).
In response to the call for psychology to attend to the “the
collective aspects of human existence” (Martin & Sugarman, 1999, p.
11) this paper brings a discursive approach to the area of child art.
Rather than focusing on drawings completed by children in an
experimental context, this paper focuses on interactions which
occurred between children in primary school art classes as they
created their own artwork. Previous classroom based research which has
investigated other forms of creative activity highlights the benefits
of adopting this kind of approach. Baker-Sennett, Matusov and Rogoff’s
(1992) analysis of classroom interaction between children as they
wrote a script for a play demonstrated that children worked together
to critique, embellish and develop ideas. The presentation of creative
planning as a flexible and socially negotiated process highlights the
need for an exploration of what Coates and Coates have termed (2006,
p. 221) an “essential ingredient in each drawing’s production” – the
social interaction which led to the creation of the artwork itself.
Process centred research
A growing number of researchers studying children’s art have started
to explore the utterances and interactions which lead to the creation
of children’s artwork. Matthews (1999, 2003) – an artist and prominent
researcher – has conducted considerable research centred on the actual
artistic process rather than the finished product. Matthews utilised
ethnographic methods to conduct longitudinal studies that investigated
the artistic development of his three children, two grandchildren and
classes of children he taught in London nurseries. A specific concern
was to examine the ways in which children go about creating artwork
with an emphasis on the meaning and purpose children assign to the
marks they make on the paper.
Matthews’ (1999, 2003) research offered a valuable insight into the
drawing experience but a focus on investigating skill development and
the meaning artwork has for children meant that the wider social
interactions which shaped the creation of the artwork were not
explored. Recent research conducted by Coates and Coates (2006) has
moved into this area by exploring the relationship between young
children’s (3 to 5 year olds) drawings and their accompanying
narrative. The ethnographic methods adopted by these researchers
revealed that talk and interaction played an important role in the
creation of artwork. Children would jointly create narratives
surrounding the images depicted, ‘scaffold’ the drawing processes and
drawing activities also gave children the opportunity to engage in
social talk. This research supported Thompson’s (2000) anecdotal
evidence that drawing in a kindergarten class is a collaborative
activity.
The importance of the extra-discursive context
An advantage to process centred research is that it allows researchers
to examine psychological phenomena (in this case creating artwork)
from the positions of the participants themselves (Potter, 2000). As
such this immerging body of research offers a fresh perspective and
understanding of child art as it attends to the child’s understanding
of their artwork and the processes which shaped the creation of the
artwork. However, an exclusive focus on language within qualitative
research has faced criticism from researchers such as Sims-Schouten,
Riley and Willig (2007) who advocate a critical realist approach.
Sims-Schouten et al. (2007) argue that in line with a critical realist
framework “material practices are not reducible to discourse, or
without meaning unless interpreted discursively; rather, material
practices are given ontological status that is independent of, but in
relation with discursive practices” (p. 102). This proposed
relationship between the discursive and the extra-discursive is
particularly relevant to the study of child art as the interactions
between children during the process of creating art lead to the
production of a material object – a piece of artwork. Furthermore, the
artistic process itself is guided by the kinds of tools made available
to the children and so within this context the discursive and the
extra-discursive are interlinked. As such it is important to
acknowledge and explore the material ecosystem that shapes the
artistic process and the ways the interactions in the artistic process
are negotiated.
The analysis presented in this paper further builds upon process
centred research by investigating the co-creation of artwork in
primary school art lessons. A specific concern is to explore how the
cognitive activities associated with creating artwork such as planning
and making marks on the paper are mediated by both social interaction
and the material context they are created in.
Methodology
Sims-Schouten et al. (2007) argued that one of the major issues faced
by qualitative researchers who aim to explore the material world is
the lack of a systematic method which enables analysis to explore the
discursive and extra-discursive contexts. Nightingale and Cromby
(1999. p 11) define materiality as “the elemental, physical nature of
the world in which we are embedded, its ‘thing-ness’ and solidarity.”
The material world encompasses the physical things which surround us
such as trees, sand, rocks and buildings. It also includes the
properties of these things such as the way they smell and what it
feels like to touch them. Therefore, the material world can appear in
language, an eloquent piece of prose about mountains for example, but
it is not reducible to it (Nightingale & Cromby, 1999). As such it is
important that researchers explore and acknowledge how the physical
surroundings shape the way that phenomena are constructed (Yardley,
1996; Stoppard, 1998). This could mean examining embodiment (lived
bodily experience and issues such as disability), the physical nature
of the world (the physical objects that surround us as discussed
above) and violence and power (from interpersonal experience to
weapons of mass destruction).
When working to develop a critical realist methodology Sims-Schouten
et al. (2007) stressed the importance of a multi-level analysis which
draws upon “discursive practice (e.g. Edwards, 1997), Foucauldian
discourse analysis (e.g. Willig, 2001) and an examination of embodied,
material and institutional practices which may be considered to have
extra-discursive ontology” (p. 107). In line with this model a
successful analysis attends to the micro and macro levels of talk and
the material practices which shape what is said. In practice this
involved first conducting a literature search which included academic
sources, government policy documents and non academic sources to
identify the material practices and the dominant discourses that shape
people’s experiences. The next step involved assessing the
extra-discursive contexts relevant to the population participating in
the research though the use of questionnaires and completing fact
sheets. The final stage involved analysing interviews. Sims-Schouten,
et al. (2007) argued that collection of these different types of data
and use of different analytic techniques enabled links to be made
between the analysis of the interview, the discourses available and
the material contexts which shaped experience.
The analysis presented in this paper is a multi-level analysis.
However, unlike Sims-Schouten et al. (2007) the use of an ethnographic
methodology in the reported research enabled a range of data to be
collected for analysis together in a naturalistic context (the
classroom). This allows direct links to be made between interaction
between children and the wider contexts these interactions took place
in. Ethnography encompasses a number of methods such as interviews and
observation to study people in their natural settings. A key aim of an
ethnographic approach is for the researcher to be immersed in the
“symbolic world in which people live” with a view to understanding
“the meanings people apply to their own experiences” (Fielding, 1993,
p. 157). In line with an ethnographic methodology the first author
worked as a voluntary classroom assistant for approximately six weeks
on art projects held in the following classes in two Staffordshire
primary schools - Reception (4 – 5 year-olds), Year 1 (5 - 6
year-olds), Year 4 ( 8 – 9 year-olds) and Year 6 ( 10 -11 year-olds).
During the art project each class received one art lesson a week which
ran in the afternoon session. To summarise a total 8 teachers (with an
average class size of 28 children) participated in this research, 18
hours were spent observing each age group and a total of 72 hours was
spent in the classroom during this project.
.
When working as a classroom assistant the first author helped teachers
set up and tidy away art materials and sometimes played an active role
in the art lesson by helping children who had queries and talking to
children about their artwork. This enabled the first author to immerse
themselves in the classroom context and write a reflexive field diary
based on her experiences and observations. In addition to this, video
and audio equipment were used to record the last art lesson of the
project and photographs were taken of all the artwork created during
the recorded lesson. Collection of visual data was particularly
important as it allowed the analysis to move beyond talk and text and
explore the extra -discursive context which shaped the children’s
interaction and the child’s artwork.
Analytic approach
The following analysis uses a case study approach which brings
together a Discursive Psychology (DP) analysis and ethnographic
commentary. Each case study first presents data collected during the
ethnographic phase of the research to provide background information
about the art activity and a photograph of the finished piece of
artwork. DP is then used to analyse interaction which occurred between
children which shaped the creation of the artwork. DP is an analytic
approach which lends itself to the focus of the current paper because
it aims to explore how cognitive concepts such as memory are achieved
in social interaction (Edwards & Potter, 1992). Within DP language is
not seen as a window to the mind or a direct reflection of cognition.
The analyst works at the micro level of talk to examine the action
orientation of language – how language is used to achieve certain
functions such as blaming (Wooffitt, 2001). The case study then ends
with a summary of notes taken from the ethnographic phase of the
research and where relevant a photograph of the children working.
The combination of ethnographic commentary and DP allows a multi
dimensional analysis which attends to the micro level of talk, the
wider meso level of the art task (the ways in which the teacher’s
instructions shaped the focus of the interaction) and the
extra-discursive context. As such the following analysis moves beyond
the exclusive focus on the micro level of talk within DP and explores
the possible use ethnography has for researchers who adopt a critical
realist position.
Analysis
This analysis examines how artistic procedures and children’s ‘ideas’
are socially negotiated within a classroom context by presenting three
case studies. Please note that in the following extracts the child
responsible for creating the artwork included in the analysis is
labelled ‘child artist’. The other children involved in the
interaction (who are labelled using numbers) were working alongside
the ‘child artist’ creating their own artwork. Therefore, all the
children involved in the interaction would have created their own
piece of artwork during the lesson.
Case study one – Planning the creation of artwork - taken from a Year
1 class
The children of the class (5-6 years) had been instructed by the
teacher to select small squares of different materials and attempt to
paint the same image, using the same colours, on each of the
materials. Children were given the freedom to select which image they
wanted to paint. The interaction analysed in the extract below shaped
the creation of a piece of artwork entitled ‘my hamster lily’.

Figure 1: A Year 1 child’s painting of ‘my hamster lily’
1.
Child 1: You need grey.
2.
(6.05)
3.
Child 2: °Do you need grey?°
4.
(3.27)
5.
Child 1: Hamsters a:re grey are::n’t they?
6.
(0.98)
7.
Child artist: Yeah they’re black and grey
8.
(.44)
9.
Child 2: Bla:ck and ↑white
10.
(0.57)
11.
Child 1: I know they’re black and white aren’t they ↑? (0.5) Or
12.
you can get brow::n. (0.84) Black and ↑white
13.
(0.9)
14.
Child artist: Black and brow::n or black and white or black and=
15.
Child 2: = purple.
16.
(.05)
17.
Child artist: ↑N::o:::. Black and erm (0.32) then grey
This extract demonstrates how the simple act of planning which
colour(s) to use in a painting is a flexible, socially negotiated
process. Significantly, it is a child working at the table and not the
child artist who initiates discussion concerning colour choice. This
locates planning process for the artwork ‘outside’ of the child
artist. Child one’s assertion that ‘you need grey’ (line 1) places
them in a position of power. They tell the child artist which colour
they should utilise in their hamster painting. Child two’s question
‘do you need grey’ (line 3) challenges child one’s authority and
initiates considerable discussion. During consequent interaction two
children work with the artist to negotiate the colour of hamsters.
This presents the planning as a dynamic process in which requires the
combined efforts of three children.
In line 5 child one asks ‘hamsters are grey aren’t they’ to build
consensus around their suggestion that grey is the ‘correct’ colour.
The child artist’s reply of ‘yeah’ (line 7) reinforces child one’s
colour choice - jointly constructing hamsters as ‘grey’ animals.
Moreover, the artist’s suggestion that hamsters can be ‘black and
grey’ introduces a new concept as hamsters are re-conceptualised as
creatures thatwho are not monotone. This gives child two opportunity
to introduce another colour combination of ‘black and white’ (line 9).
Each turn of talk opens up new possibilities as colour choice is
defined and redefined. Planning is not a solitary process in which
individual ideas are transferred to the page. Instead, it is a dynamic
social process in which language is actively used to construct
different options that may or may not be represented in the child
artist’s painting.
It is important to note that during the negotiation of colour the
artist is at the centre of discussion. In line 12 child one directly
addresses the artist with their suggestions of ‘brown’ and ‘black and
white’. Significantly, in line 14 the child artist incorporates child
one’s proposals of ‘white’ and ‘brown’ into their initial suggestion
of ‘black’. This symbolises the joint construction and development of
ideas with the child artist teaming up child one’s suggestions with
their own initial colour choice. However, the child artist is cut
short in line 15 by child two’s unrealistic suggestion of ‘purple’.
This interjection is noteworthy; it departs from the focus on choosing
realistic colours and opens up the possibility of creating an
imaginary hamster. This attempt to move away from the creation of
‘real’ hamsters is quickly rejected by the artist with a defiant ‘no’
(line 17) before they list their final colour choice of ‘black and
then grey’. As such even though the artist was ultimately responsible
for which colours they used, colour choice was a product of social
negotiation.
Ethnographic comments: The impact of spatial relations on planning
artwork

Figure 2: Year 1 children creating artwork together
The inclusion of the still photograph above allows an examination of
the extra-discursive context and how the arrangement of classroom
space enabled social interaction. During the ethnographic phase of the
research it was observed that in preparation for art lessons the
physical space of the classroom was often changed. In classrooms that
usually had desks arranged in rows the teacher and the first author
would arrive early to push tables together. This movement allowed
small artistic communities to be formed as children gathered around
tables to create their work together. Chairs were often removed and
children were allowed to stand to give them more freedom of movement.
This was significant – it made painting a more vibrant, physical
activity and the classroom ceased to be quite as restrictive. This
created an informal atmosphere where children did not have to conform
to the usual classroom rules of sitting quietly in their seats and
getting on with their work.
However, the children gathered around the table in figure 2 are not
afforded much space to create their artwork. This close proximity
combined with freedom to stand and move around means that all artwork
can be seen clearly and commented upon or critiqued by other children
at the table. This situation was specific to art. In other lessons
such as English, children’s work can only be seen by those working
next to them - other children could not interject without being
invited. During art lessons children’s work and the processes involved
in creating artwork were public rather than private – teachers would
allow the children to walk around the classroom and look at the work
being created at other tables. Hence, the arrangement of tables in art
lessons enables the formation of artistic communities and the
collaborative production of art. This highlights links between the
discursive and extra-discursive context as the physical arrangement of
the classroom shapes and limits the ways in which children can
interact.
Case study two - Scaffolding the development of skills from the
position of teacher- taken from a Year 4 class
===============================================================
The children of the class (8-9 years) were using charcoals to sketch
objects associated with a journey they had been on. The teacher had
instructed the class to use techniques such as shading to give their
work a 3D effect. This extract shaped a sketch of a ‘nemo’ soft toy.

Figure 3: Year 4 child’s charcoal sketch of a ‘nemo’ soft toy
1.
Child artist: Erm:: (0.84) Excuse me I don’t mean to be rude child
2.
1 °bu° but how >do you do< the shadow?
3.
(0.96)
4.
Child 1: Shadow?
5.
(.044)
6.
Child artist: Shadow >shadow< ((urgency in voice))
7.
(0.78)
8.
Child 1: Erm:: (0.57) What you have to do (3.04) is (0.45) just
9.
draw that outline: (0.64) but jus: a bit smaller, so do it there.
I’ll do
10.
it< °what d’you want°
11.
(0.97)
12.
Child artist: Just make a mark (2.17) there.
13.
(3.54)
14.
Child 1: Jus:: that’s your shadow (0.34) Thats small(0.76) Cause
15.
°tha° thats quite small:: to there and you are gonna do the
16.
shadow even smaller.
17.
(0.77)
18.
Child artist: ↑Yeah.
This extract illustrates how observational drawing is not purely a
cognitive activity in which children create artwork that represents
their own unique perception of an object. In line one the child
artist’s request for help with ‘how’ to ‘shadow’ incorporates another
child into the artistic process. Following this, both children work
together to create a shadow effect. Child one starts this process
(line 8) by telling the artist what they ‘have to do’. This statement
asserts child one’s ‘expert’ position construing them as someone who
has the knowledge and skill to ‘shadow’ effectively. Therefore, a
power imbalance is created between the children – child one’s superior
knowledge gives them authority over the child artist. This position is
discursively maintained as child one gives clear, direct instructions
such as ‘draw that outline but just a bit smaller’ (line 9) to the
artist. Use of these instructions is noteworthy - it highlights that
the physical act of making marks on the page is socially negotiated.
The shadow on the artwork is not simply a reflection of the child
artist’s perceptual ability or skill in translating what they can see
onto paper. Instead, creating shadow is discursively managed as the
child artist is talked through the procedure. The child artist’s hand
movement is guided by language and therefore any marks made on the
page cannot be considered a direct reflection of their perpetual
ability or artistic skill. Instead, the child artist takes the
position of a student whose skills are being guided by a more capable
peer/teacher.
Significantly, in line 9 child one’s direction to ‘do it there’
symbolises a shift away from the drawing procedure to where the
outline should be placed on the page. Creation of shadow ceases to be
discursively managed as child one physically indicates where the
charcoal outline should be positioned. This extends beyond the
discursive negotiation of art demonstrated in the analysis so far.
Child one begins to take over creation of the actual artwork -
physically asserting their position as ‘expert’. Child one’s shift
from ‘instructor’ to ‘artist’ is evidenced in their assertion that
‘I’ll do it’ (line 9). Despite this declaration, child one also asks
‘what d’you want?’ (line 10) thereby incorporating the artist back
into the drawing activity. The artist’s response of ‘just make a mark’
(line 12) reclaims their physical control over the creation of the
artwork. It repositions child one as an instructor – someone who
guides the creation of shadow rather than drawing it themselves.
Consequently, child one’s efforts are directed away from making marks
on the artwork to keeping the child artist on the ‘right’ track with
verbal prompts such as ‘you are gonna do the shadow even smaller’
(lines 15/16). The way that shadow is first of all perceived and then
represented on the page is discursively constructed. The artwork
cannot be considered the ‘property’ of one child or indeed one artist.
Instead, it is the result of two children working together to
discursively negotiate the correct procedure for drawing shadows and
physically negotiating the marks made on the page. Therefore the
origins and production of art is collaborative in every sense from the
scaffolding of skills to making the marks evident on the page.
Ethnographic comments – The importance of contextualising fragments of
talk
This kind of interaction was by no means isolated. It was often
observed that children sitting together on a table established an
‘artist’ amongst them who they would regularly approach for help. Help
might take the form of receiving specific advice about how to complete
a small aspect of artwork to the ‘artist’ drawing the section the
child had a problem with. In some cases children even created
production lines with each child taking responsibility for their
chosen element. Artwork was rarely the creation of just one child it
was always a collaborative activity negotiated within artistic
communities through both interaction and physically making marks on
the work of other children. Consequently, the co-creation of art
through social interaction and physical intervention could not be
addressed using DP alone. A strength of ethnography is it allows close
examination of both discursive and extra-discursive ‘realities’.
Case study 3: The joint perception and creation of colour within an
artistic community -Taken from a Year Six art class
The children of the class (10 - 11 years) were working on designing
and making a papier-mâché mask that represented an emotion or a
character from their imagination. The discussion below centres on the
creation of the base colour required for the ‘sea queen’ mask.

Figure 4: A Year 6 child’s ‘sea queen’ mask
1.
Child 1: I’ve got some dark blue.
2.
(2.66)
3.
Child artist: >Do you like this::< (0.79) Do you like this ↑blue?
4.
(2.7)
5.
Child 2: What colour is that, white and?
6.
(1.32)
7.
Child artist: White and blue
8.
(1.11)
9.
Child 3: Wow that’s nice
10.
(3.78)
11.
Child 1: Do you need that sort of blue or not (0.6) or is that
too:::
12.
(1.13)
13.
Child 2: That’s:: a bit strong int it?
14.
(0.65)
15.
Child 1: I’ve put a bit of white in now
16.
(0.8)
17.
Child artist: Yeah (3.25) that’s: nice. (0.57) I like it
This extract illustrates how this artistic community works
collaboratively to perceive and create the ‘right’ shade of blue
required for a mask. In line 3 the child artist asks if the other
children ‘like’ the blue colour she has mixed. This statement
incorporates the rest of the group into the process of deciding the
suitability of colour. Colour is not construed as an objective
concept. Instead, the perception and understanding of colour is
something that is negotiated within the group. This is evidenced in
line 5 where child two’s response of ‘what colour is that…’ diverts
the interaction towards reaching a joint consensus regarding
perception of the colour. Child two’s suggestion that the colour is
‘white and’ (line 5) re-conceptualises the colour as being white and
not blue as the artist first suggested. The uncompleted sentence
invites the child artist to clarify their conception of the colour by
finishing their statement. In response to this the child artist
changes their conceptualisation of the mixture construing it as ‘white
and blue’ (line 7) – a colour which embodies both children’s
‘perception’ of the colour. Therefore, colour perception is not simply
a cognitive process in which light frequencies received by the retina
are decoded by the brain - it can be negotiated in social
interactions. The same colour is construed as ‘blue’, ‘white and’ and
‘white and blue’ - it is a point of contention and not an objective
concept that can be viewed in only one way.
When negotiating the colour this community follows democratic,
collaborative processes were all comments were equally valued. In line
9 child three joins the interaction and directs joint attention
towards the ‘nice’ colour created by child one. This marks the start
of a discussion centring on whether the colour will achieve the
‘right’ effect rather than how it is perceived. In line 11 child one
initiates discussion on his blue colour by working to establish if it
is the ‘sort of blue’ that the child artist ‘needs’. To achieve this
child one utilises an incomplete sentence – echoing a linguistic
strategy used by child two in line 5. By asking if the colour is ‘too’
without specifying what it has too much of, child one leaves this open
for discussion. Significantly, it is child two and not the child
artist who construes the blue colour offered by child one as ‘a bit
strong’ (line 13). Consequently, child one lightens their blue colour
by adding a ‘bit of white’ (line 15). Colour is first jointly
constructed through discourse and then physically altered with the
addition of white paint. This highlights the link between language and
the creation of material objects.
It is important to note that the child artist’s only involvement in
the colour mixing process is their approval in line 17 - ‘yeah that’s
nice I like it.’ Thus, the child artist had no involvement in creating
the colour used to paint the mask. Instead, a colour initially created
by child one was modified through interaction with child two.
Ethnographic comments – The provision of art materials and their role
in shaping art

Figure 5: Year 6 children creating masks together
This photograph illustrates how the arrangement of classroom space and
provision of art materials facilitates the discussion. Here the
children are gathered around a table in which paints and mixing
palettes are placed in the centre. The children did not have
unlimited, exclusive access to all the paints and mixing space that
they required. Paint selection and mixing took place in the centre of
the table and involved sharing the paints and negotiating who would
have access to the palette space. This meant that painting and mixing
paints became a social activity. Joint attention and activity
converged at the paints and mixing palette as children co-operated to
share out the resources and negotiate who could have what when. The
provision of limited art resources enabled social interaction but
constrained what could be said and created. Discussion was limited to
the colours provided and what could be done with them. Thus social
interaction was tied to the ‘material world’.
Discussion
This analysis has clearly illustrated that creating artwork in a
classroom context is not an abstract, individual activity. Close
attention to classroom interaction has demonstrated that the artistic
process is a collaborative endeavour which is discursively managed.
Therefore, the artwork examined in the analysis cannot be considered
to be the work of one child or a direct reflection of their ‘inner
world’. This raises important questions for the dominant view within
developmental psychology that art is a purely cognitive activity in
which the child’s individual ideas flow onto the page. Each stage of
the artistic process from planning (case study one) and making marks
on the page (case study two) through to colour mixing and perception
(case study three) were socially negotiated within small artistic
communities. The artwork created was not an embodiment of a single
child’s unique ideas or vision nor was it a direct reflection of their
intrinsic skill as an artist. Instead, creating art was a flexible,
dynamic and socially negotiated process. The presentation of art in
this analysis further builds upon Cox’s (2005) argument that the way
that children configure their drawings is not simply developmentally
determined - it is a purposeful activity. In line with this argument
research in the area of child art would benefit from a move towards
the creation of artwork and the functions artwork serve for the
children who create it. An advantage of using DP is that it gives
insight into how ‘cognitive processes’ are formulated in talk and
provides an opportunity to investigate the artist process from the
child’s perspective. However, the inclusion of ethnographic notes and
photographs point to limitations of an exclusive focus on interaction
when analysing the creation of children’s artwork.
This analysis evidenced two of the material constraints on discourse
outlined by Parker (1992) - organisation of space and physical
coercion. Each of these material constraints played an important role
in shaping the interactions between children and the artwork being
created. Analysis of the photographs in case studies one and three
demonstrated how the organisation of classroom space enabled and
constrained the creation of artwork. On the one hand, the classroom
arrangement facilitated the creation of artistic communities and
encouraged interaction between the children; making the activity more
social and collaborative. However, the provision of limited art
materials and paint, as illustrated in case study three, constrained
the kinds of colours that could be mixed and the material objects that
could be talked about and used. The physical arrangement of the
classroom had a powerful influence on the art that was created in the
lesson. The teacher was able to use the organisation of space and the
provision of materials and tools to actively shape the kinds of art
created by the children. Case study two evidenced physical coercion
and the orientation of a child to the position of teacher. Here,
physical intervention was introduced to encourage the child artist to
follow verbal instructions and consequently, the creation of art was
shaped through an interaction between discursive and extra-discursive
levels.
In summary, this analysis has demonstrated how the interactions
between children were bound to the material world in which they were
produced. Furthermore, language shaped the creation of material
objects – pieces of artwork. The interplay between the discursive and
extra-discursive contexts puts forward an argument for researchers
using a social constructionist framework to explicate “intimate links
between discursive and material aspects of our existence” (Yardley,
1996 p. 501). Wetherell (1998) draws upon the work of Laclau and
Mouffe (1987) and the example of building a brick wall to further
explore this point. Building a wall can be an activity that is
discursively managed by interactions such as ‘pass me the brick’ and
also involves the physical act of placing bricks on top of each other
to form the wall – a material object. A different set of discourses is
then assigned to the material object of a wall, for example it would
be construed as a barrier or conceptualised as part of a house. This
interweaving of discursive and extra-discursive contexts suggests that
further work is needed to develop a systematic methodology for
researchers who wish to adopt a critical realist approach.
The case study approach presented in this analysis points towards the
usefulness of ethnography for researchers wishing to incorporate the
extra-discursive contexts in their analysis. An ethnographic
methodology enables a range of data to be collected simultaneously in
a naturalistic context; this allows the analysis to contextualise
social interaction in the extra-discursive contexts in which it
occurred. As such the role of the extra discursive context can be
evidenced and possible links between the discursive and extra
discursive contexts can be explored in the analysis itself.
Furthermore, the researcher’s immersion in the context they are
studying lends itself more to the kind of multi- level analysis that
Sims-Schouten et al. (2007) have argued is needed for a critical
realist analysis. The analysis presented here was taken from a much
larger project in which the English National Curriculum for Art was
analysed using a Foucauldian inspired analysis to examine the dominant
discourses and subject positions available to teachers (XXX, XXX &
XXX, 2008)1; interviews were used to explore the ways in which their
teaching practices were shaped by the curriculum (XXX, XXX & XXX,
2007); classroom observation was used to examine the teaching of art
(XXX, XXX & XXX 2011a) and a combination of classroom data and
interview data was used to investigate the ways in which teachers
decide what is good and bad art (XXX, XXX, XXX, 2011b). Therefore, the
range of data collection methods associated with ethnography gives
researchers the opportunity to explore the micro context of immediate
social interaction, the macro context in relation to the discourses
working to enable and constrain interaction and the extra discursive
contexts. This opens up the possibility for a more systematic analysis
of the interactions between these contextual layers.
References
Baker-Sennett, J., Matusov, E., and Rogoff, B. (1992) Sociocultural
rocesses of creative planning in children’s playcrafting. Chapter in
P. Light, and G. Butterworth. (Eds). Context and Cognition Ways of
Learning and Knowing. Harvester Wheatsheaf: Hertfordshire.
Coates, E., and Coates, A. (2006). Young children talking and drawing.
International Journal of Early Years Education. Vol 14 (3) 221-241.
Cox, M. (1993). Children’s drawings of the human figure. Hove:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Cox, S. (2005). Intention and meaning in young children’s drawing.
International Journal of Art and Design Education 24 (2). 115-125.
==================================================================
Edwards, D. (1997). Discourse and cognition. London/Beverly Hill, CA:
Sage.
Edwards, D., and Potter, J. (1992). Discursive psychology. London:
Sage.
Edwards, D., and Middleton, D.J. (1986). Joint remembering:
Constructing an account of shared experience through conversational
discourse. Discourse Processes, 9 (4), 423-459.
Fielding, N. (1993). Ethnography. Chapter in Gilbert, N Researching
social life. London: Sage.
Fox, G., and Thomas, G. (1990). Children’s drawings of
anxiety-eliciting topic: effect on the size of the drawing. British
Journal of Clinical Psychology 29 71-81.
Hallam, J., Das Gupta, M., and Lee, H. (2008). An exploration of
primary school teachers’ understanding of art and the place of art in
the primary school curriculum. Curriculum Journal, 19(4), pp. 269-281.
Hallam, J., Das Gupta, M., and Lee, H. (2011a): Shaping children's
artwork in English primary classes: insights from teacher–child
interaction during art activities. International Journal of Early
Years Education, DOI:10.1080/09669760.2011.629489
Hallam, J., Lee, H., and Das Gupta, M. (2007) An analysis of the
presentation of art in the British primary school curriculum and its
implications for teaching. International Journal of Art and Design
Education 26.2 pp. 206 – 214.
Harris, D. (1963). Children’s drawings as measures of intellectual
maturity. New York: Harcourt Brace. Cited in Cox, M. (1992) Children’s
drawings. Hamondsworth: Penguin Books.
Koppitz, E. (1968). Psychological evaluation of children’s human
figure drawing. London: Grune and Stratton. Cited in Cox, M. (1992).
Children’s drawings. London: Penguin.
Koppitz, E. (1984). Psychological evaluation of human figure drawings
by middle school pupils. London: Gune & Stratton. Cited in Cox, M.
(1992). Children’s Drawings. London: Penguin.
Laclau, E., and, Mouffe, C. (1987). Post-Marxism without apologies.
New Left Review 166: 79-106. Cited in Wetherell, M. (1998).
Positioning and interpretative repertoires: Conversation analysis and
post-structuralism in dialogue. Discourse and Society. Vol. 9(3) pp
387-412.
Machover, K. (1949). Personality projection in the drawings of the
human figure. Springfield: C C Thomas. Cited in Cox, M. (1992).
Children’s drawings. London: Penguin.
Martin, J., and Sugarman, J. (1999). The psychology of human
possibility and constraint. Albany: State University of New York
Press.
Matthews, J. (1999). Drawing and painting: Children and visual
representation, 2nd Edn. London: Paul Chapman.
==============================================================
Matthews, J. (2003). The art of childhood and adolescence. The
construction of meaning. London: Routledge Falmer.
Middleton, D. and Edwards, D., (1990). Collective remembering. Sage:
London.
Nightingale, D., and Cromby, J. (1999). Social constructionist
psychology a critical analysis of theory and practice. Open University
Press: Buckingham.
Parker, I. (1992). Discourse dynamics: Critical analysis for social
and individual psychology. London: Routledge.
Potter, J. (2000). Post-cognitive psychology. Theory and Psychology.
Vol. 10 (1) 31-37.
Sechrest, L. and Wallace, M. (1964). Figure drawings and naturally
occurring events and elimination of the expansive euphoria hypothesis.
Journal of Educational Psychology 53 42-4. Cited in Cox, M. (1992).
Children’s drawings. Hamondsworth: Penguin Books.
Silver, R. (1978). Developing cognitive and creative skills through
art. Baltimore: University Park Press.
Silver, R. (1988). Draw a story. New York: Ablin Press.
Silver, R. (1993). Draw a story (revised edition). New York: Ablin
Press.
Sims-Schouten, W. Riley, S. and Willig, C. (2007). Critical realism in
discourse analysis. A presentation of a systematic method of analysis
using young women’s talk of motherhood, child care and female
employment as an example. Theory and Psychology vol. 17 no. 1 101-124
Stetsenko, A. and Arievitch, I. (2004). The self in
cultural-historical activity theory. Reclaiming the unity of social
and individual dimensions of human development. Theory and Psychology.
Vol 14 (4) 475-503.
Stokoe, E., and Hepburn. A. (2005). ‘You can hear a lot through the
walls’; Noise formulations in neighbour complaints. Discourse and
Society 16: 647-73.
Stoppard, J. (1998). Dis ordering depression in women: Toward
materialist discursive account. Theory and Psychology. 8, 79-99.
Thomas, G., Chaigne, E,. and Fox, T. (1989). Children’s drawings of
topics differing in significance: Effects on size of drawing, British
Journal of Developmental Psychology. 7 321-331.
Thompson, C. (2000). Drawing together: Peer influence in
preschool-kindergarten art classes. Visual Arts Research. Vol 25 (2)
pp61-68.
Wetherell, M. (1998). Positioning and interpretative repertoires:
Conversation analysis and Post-structuralism in dialogue. Discourse
and Society. Vol 9(3). Pp 387-412.
Wiggins, S. and Potter, J. (2003). Attitudes and evaluative practices:
Category vs. item and subjective vs. objective constructions in
everyday food assessments. British Journal of Social Psychology, 42:
513–531.
Willig, C. (2001). Introducing qualitative research in psychology:
Adventures in theory and method. Buckingham/Philadelphia, PA: Open
University Press.
Wilson, A. (1993). Children’s drawings more than just pretty pictures?
Top Santre Health and Beauty. September 36-39. Cited in Catte, M., and
Cox, M. (1999). Emotional indicators in children’s drawings. European
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 8, 86-91.
Wooffitt, R. (2001). A socially organised basis for displays of
cognition: Procedural orientation to evidential turns in
psychic-sitter interaction. British Journal of Social Psychology. 40,
pp545-563.
Yardley, L. (1996). Reconciling discursive and material perspectives
on health and illness. A reconstruction of The biopsychosocial
approach. Theory and Psychology. 6, 485-508.
1 Names have been omitted here for blind review.