Globalization makes living in the world more complex. Many children live as social cyborgs attached to the digital spaces of the virtual play worlds of television, video and computer games rather than connected to their own local places. The impact of this change may well be that children lack acquaintance with their local places and may never…

Though people may like different types of music, everyone likes music. In middle school, music and art are of key importance for students to express and define what kind of person they are. In this article, the author presents an art project where students are asked to create their own guitars. (Contains 1 resource and 3 online resources.)

This study examined developmental changes in children's ability to understand the emotions expressed in other children's drawings. Eighty participants, at each of four age groups--three, four, five and six years--were presented with a series of child drawings, each expressing a different emotion (happiness, sadness, anger or fear). All drawings…

Research has shown that the study of children's drawings can shed light on certain problems, allowing many invisible sides of children's school life to emerge. Based on the results of that research, this article will study whether the use of drawings, and art in general, could lead to the reduction of social and academic marginalization and to the…

"I'm trying the least of anything to control this drawing ... in fact I want it to run away with me." says Billy, a fifth grader who reads at 13th grade level. He clears his throat and begins to sketch and his stories flood the page. This qualitative research paper looks at what free sketchbook drawing does for a group of boys ages 8-14 who…

This article describes an integrated art and early literacy project entitled, Picture Partners". The main purpose of the project was to explore how young children create and express meaning through art. Children's responses, both written and spoken, were included because accompanying modes of expression expand the nature and content of their…

In this article, the author presents an activity she introduced to her first-grade art students. The activity, called Rootin' Tootin' Cowpokes, was built on a theme while encouraging students to express themselves through various art media. Each student began by creating his or her own wanted poster, choosing an alter ego with a nickname, and the…

This paper underlies the importance of the museum and the international scientific partnership for the promotion and valorisation of regional cultural heritage, as a condition for developing greater awareness of civilizational framework of cultural inheritance at the global level. The goal of the action research that was carried out in parallel in…

This article describes a study with first grade children and their views on the primary school curriculum, as well as their influence on decision-making in school. The study was conducted with 20 six- and seven-year-old children in one primary school in Reykjavik, Iceland. The data gathered includes varied research methods such as group…

It is important to find the means by which struggling writers can find success in the English Language Arts. For students struggling with reading and writing, the visual arts may be a way of accessing and expressing their ideas and ultimately opening up a world of creative possibilities. This article explores drawing and painting as a pre-writing…

This paper describes methodology, data analysis, and initial results of a research study with the long-term goal of establishing contemporary normative data on drawings from children living in the United States. The pool of participants was composed of 316 fourth graders (mean age 9.69 years) and 151 second graders (mean age 7.56 years) who each…

Young children are most attracted to classroom centers that offer the lively social interaction of play, stimulating construction activities, or animated computer programs. Efforts to create an attractive art center with abundant shelves of markers, crayons, various kinds of paper, and assorted materials attract a few children who want to…

Many people have seen "The Kiss" (1907-08), an iconic artwork by Austrian Symbolist Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), but know little about its background. Since its creation, the sensual subject matter and lush golden patterns have been this culture's example of romantic love. The painting exemplifies Klimt's brand of Art Nouveau. Acceptance often eluded…

This paper utilises a Vygotskian framework to examine the ways in which teachers shape the creation of children's artwork in educational contexts. Reflexive ethnography and a bottom up approach to discourse analysis are used to analyse a range of qualitative data including photographs, observational notes and audio recordings collected from a Year…

This paper explores a number of examples of what appeared to be recurring symbolic expressions of spirituality found in my recent research into the spiritual experiences of children in Victorian State primary schools. These expressions appeared in drawings and in conversation. In this paper I use hermeneutic phenomenology and a multidisciplinary…