Children’s Visual Worlds: Participatory Photography as a Lens for Understanding Young Children’s Visual Arts Experiences
Date
Authors
Probine, Sarah
Supervisor
Item type
Journal Article
Degree name
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Walter de Gruyter GmbH
Abstract
This article explores how participatory photography can offer new ways of understanding children’s visual lives, interests, and meaning-making in early childhood education. It draws from a doctoral study that investigated children’s experiences of visual arts learning in three early childhood settings in Aotearoa New Zealand. While the broader project used a range of participatory and qualitative methods with teachers, children, and families, this article focuses specifically on the methods used with young children. Six participants and their families across the three ECE settings were invited to document their visual experiences at home using digital cameras, offering insights into what held significance in their visual and material worlds. The article shares the narratives of three children, four-year-old twins Ellie and Sydney, and four-year-old Finn, to illustrate how child-led visual storytelling can challenge adult-centric research norms and foreground children’s agency, creativity, and rights. Framed by an interpretivist, narrative orientation, it concludes by considering the ethical and methodological implications of positioning children as co-researchers and argues that participatory visual methods can meaningfully value children’s voices, identities, and lived experiences, contributing to debates on children’s rights (UNCROC Articles 12 and 31), visual literacy, and methodological justice in early childhood research.Description
Keywords
3901 Curriculum and pedagogy, visual knowledge creation and critique, participatory visual methods, early childhood education, visual arts, children’s agency, photography, narrative inquiry
Source
Video Journal of Education and Pedagogy, ISSN: 2364-4583 (Online), Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 1-28. doi: 10.1163/23644583-bja10073
Rights statement
Open access. CC-BY.