Förskolebarns bildaktiviteter utmanar vuxenvärlden

Abstract

In this article, a child perspective is used to highlight children’s meaning making processes in art activities. Taking an ethnographical approach, data have been collected through participant observations, video-recordings and informal interviews. Children’s pictures were documented in different ways. Thirty-six children, four to six years of age, in two pre-school settings participated in the investigation. My analyses show that the meanings of art activities are different for children than for adults. Children appropriate pictorial genres available in society, but in their peer cultures they use them for their own purposes. Social aspects are very important for the children. Making pictures is a way to form alliances. The children’s art activities may be described as local pictorial cultures with shared opinions about which motifs are interesting to draw, which pictures are beautiful, etcetera. Aesthetical aspects are important to the children and they often prefer perfectly shaped pictures that look like media pictures or adults’ pictures to their own more “childish” drawings. To make such pictures they use a variety of strategies – they copy each others pictures, they use simple schemas and compositions and they use templates and painting books. The children’s ideals – both their collectivism and their taste – clash with the adult’s world, where originality and individuality are central values.