The Arts in Children's Lives: Context, Culture, and Curriculum

by Liora Bresler (Editor), C.M. Thompson (Editor)

Overview

Advocates for the arts have contributed significantly to the philosophy and practice of early and elementary education throughout its history. Yet the nature, value, and purpose of arts experiences in the lives of children seem to remain puzzling and problematic to those most directly involved in teaching the young.
Conversations between scholars and teacher educators in the arts and in education occur all too infrequently. Seventeen authors, whose work represents the best of contemporary research and theory on a constellation of issues concerning the role of the arts in children's lives and learning, address critical issues of development, context, and curriculum from perspectives informed by work with children in formal and informal settings. This anthology strives to reinvigorate dialogue on the role and significance of the arts in the education of children drawing on various cultural and institutional context and traditional and contemporary practices from different parts of the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780306475115
Publisher:	Springer-Verlag New York, LLC
Publication date:	05/08/2007
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

Table of Contents

Context Interlude.- Children’s Contextual Art Knowledge: Local Art and School Art Context Comparisons.- What’s to be Learned? Comments on Teaching Music in the World and Teaching World Music at Home.- Becoming Japanese: Manga, Childern’s Drawings, and the Construction of National Character.- The Musical Cultures of Children.- Playing the Music — Comparing Performance of Children’s Song and Dance in Traditional and Contemporary Namibian Education.- Development Interlude.- We Begin as Poets.- Constructing an Artistic Self: A Cultural Perspective.- Early Childhood Musical Development.- Drawing Together: Peer Influence in Preschool-Kindergarten Art Classes.- Fictional Worlds and the Real World in Early childhood Drama Education.- Curriculum Interlude.- What We Teach is Who We are: The Stories of Our Lives.- School Art as a Hybrid Genre: Institutional Contexts for Art Curriculum.- Early Childhood Literacy Education, Wakefulness, and the Arts.- Pleasure, Creativity, and the Carnivalesque in Children’s Video Production.- Music Technology and the Young Child.

Editorial Reviews

Researchers and practitioners in education and various arts explore the role and significance of the arts in the education of children from ages three through eight. The 15 studies offer balanced coverage of the cultural contexts of early arts experiences, how children's abilities to participate in particular art forms develop and evolve, and art experiences that are artistically authentic and developmentally appropriate. They include literature as one of the arts. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

From the reviews:

"This carefully crafted book is full of insights and destined to become a classic work on early childhood arts education. The fifteen chapters not only enrich our understanding of the role and value of childhood experiences in the arts, but provide a powerful conceptual framework for developing arts education in schools and communities. It is an impressive summary of current scholarship and knowledge on the arts in early childhood, and a book that one puts down refreshed, and with a renewed sense of wonder about the many ways in which the arts can profoundly influence the lives of young children."

(Gary E. McPherson, School of Music and Music Education, The University of New South Wales)

"This collection of thought-full and thought-provoking articles is a "must" in the library of all educators, and especially those with an interest in the contribution of arts experiences to the socio-cultural and artistic development of children."

(Joan Russell, PhD., Faculty of Education, McGill University)

"This book is about getting down to the ‘basics' -art, poetry, music, dance and drama- that which comprises the most potent source of young children's learning, and permeates our understanding of culture, development theory and curriculum. Now is the time to look beyond the emergent phases in literacy or numeracy, to how one can emerge with well-developed ‘different selves'. The potential for learning in this book is vast-whether scribbling with crayons or producing videos-not just for the very young, but also for the reflective adult as teacher, researcher, policy developer or parent. This cornucopia of the most brilliant authors in the field, beautifully shaped by powerful arts advocates, Bresler and Thompson, engages us in meaningful debate on the arts and demands that we consider where and how and when real learning takes place."

(Regina Murphy, National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, Ireland)

From the Publisher