Releasing the socio-imagination: children's voices on creativity,capability and mental well-being

With increasing concerns in the UK about the positive mental well-being and flourishing of children, this research, using drama and creative writing with primary school teachers, children and a theatre company, looks at the links between creative processes and children's well-being. This pedagogy applies a capability approach and we use this lens to examine children's critical reflections on the project. Interview data highlight the link between agency, social imagination and subjective well-being. The study offers some concrete examples of the ways in which creative processes can move beyond an outcome-based understanding of the curriculum by offering a legitimate space for children to explore their values and develop competencies which are crucial for well-being in the 21st century.     

Focus in creative learning: drawing on art for language development

This article asks what happens to the learning of young children when they work regularly with a professional visual artist in their school. Through Creative Partnerships, a national programme initiated in 2002 to bring creative professionals into schools across England, some school children have had the opportunity for sustained project work with artists. Examined here is the context in which children (ages 4, 5, 6 and 7) worked one day a week during the academic year of 2003–2004 with Roy Smith, resident artist in Hythe Community School. Key to the children's drawing, painting and talking was close focused attention on details of three‐dimensional objects, portraits, still‐life works and their own creations. Smith's conversations with the children routinely included three and four‐syllable technical terms, biographical details of artists' lives and comparative critiques. Within several months, the art of the children reflected understanding of concepts such as foregrounding, and they showed confidence in working with problems Smith set up for them (“What do you think would happen if …?”). Particularly important here is the combination of manual and linguistic work that demands attention to detail, receptive understanding of complex terms and processes, and familiarity with the analytical and sequential thinking needed to identify and solve problems.     

Observing young children's creative thinking: engagement,involvement and persistence

This paper looks at young children's creative thinking as inferred through observations of their activities. A total of 52 episodes of child-initiated and adult-initiated activities in 3- to 4-year-olds in an English Children's Centre were analysed using the Analysing Children's Creative Thinking (ACCT) Framework. Results showed that activities such as gardening and construction were as valuable for supporting creative thinking as ones traditionally associated with creativity, for example, music and painting. Outdoor play of all kinds and socio-dramatic play were particularly effective contexts. All adults played a significant role in facilitating children's initial engagement in activities, and at supporting their speculative thinking and use of prior knowledge. Teachers were often more successful than other adults in supporting the acquisition of new knowledge. Child-initiated activities featured the highest levels of involvement, and were associated with trying out and analysing ideas, flexibility and originality, imagining and hypothesising. This was particularly evident in group or pair play. Children were also more persistent in child-initiated activities. Evidence of risk-taking behaviour was low, although more apparent in child-initiated activities than adult-initiated activities, or activities in which adults were present.     

Understanding Young Children's Three‐Dimensional Creative Potential in Art Making

This article explores aspects of young children's three‐dimensional development in art making. Understanding young children's three‐dimensional awareness and development is often a neglected area of early childhood educators' education and practice and often children's creative potential is not fully realised. The present article is based on a small scale qualitative study which focused on understanding 5–6 year‐olds' representational intentions in three‐dimensional artworks, understanding of visual/design concepts and expressive use of media (scrap paper and mod roc). The findings of the study suggest that young children are able to create satisfying three‐dimensional representations giving emphasis on forms, uprightness, balance, movement and modeling of multiple sides.     

Primary special school teachers' knowledge and beliefs about supporting learning in numeracy

This paper presents findings from a qualitative study of a group of 12 teachers in primary special schools in Scotland for children with moderate learning difficulties. It sets out an analysis of classroom observations and interviews that explored teachers' knowledge and beliefs about teaching and learning in mathematics with children with moderate learning difficulties. The teachers were interviewed pre‐ and post‐intervention; this was a research‐based professional development programme in children's mathematical thinking (Cognitively Guided Instruction) which teachers then developed in their classrooms. The findings showed that prior to the professional development, the teachers had a limited knowledge of children's mathematical development with teaching frequently informed by intuitive beliefs and dated and sometimes discredited practices. Most teachers had low expectations of children with learning difficulties. Post‐intervention, the teachers reviewed this stance and affirmed that a deeper understanding of children's mathematical thinking provided a more secure knowledge base for instruction. They also recognised the extent to which learners were constrained by existing classroom practices. The paper argues for the commonality of this knowledge base and considers the problematic nature of viewing such knowledge as sector specific.     

Intention and Meaning in Young Children's Drawing

In this article I present some ideas, based on qualitative research into young children's drawing, related to the developing discourse on young children's thinking and meaning making. I question the relationship between perception and conception and the nature of representation, challenging traditional ideas around stage theory and shifting the focus from the drawings themselves to the process of drawing, and thus to the children's own purposes. I analyse examples of my observations (made in naturalistic settings within a nursery classroom) to reveal the range of representational purposes and meaning in children's drawing activity. My analysis shows that, rather than being developmentally determined, the way children configure their drawings is purposeful; children can recognise the power of drawing to represent, and that they themselves can be in control of this. I explore aspects of the process, including transformation and talk to show the importance of understanding drawing in its specific contexts. I show how children's drawing activity is illuminated by the way in which it occurs and the other activities linked to it, presenting drawing as part of children's broader, intentional, meaning‐making activity. As an aspect of the interactive, communicative practices through which children's thinking develops, representation is a constructive, self‐directed, intentional process of thinking in action, through which children bring shape and order to their experience, rather than a developing ability to make visual reference to objects in the world. I suggest that in playing with the process, children are actively defining reality rather than passively reflecting a given reality.     

Children with autism and picture books: extending the reading experiences of autistic learners of primary age

Autistic learners master visual and spatial abilities; they use visual language to organise, understand and give meaning to the world. Although they might struggle with verbal skills, they have an associative way of thinking. Taking into consideration the characteristics of seven autistic pupils, the aim of this paper was to identify the potential of picture books in relation to autistic readers in order to explain why picture books can be supportive tools for improving verbal and social communication skills. The findings, based on a qualitative case study and a reader response framework, show that picture books help children with autism develop social and communication skills as well as foster imagination. Their written outcomes clearly showed children's need to tell stories.     

Applying MacKinnon's 4Ps to foster creative thinking and creative behaviours in kindergarten children

The purpose of this study was to identify certain strategies and conditions that should be used by teachers in kindergarten so as to foster creative thinking and creative behaviours to children. We used a quasi-experimental research design for 6 months in a public kindergarten in a suburban area of Greece, and we developed a creative music and movement programme. The programme was based on the 4Ps of MacKinnon (press, product, process and personality). The experimental group participated in the creative programme 2–3 times a week, while the control group participated in the unstructured free-play setting. A total of 16 interventions were applied of 45–60 min each. The intervention was conducted by an external teacher, specialised in music and movement education, who was also the observer of the intervention. Double evaluation was applied in both groups, before and after the intervention, and the results were compared based on MacKinnon's approach. The results of the study showed that following MacKinnon's approach during the design of an educational programme could foster children's creativity.     

Sophia's funds of knowledge: theoretical and pedagogical insights,possibilities and dilemmas

Children's interests and thinking emanate from their daily lived experiences in their families, communities and cultures. This paper substantiates the view that the construct of ‘funds of knowledge’, understood through the lens of ‘cultural repertoires of practice’, provides an analytical tool for early years teachers to interpret their observations of, and conversations with, young children. The paper reports findings from a qualitative case study in early childhood settings of children's interests and thinking. The methods included participant observation, interviews with teachers and children and gathering of pedagogical documentation. This paper specifically draws on and problematises the funds of knowledge and related gendered thinking that a young Chinese girl revealed through her interests and practices. It argues that although the construct of funds of knowledge provides an authentic conceptual framework to guide and justify teachers' pedagogical decision-making, it should not be accepted uncritically. The concept may raise some issues for teachers' responses to children's thinking and relationships with diverse families. Teachers and researchers have future work to undertake to understand children's complex cultural knowledges and positionings in an increasingly globalised world.     

Essential skills for creative writing: Integrating multiple domain-specific perspectives

The aim of this work was to gather different perspectives on the “key ingredients” involved in creative writing by children – from experts of diverse disciplines, including teachers, linguists, psychologists, writers and art educators. Ultimately, we sought in the experts’ convergence or divergence insights on the relative importance of the relevant factors that may aid writing instruction, particularly for young children. We present a study using an expert knowledge elicitation method in which representatives from five domains of expertise pertaining to writing rated 28 factors (i.e., individual skills and attributes) covering six areas (general knowledge and cognition, creative cognition, conation, executive functioning, linguistic and psychomotor skills), according to their importance for creative writing. A Many-Facets Rasch Measurement (MFRM) model permitted us to quantify the relative importance of these writing factors across domain-specific expertise, while controlling for expert severity and other systematic evaluation biases. The identified similarities and domain-specific differences in the expert views offer a new basis for understanding the conceptual gaps between the scientific literature on creative writing, the writer's self-reflection on the act of writing creatively, and educators’ practices in teaching creative writing. Bridging such diverse approaches–that are, yet, relatively homogeneous within areas of expertise – appears to be useful in view of formulating process-oriented writing pedagogy that may, above all, better target the skills needed to improve children's creative writing development.     

Translating Facts Into Knowledge

Many education systems have a tendency to be limiting and rigid. These systems teach children to value facts over knowledge and routine and repetition over playfulness and curiosity to seek knowledge. How can we unleash our children's imagination and permit them to use play and other creative tools as a means of learning? This article proposes new ways to tackle this old problem.     

Primary pupils' creative writing: enacting identities in a Community of Writers

This paper focuses on a Community of Writers creative writing project where 25 primary school pupils from lower socio‐economic backgrounds took part in creative writing workshops over a 2‐week period at a higher education institution. Using practitioner enquiry and discourse analysis, this paper views identity as participation in ‘figured worlds’ and highlights the relationship between the children's creative writing outputs and their shifting identities (Holland et al., 1998 ). A case is made that children's authentic creative writing can be nurtured by a community that promotes intertextuality and ‘hybridity’ (Bakhtin, 1981 ) as well as balancing pedagogical ‘structure’ and ‘freedom’ (Davies et al., 2012 ) in order to provide textual space for writers to enact different identities. At a time when the global figuring power of performativity (Ball, 2003 ) actively restricts the ways in which teachers and children interact, this paper also presents an informed argument for the value of school–university research partnerships.     

Fit between future thinking and future orientation on creative imagination

The purpose of the current study is to investigate the impact of future thinking, and the fit between future thinking and future orientation on creative thinking. In Study 1, 83 undergraduates were randomly assigned to three groups: 50-year future thinking, 5-year future thinking, and the present-day thinking. First, the priming tasks, in which participants were asked to imagine their lives 50 years from now, 5 years from now and in the present day according to the condition respectively, were conducted. Subsequently, theirs’ performances of the Creative Imagery Task were examined. The results revealed that the 50-year future thinking group performed better than the 5-year future thinking and the present-day thinking groups in originality and beyond reality. The only difference observed between the 5-year future thinking and the present-day thinking groups was in practicality. In Study 2, after taking a future orientation subscale developed by Zimbardo and Boyd (1999), 77 undergraduates were randomly assigned to the three future thinking groups as those in Study 1. Their performances in the Creative Imagery Task were then examined. The results showed that the participants in the present-day thinking group with low future orientation and the participants in the 50-year future thinking group with high future orientation had better performance in creative imagination in originality and beyond reality. In conclusion, increasing the temporal distance of future thinking facilitates creative thinking. Additionally, one's creative imagination can be improved when thinking timescales and future orientation are aligned.     

Creating contexts for talk: the influence of school-based creative arts projects on children's language

This article draws on data from two recent research studies of children's language and literacy development in the context of their work in school‐based creative arts projects. Using observations of children (ages 3 to 11) and teachers at work, the article examines the ways in which the activities in such projects open up opportunities for children to talk with each other and with adults by generating a ‘workshop’ atmosphere. Children's authentic and wide‐ranging talk in creative arts projects encompasses personal, social, imaginary and real‐world themes which, we argue, is rare in other curriculum contexts. As schools are encouraged to develop ‘creative partnerships’ with artists and arts organisations, the article highlights the role of the teacher in observing and promoting these experiences as occasions for children's language development.     

How children talk together to make meaning from texts: a dialogic perspective on reading comprehension strategies

This study considers reading comprehension as a dialogic transaction of making meaning from text. The concept of text and reading is taken to include the visual and multimodal as well as written forms. Case studies of children discussing texts are analysed to explore how children engage in inter‐mental and intra‐mental processes of reading, between themselves as readers and between themselves and the text. The findings show that children's use of language, which is open, hypothetical and questioning, enables different interpretations and priorities for discussion. The use of imagination and empathy, to enter the world of the text to understand it, trigger creative responses as the children make meaning together. More than merely promoting the teaching of comprehension skills to children, the paper demonstrates how meaningful and exciting responses can be promoted through children reading together and teachers encouraging creative dialogue.     

Teachers' Responses to Children's Eye Gaze

When asked questions, children often avert their gaze. Furthermore, the frequency of such gaze aversion (GA) is related to the difficulty of cognitive processing, suggesting that GA is a good indicator of children's thinking and comprehension. However, little is known about how teachers detect and interpret such gaze signals. In Study 1 teaching interactions were analysed to determine teachers' responses to different patterns of children's eye gaze. In Study 2 a different group of teachers completed a questionnaire assessing their awareness of GA in determining children's thinking, understanding, and interest. Results showed that teachers did not typically respond to children's GA in predicted ways and did not associate GA with children's thinking. However, when asked explicitly about GA cues they made predictions relating to question difficulty and children's thinking in line with empirical work. We conclude that while teachers have an implicit understanding of GA cues, they typically do not make full use of such cues during classroom teaching.     

Unserious but Serious Pilgrimages: What Educational Philosophy Can Learn about Fiction and Reality from Children's Artful Play

What happens if we think of children's play as a form of great art that we turn to and return to for inspiration, for education? If we can see play as art, then what and how can we learn from children's play or from playing with them? What can philosophy, or philosophers, learn from children's play? In this essay Viktor Johansson gives examples of what and when children can teach philosophers through play or, more specifically, how children's play can teach philosophers about the relation between fiction and reality. It begins by exploring the educational relation between fiction and reality in recent revivals of literary humanism. Johansson gives examples from a preschool project of how children use fiction picture books and create new fiction in their play, and how they do so in ways that relate to previous philosophical considerations of literary fiction. To explore this, the essay enters into conversation with the work of Iris Murdoch on the playfulness of art. Through, and in contrast to, Murdoch's work, Johansson establishes that play can be great art through its nonpurposefulness and its use of skill and imagination. Moreover, turning to children's play becomes a method for attending to what Ludwig Wittgenstein calls philosophy's “natural history,” that is, a historicization of philosophical thinking that enables philosophers to learn from children. Johansson concludes by showing that encounters between fiction and play, and with children playing, can be an educational embroilment, not only between teacher and child, but between teacher, child, the visual, the material, and the philosophical in which all learn from one another.     

Golden times of writing: the creative compliance of writing journals

This paper examines the history, rationale, uses and abuses of writing journals in primary classrooms. We argue that writing journals form part of a pedagogy derived from an understanding of how children can be motivated to express themselves, independently of teachers. Moreover, they demonstrate the power of welcoming children's home cultures into the classroom. However, we also wish to argue that the use of writing journals is part of the teaching profession's ‘creative compliance’ that can still contribute to the marginalisation of effective educational practice. We document how, in some schools in England, writing journals have been reduced to token gestures towards creativity and independence and in effect collude with and support what is increasingly becoming a pedagogical hegemony.     

Children's conceptions of color

An examination of children's notions about light and visual phenomena shows the existence of mental models, that is to say, ways of thinking that are consistent and pervasive. These naive conceptual schemes, used by different children to explain similar phenomena, determine the kinds of responses given by the children in problem-solving situations. In this article we study children's ideas about colored objects and colored shadows, with special attention to the ways in which these ideas are organized into mental models. The elucidation of these models provides valuable instructional tools that serve to assess and to confront students' naive conceptions. This work was carried out in a science museum at the site of interactive exhibits that show unexpected effects. Children who visited the museum were engaged in problem-solving situations that involved predictions, explanations, and manipulations of the exhibit.