Possibilities in Photographic Living Inquiry With Very Young Children

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 39
  In Roundtable Session: Moving Beyond Traditional Research Methodologies in Early Childhood

Abstract

Digital photography allows many photographs to be taken in early childhood settings, influencing teaching and learning of young children. Living inquiry with art making processes extends into children producing rather than consuming images and possibilities emerge for sharing perspectives of what is important to children. Two teachers and forty children aged one to five years used a digital camera to photograph something important to them in their early childhood center in Melbourne, Australia. The resulting 42 images were transferred to fabric and made into a quilt with the researcher. Understandings of children’s daily life and belonging emerged in this a/r/tographic practice and spaces for living inquiry and learning arose which emphasize the capacity of very young children.

Author

• Corinna Eva Peterken, Brigham Young University