Drawing instruction in Ghanaian high school art education traditionally emphasizes observational and technical skills grounded in realism. However, contemporary drawing has evolved to prioritize innovative techniques, conceptual thinking, and process-oriented approaches. This phenomenological study aimed to understand Bolgatanga high school…

This article focuses on the drawing practice of Andrew, a 4-year-old boy whose work the author encountered as part of a 12-month ethnographic study of children's drawing in a university-affiliated preschool classroom. The author approaches Andrew's drawing as more-than-human, as a mesh of materials, meanings, properties, and processes in which…

The standard educational gesture--in defense of its perceived secondary status relative to the "real world"--is to embed everything within its purview, such that even conceiving education as an art becomes a pedagogic imperative. In Anji County, China, we find an early childhood program (Anji Play) that uncouples play from this hierarchy…

In the current climate of state-mandated education standards and assessment that prioritize math and language arts in U.S. schools, drawing, an accessible and/or pleasurable endeavor for a wide variety of children, is undervalued. Although research in art education over the past four decades has shown children's drawing and drawings to be rich…

Reflecting on two events documented in early childhood art classes as representative narratives of the possible, I present a case for the adoption of a childhood studies perspective in contemporary art education research and teaching. Moving beyond outmoded and unreliable developmental understandings, and becoming aware of the influence of…

Author Howard Gardner offers his reflections on his book, "Artful Scribbles" which he wrote in 1980 and ponders the ways "Artful Scribble" if written today, might resemble or differ from the 1980 model.

This article examines the context and content of 15 drawings created in the early 1990s by Guatemalan children who survived government-led systemic violence against their Maya Tz'utujil community. Titled "Children in Crisis," all 15 drawings collected by Albert Hurwitz depict similar stories of loss and violence. Considering the…

Narrative is a necessary element in our lives; we use the tools, techniques, and characteristics of narrative to organize and understand the happenings of life. Artmaking operates within a larger process of knowledge creation. I investigated how preschool children construct knowledge through narrative; I then examined the knowledge constructed as…

The author of this article creates a semblance between Deleuze and Guattari's conception of a politics of desire and the four realities, as outlined by Brent and Marjorie Wilson. By making this theoretical move, the author advances the idea that children's drawing unfolds from one moment to the next through the assemblages of desire that are most…

In this article, I consider the changing landscape of art education and explore potential directions for the field to situate itself within the spaces of early childhood education. I position that current understandings of child art and its use in both research and practice in the early childhood classroom are limited by a lack of connection to…

Invoking Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's configuration of minor literature, the author of this case study theorizes the drawing practice of a young boy (Carter) as a process of becoming-minor. Critical to this theorization is the creation and activation of a semblance between Brent and Marjorie Wilson's (1977) treatment of the…

In order to co-construct a better understanding of the nature of children's art experiences at home and in educational settings, I interacted with four young children who photographed and discussed their art experiences over the course of one year. As a result of these research processes, and considering John Dewey's (1934/2005) "Art as…

In this article, two art teacher trainers explore the possibility of saddling critical pedagogy with queer theory in order to question the art curriculum's potential for critiquing personal relationships. As a preadolescent boy, one author initiated his own sex education curriculum with his middle school peers by creating "secret nude…

Historical inquiry in art education forms the basis of any research undertaken in the field. It is on this path that we discover ignored moments and personalities and clarify challenging ideas, thus approaching history from multiple perspectives. This historical study attempts to reframe the past of colonial Indian art education within the broader…

Reconceptualizing the relationship between a child/subject and the adult/researcher is necessary in order to begin unraveling the possibilities entangled in children's learning practices, particularly those articulated by/through children's drawing performances. This article seeks to expand upon the complexities of researcher/subject…