COMPREHENDING PRESCHOOL CHILDREN’S ART ACTIVITIES AS COLLABORATIVE ENGAGEMENTS

The end of the 20th century brought new scientific perspectives on the subject of childhood and the broader field of this interest is named childhood studies. Childhood studies, and especially sociology of childhood as a specific field of sociology, affected research in education theory and practice by stressing the need of reconceptualization of the image of the child. This new image depicts a child as a competent participant in the construction of meanings and knowledge. In this paper, we investigate what implications childhood studies have on preschool art education research and how it reflects on recent reconsiderations of children’ art activities. We apply theoretical analysis in the research to sum up and present relevant new ideas in this field. Results show that changes in understanding roles and relationships between adults and children brought important changes for theory and practice of preschool art education. Understanding that children’s art activities should not be understood as manifestations of the internal developmental processes but as culturally conditioned and socially influenced practice, imply that art activities in preschool art education should not be conceptualized as strictly self-expressive and individual experiences but as participatory, investigative and collaborative art engagements.