Trowsdale, Jo (2019) Art-making as a site for education : a case study of the Imagineerium project. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

The arts, art-making and creativity are popularly regarded as having value and importance to society and education. Yet, even at their politically most valued they have occupied a marginalised space in English schooling. This thesis is not an argument for more arts as a discipline in the school curriculum, but for art-making as a practice and site for a broader conception of education. It argues that experiencing the practice and culture of art-making provides a fertile and dynamic site for enabling learning, which can integrate different disciplines and encouraged a positive self-view in learners. The thesis draws upon a particular case study, The Imagineerium project, in which children were commissioned alongside professional artists and engineers to imagine, design and make models for a kinetic performance vehicle as part of a public event their city centre. The thesis adopts a multiple, mixed-method approach to the case study, combining traditional methods of questionnaire and interview with ethnographic field notes and participatory methods engaging all participants.

Here the compound term ‘art-making’ refers to the practice of making work in either one or a combination of art forms. It connotes the dynamic and developmental nature of growth, creation, formation but also of construction which interweave with ideas of producing an output and effecting an outcome, here in symbolic forms. The thesis draws on: Dewey’s (1934) proposal of making in the arts as central to a conception of education as a democratic, creative and self-motivated process; Ingold’s (2013; 2017) emphasis on the sensed, embodied ways of knowing such experiences promote; and Lave and Wenger’s (1991) account of communities of practice. I argue for The Imagineerium project, as an emergent ‘community of practice’ where children experience, in an apprentice-like way, being ‘legitimate peripheral participants’ and are engaged in art-making as members of a community of practising imagineers (artists, designers and engineers), who collaborate in making.

The thesis shows the potential educational benefit of ‘art-making as a site’ of learning, of more closely reflecting real communities of art-making practice and of educating children collaboratively with members of such communities. Such benefits include a changed power dynamic, increasing children’s sense of agency and capability as well as proposing a potentially transdisciplinary curriculum model. The thesis further argues that educators need to promote and engage in educational experiences which foreground embodied learning, which is site-specific, and hence the spatial dynamic of such education.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR N Fine Arts > NX Arts in general
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Arts and children -- England -- Coventry, Art in education -- England -- Coventry, Art -- Study and teaching -- England -- Coventry, Public art -- England -- Coventry, Child development -- Great Britain
Official Date:	October 2019
Dates:	Date Event October 2019 UNSPECIFIED
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Sociology
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Lambert, Cath (Catherine Ruth), 1971- ; Uprichard, Emma
Format of File:	pdf
Extent:	337 leaves : colour illustrations
Language:	eng

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