Postdevelopmental Approaches to Challenging Myths and Misconceptions in Early Childhood Art

This book examines the role that adults play in shaping children’s earliest experiences of art making and challenges common myths and misconceptions around early childhood art.

Written from apostdevelopmentalist position, it offers new approaches to teaching that foster children’s agency and participation with art. Drawing on the works of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Jacques Ranciére, Lauren Berlant and Elizabeth Grosz, the authors explore a range of theoretical perspectives, including childism/adultism, epistemic injustice, postdevelopmentalism, posthumanism, motherscholarship and new materialism to present an alternative vision of young children. The book includes chapters from academics and practitioners based in Canada, Finland, the UK and the US, and makes use of rich photographic documentations and vivid case studies of practice to illustrate different approaches and teaching of art in early childhood. By sharing artmaking experiences from different cultures and contexts the contributors reconceptualise the art studio as somewhere to reimagine the cultural identity of young learners.

Heather G. Kaplan is Assistant Professor of Art Education at the University of Texas El Paso, USA.
Christine Marmé Thompson is Professor Emeritx at Pennsylvania State University, USA.