Mary Wild | Oxford Brookes University (original) (raw)
Papers by Mary Wild
Australasian Journal of Early Childhood
Adults, including early childhood teachers and caregivers (i.e., parents, carers, kinship members... more Adults, including early childhood teachers and caregivers (i.e., parents, carers, kinship members), have an important role in supporting young children’s learning through play in early childhood. However, little consideration has been given to the relationship between these significant adults’ perspectives of play and the play experiences of young children. Various conceptualisations of play and play-based learning influence the decisions adults make about the provision of play in early childhood. This can make it difficult to support adults in their understandings of the need for play in young children’s lives. We propose that more needs to be known about what significant adults think play is. This new knowledge would enhance professional learning and parent education programs in the early childhood education and care sector for increasing children’s opportunities to learn through play.
Multimodality in Writing, 2015
Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 2016
Digital technologies have material and social properties that have the potential to create new op... more Digital technologies have material and social properties that have the potential to create new opportunities for children's expressive arts practices. The presence and development of oral narratives in young children's visual art-making on paper has been noted in previous research, but little is known about the narratives children create when they engage in digital art-making. How do young children construct narratives during digital art-making? How do the features of these narratives relate to the social and material properties of the digital resources they are using? How can looking at these narratives inform and enrich our understanding of children's art-making in general? Drawing on a social semiotic perspective, these questions are explored through an in-depth analysis of narrative in three examples of four- to five-year-olds' digital art-making. On the basis of the analysis, features of oral narrative in young children's digital art-making are suggested and...
Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 2015
Digital technologies have the potential to offer new opportunities for children's expressive arts... more Digital technologies have the potential to offer new opportunities for children's expressive arts practices. While adult expectations surround and shape children's visual art-making on paper in the early years classroom, such expectations are not so established in relation to digital art-making. So how do children make sense of digital art-making when it is newly introduced into the classroom and adult input is minimal? Drawing on a social semiotic ethnographic perspective, this paper explores this question by examining instances of 4-5 year olds' spoken dialogue around the computer during a week in which digital artmaking was first introduced into the classroom. Analysis focused on interactions where children proposed, reinforced or challenged conceptions of digital artmaking. These interactions demonstrated that children's digital art-making was negotiated and constructed through particular processes. Three such processes are presented here: the use of collective motifs and metaphors; attributing 'expert' status; and polarizing conflicts. Understanding these processes offers a starting point for thinking about how a new activity like digital art-making can be integrated into the early years classroom and supported by practitioners. Young children's collective constructions of digital art-making
When young children’s artwork is displayed in early years classrooms, it is often accompanied by ... more When young children’s artwork is displayed in early years classrooms, it is often accompanied by teachers’ writing. This writing occurs in different forms including captions, labels and display titles. The juxtaposition of children’s artwork and adults’ writing in early years classroom displays invites us to ask what uses the teachers’ writing has and how this relates to the early years education landscape more generally. The aim of the research presented in this chapter is to understand how teacher writing is used in the displays of young children’s artwork and to explore what this might suggest about the wider discourses and pressures in early years education. This was achieved by examining the display of young children’s artwork across three early years educational settings in the UK. For each site of display, observations were made about the presentation of writing and image, and interviews were conducted with teachers in the school regarding the decisions they make when display...
Museum and Society, Nov 21, 2018
This paper discusses insights derived from a small-scale ethnographic study designed to explore y... more This paper discusses insights derived from a small-scale ethnographic study designed to explore young children's (aged three to six) everyday, lived experiences within a participatory family museum in southern England. Inspired by the childcentred work of Kirk (2014) this paper begins by examining the effectiveness of photo-elicitation interviews in accessing 'snap-shots' of children's perspectives of their museum visits. In the current study this method is complemented by the use of chest-mounted GoPro cameras to provide a first person and more holistic perspective of children's museum visits. 12 children's visits were filmed in total. During three of these, children were also carrying child-friendly digital cameras. As this was part of a larger study the data collection was designed to compare the utility of GoPro technology being used in tandem with both photo and drawingelicitation. In response to these initial findings a photo-map of the museum was created to prompt discussion with the final six participants. Recruitment was purposive and there was no contact with the participants prior to them arriving at the museum. The video captured by the chest-mounted Go-Pro cameras is particularly illuminating when analyzed in the context of the post-visit interview data. Although the photo-elicitation and drawing-elicitation interviews do reveal some important details about the children's experiences and perspectives, the video footage highlights the difficulties with relying on these methods in an everyday museum setting. For example parental involvement in the children's photography is far more pervasive than might be expected, and the degree to which the camera affects the nature of the children's visits is notable. The video also reveals how easy it is to misinterpret children when relying solely on their recollections in an interview situation. This paper finishes with a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of using Go-Pro technology as a complementary tool in the exploration of young children's museum experiences.
The SAGE Handbook of Play and Learning in Early Childhood, 2014
Themes and Debates in Early Childhood, 2000
... In Birmingham, Judy Dance (1987) looked at the effect of'linkworkers' on the care o... more ... In Birmingham, Judy Dance (1987) looked at the effect of'linkworkers' on the care of Pakistani women who had already had one low-birthweight ... with one or more of three risk factors: single parenthood; poverty; and teenage parent status (Olds et al 1986; Hardy and Streett 1989 ...
International Journal of Art & Design Education, 2016
Digital art-making tends to foreground the inclusion of ready-made images in children's art. Whil... more Digital art-making tends to foreground the inclusion of ready-made images in children's art. While some lament children's use of such images, suggesting that they constrain creativity and expression (McLennan, 2007; Szyba, 1999), others have argued that ready-made digital materials offer children the opportunity to create innovative and potentially iconoclastic artefacts through processes of 'remix' (Lankshear & Knobel, 2006) and 'mash-up' (Lamb, 2007). In order to further this debate, observations are needed to explore the different ways that children use ready-made images in their digital art and the various purposes that these images can serve. Adopting a social semiotic perspective, this paper offers an in-depth examination of five episodes of 4-5 year olds' digital art-making that collectively demonstrate the diversity of approaches that young children take towards the inclusion of ready-made images in their digital art-making. The paper discusses these findings in relation to suggestions for what adults can do to support children to adopt a playful and critically aware approach to the use of ready-made images in digital art-making.
The SAGE Handbook of Play and Learning in Early Childhood, 2000
International Journal of Early Years Education, 2015
More? Great? Childcare?-A discourse analysis of two recent social policy documents relating to th... more More? Great? Childcare?-A discourse analysis of two recent social policy documents relating to the care and education of young children in England.
International Journal of Early Years Education, 2011
Journal of Research in Reading, 2009
The paper reports the results of a randomised control trial investigating the use of computer-aid... more The paper reports the results of a randomised control trial investigating the use of computer-aided instruction (CAI) for practising phonological awareness skills with beginning readers. Two intervention groups followed the same phonological awareness programme: one group undertook ...
Multimodality in Writing, 2015
Digital technologies have material and social properties that have the potential to create new op... more Digital technologies have material and social properties that have the potential to create new opportunities for children's expressive arts practices. The presence and development of oral narratives in young children's visual art-making on paper has been noted in previous research, but little is known about the narratives children create when they engage in digital art-making. How do young children construct narratives during digital art-making? How do the features of these narratives relate to the social and material properties of the digital resources they are using? How can looking at these narratives inform and enrich our understanding of children's art-making in general? Drawing on a social semiotic perspective, these questions are explored through an in-depth analysis of narrative in three examples of four- to five-year-olds' digital art-making. On the basis of the analysis, features of oral narrative in young children's digital art-making are suggested and these are linked to the potentially influential properties of digital resources. Being aware of these features and properties offers a starting point for thinking about what digital resources can offer in the context of young children's art-making. The findings also prompt us to be aware of the diverse potentials that exist in children's art-making practices regardless of the resources being used.
Digital technologies have the potential to offer new opportunities for children’s expressive arts... more Digital technologies have the potential to offer new opportunities for children’s expressive arts practices. While adult expectations surround and shape children’s visual art-making on paper in the early years classroom, such expectations are not so established in relation to digital art-making. So how do children make sense of digital art-making when it is newly introduced into the classroom and adult input is minimal? Drawing on a social semiotic ethnographic perspective, this paper explores this question by examining instances of 4-5 year olds’ spoken dialogue around the computer during a week in which digital art-making was first introduced into the classroom. Analysis focused on interactions where children proposed, reinforced or challenged conceptions of digital art-making. These interactions demonstrated that children’s digital art-making was negotiated and constructed through particular processes. Three such processes are presented here: the use of collective motifs and metaphors; attributing ‘expert’ status; and polarizing conflicts. Understanding these processes offers a starting point for thinking about how a new activity like digital art-making can be integrated into the early years classroom and supported by practitioners.
Australasian Journal of Early Childhood
Adults, including early childhood teachers and caregivers (i.e., parents, carers, kinship members... more Adults, including early childhood teachers and caregivers (i.e., parents, carers, kinship members), have an important role in supporting young children’s learning through play in early childhood. However, little consideration has been given to the relationship between these significant adults’ perspectives of play and the play experiences of young children. Various conceptualisations of play and play-based learning influence the decisions adults make about the provision of play in early childhood. This can make it difficult to support adults in their understandings of the need for play in young children’s lives. We propose that more needs to be known about what significant adults think play is. This new knowledge would enhance professional learning and parent education programs in the early childhood education and care sector for increasing children’s opportunities to learn through play.
Multimodality in Writing, 2015
Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 2016
Digital technologies have material and social properties that have the potential to create new op... more Digital technologies have material and social properties that have the potential to create new opportunities for children's expressive arts practices. The presence and development of oral narratives in young children's visual art-making on paper has been noted in previous research, but little is known about the narratives children create when they engage in digital art-making. How do young children construct narratives during digital art-making? How do the features of these narratives relate to the social and material properties of the digital resources they are using? How can looking at these narratives inform and enrich our understanding of children's art-making in general? Drawing on a social semiotic perspective, these questions are explored through an in-depth analysis of narrative in three examples of four- to five-year-olds' digital art-making. On the basis of the analysis, features of oral narrative in young children's digital art-making are suggested and...
Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 2015
Digital technologies have the potential to offer new opportunities for children's expressive arts... more Digital technologies have the potential to offer new opportunities for children's expressive arts practices. While adult expectations surround and shape children's visual art-making on paper in the early years classroom, such expectations are not so established in relation to digital art-making. So how do children make sense of digital art-making when it is newly introduced into the classroom and adult input is minimal? Drawing on a social semiotic ethnographic perspective, this paper explores this question by examining instances of 4-5 year olds' spoken dialogue around the computer during a week in which digital artmaking was first introduced into the classroom. Analysis focused on interactions where children proposed, reinforced or challenged conceptions of digital artmaking. These interactions demonstrated that children's digital art-making was negotiated and constructed through particular processes. Three such processes are presented here: the use of collective motifs and metaphors; attributing 'expert' status; and polarizing conflicts. Understanding these processes offers a starting point for thinking about how a new activity like digital art-making can be integrated into the early years classroom and supported by practitioners. Young children's collective constructions of digital art-making
When young children’s artwork is displayed in early years classrooms, it is often accompanied by ... more When young children’s artwork is displayed in early years classrooms, it is often accompanied by teachers’ writing. This writing occurs in different forms including captions, labels and display titles. The juxtaposition of children’s artwork and adults’ writing in early years classroom displays invites us to ask what uses the teachers’ writing has and how this relates to the early years education landscape more generally. The aim of the research presented in this chapter is to understand how teacher writing is used in the displays of young children’s artwork and to explore what this might suggest about the wider discourses and pressures in early years education. This was achieved by examining the display of young children’s artwork across three early years educational settings in the UK. For each site of display, observations were made about the presentation of writing and image, and interviews were conducted with teachers in the school regarding the decisions they make when display...
Museum and Society, Nov 21, 2018
This paper discusses insights derived from a small-scale ethnographic study designed to explore y... more This paper discusses insights derived from a small-scale ethnographic study designed to explore young children's (aged three to six) everyday, lived experiences within a participatory family museum in southern England. Inspired by the childcentred work of Kirk (2014) this paper begins by examining the effectiveness of photo-elicitation interviews in accessing 'snap-shots' of children's perspectives of their museum visits. In the current study this method is complemented by the use of chest-mounted GoPro cameras to provide a first person and more holistic perspective of children's museum visits. 12 children's visits were filmed in total. During three of these, children were also carrying child-friendly digital cameras. As this was part of a larger study the data collection was designed to compare the utility of GoPro technology being used in tandem with both photo and drawingelicitation. In response to these initial findings a photo-map of the museum was created to prompt discussion with the final six participants. Recruitment was purposive and there was no contact with the participants prior to them arriving at the museum. The video captured by the chest-mounted Go-Pro cameras is particularly illuminating when analyzed in the context of the post-visit interview data. Although the photo-elicitation and drawing-elicitation interviews do reveal some important details about the children's experiences and perspectives, the video footage highlights the difficulties with relying on these methods in an everyday museum setting. For example parental involvement in the children's photography is far more pervasive than might be expected, and the degree to which the camera affects the nature of the children's visits is notable. The video also reveals how easy it is to misinterpret children when relying solely on their recollections in an interview situation. This paper finishes with a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of using Go-Pro technology as a complementary tool in the exploration of young children's museum experiences.
The SAGE Handbook of Play and Learning in Early Childhood, 2014
Themes and Debates in Early Childhood, 2000
... In Birmingham, Judy Dance (1987) looked at the effect of'linkworkers' on the care o... more ... In Birmingham, Judy Dance (1987) looked at the effect of'linkworkers' on the care of Pakistani women who had already had one low-birthweight ... with one or more of three risk factors: single parenthood; poverty; and teenage parent status (Olds et al 1986; Hardy and Streett 1989 ...
International Journal of Art & Design Education, 2016
Digital art-making tends to foreground the inclusion of ready-made images in children's art. Whil... more Digital art-making tends to foreground the inclusion of ready-made images in children's art. While some lament children's use of such images, suggesting that they constrain creativity and expression (McLennan, 2007; Szyba, 1999), others have argued that ready-made digital materials offer children the opportunity to create innovative and potentially iconoclastic artefacts through processes of 'remix' (Lankshear & Knobel, 2006) and 'mash-up' (Lamb, 2007). In order to further this debate, observations are needed to explore the different ways that children use ready-made images in their digital art and the various purposes that these images can serve. Adopting a social semiotic perspective, this paper offers an in-depth examination of five episodes of 4-5 year olds' digital art-making that collectively demonstrate the diversity of approaches that young children take towards the inclusion of ready-made images in their digital art-making. The paper discusses these findings in relation to suggestions for what adults can do to support children to adopt a playful and critically aware approach to the use of ready-made images in digital art-making.
The SAGE Handbook of Play and Learning in Early Childhood, 2000
International Journal of Early Years Education, 2015
More? Great? Childcare?-A discourse analysis of two recent social policy documents relating to th... more More? Great? Childcare?-A discourse analysis of two recent social policy documents relating to the care and education of young children in England.
International Journal of Early Years Education, 2011
Journal of Research in Reading, 2009
The paper reports the results of a randomised control trial investigating the use of computer-aid... more The paper reports the results of a randomised control trial investigating the use of computer-aided instruction (CAI) for practising phonological awareness skills with beginning readers. Two intervention groups followed the same phonological awareness programme: one group undertook ...
Multimodality in Writing, 2015
Digital technologies have material and social properties that have the potential to create new op... more Digital technologies have material and social properties that have the potential to create new opportunities for children's expressive arts practices. The presence and development of oral narratives in young children's visual art-making on paper has been noted in previous research, but little is known about the narratives children create when they engage in digital art-making. How do young children construct narratives during digital art-making? How do the features of these narratives relate to the social and material properties of the digital resources they are using? How can looking at these narratives inform and enrich our understanding of children's art-making in general? Drawing on a social semiotic perspective, these questions are explored through an in-depth analysis of narrative in three examples of four- to five-year-olds' digital art-making. On the basis of the analysis, features of oral narrative in young children's digital art-making are suggested and these are linked to the potentially influential properties of digital resources. Being aware of these features and properties offers a starting point for thinking about what digital resources can offer in the context of young children's art-making. The findings also prompt us to be aware of the diverse potentials that exist in children's art-making practices regardless of the resources being used.
Digital technologies have the potential to offer new opportunities for children’s expressive arts... more Digital technologies have the potential to offer new opportunities for children’s expressive arts practices. While adult expectations surround and shape children’s visual art-making on paper in the early years classroom, such expectations are not so established in relation to digital art-making. So how do children make sense of digital art-making when it is newly introduced into the classroom and adult input is minimal? Drawing on a social semiotic ethnographic perspective, this paper explores this question by examining instances of 4-5 year olds’ spoken dialogue around the computer during a week in which digital art-making was first introduced into the classroom. Analysis focused on interactions where children proposed, reinforced or challenged conceptions of digital art-making. These interactions demonstrated that children’s digital art-making was negotiated and constructed through particular processes. Three such processes are presented here: the use of collective motifs and metaphors; attributing ‘expert’ status; and polarizing conflicts. Understanding these processes offers a starting point for thinking about how a new activity like digital art-making can be integrated into the early years classroom and supported by practitioners.