Date of Graduation

5-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Art Education (MA)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Art

Advisor/Mentor

Christopher M. Schulte

Committee Member

Angela M. LaPorte

Second Committee Member

Kathy J. Brown

Keywords

Children's Culture; Clay; Encounters; Intra-Active; Kindergarten; Materials

Abstract

This study aims to document and investigate kindergarten students’ cultural and social practices relative to the intra-active relationships they encounter when they engage in a tactile experience using clay. By considering emergent tactile experiences involved in kindergartener’s play-based art experiences, I call attention to nuances and intra-active moments embedded in children’s culture. More specifically, I argue that the art classroom is an ecological system in which young people and materials co-shape each other; a system that is essential to the formation of knowledge within an artmaking space. Employing an ethnographic approach, I situate myself as researcher, co-facilitator, and art educator in the rural school at which I am employed. At this location, I pay attention to kindergarteners’ intra-active encounters with earthenware clay to better understand the formation of their tactile experiences, emergent encounters, and play-based practices within an art-class environment. Data consisting of video recordings, photographs, and written vignettes are presented to portray kindergarten students’ distinctive cultural practices within the classroom space. The following questions are considered: How are intra-active relationships entangled in kindergarteners’ play practices? How do students use these intra-active relationships to create knowledge and social realities when engaged in a tactile experience?

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