Shaping children's artwork in English primary classes: insights from teacher–child interaction during art activities

This paper utilises a Vygotskian framework to examine the ways in which teachers shape the creation of children’s artwork in educational contexts. Reflexive ethnography and a bottom up approach to discourse analysis are used to analyse a range of qualitative data including photographs, observational notes and audio recordings collected from a Year 1 and a Year 4 art lesson held in English Primary schools. It is argued that the co-creation of art in the classroom is a dynamic and collaborative process which is negotiated between teachers and children in different ways. This argument is discussed in relation to the ways in which different teaching approaches shape and limit the creation of children’s artwork.