Therapeutic art play: a space for artworking research in a toddler classroom

Abstract

This thesis reports on a study of a Therapeutic Art Play (TAP) program run in the toddler room of an Early Learning Centre (ELC). This room is designed to provide care and education for children aged between one and three years old. Therapeutic Art Play (TAP) is an original approach to using art therapy within early education that was designed by the researcher and shaped by the research. Grounded in new materialism, this study employs a distinctive research methodology developed specifically to explore how TAP fosters inclusive creative spaces to promote the concepts of being, becoming, and belonging, nominated by the Early Years Learning Framework as core characteristics of young children’s lives. Motivating this study is a recognition of the ongoing need for child focused and informed policies and frameworks in early childhood education, art therapy, and research. This research introduces a transformative, liminal space and proceeds to describe and analyse the introduction of art therapy practices for wellbeing into an ELC. The research design, informed by new materialist practices foregrounding multiple material and human agents, engages the researcher as participant. This acts to enable shared languages, empathic bonds, and to promote a celebration of children's capacities, experiences, and power. A new materialist perspective allowed the research to analyse the complex dynamics of artworking within the TAP space. Artworking is presented as an interconnected, creative, flowing process, that engages learning, change, and self-expression. The research outlines and implements a diffractive analysis approach, overtly recognizing the agency of all participants within the artworking assemblage. It thereby repositions children as active agents, to acknowledge their unique voices, knowledge, and agency. . The TAP program was found to foster diverse approaches of communication among participants. TAP encouraged the evolution of traditional classroom roles, shifting the focus from outcome-driven education to inclusive creative play, promoting creative, multi-faceted communication, understanding, and community building. Furthermore, flexible, relational methods, methodology, and applications of theory for research with children are illustrated, as are opportunities and practices for artworking with young children. Sensory experiences and relational spaces are explored, opening doors for more inclusive research approaches for valuing the perspectives of young children. These are experiences and spaces for the creativity of all participants, shifting from an adult-centred culture to one of attunement, deep noticing, and inclusive communication. The concluding chapter of the thesis offers discussion of the implications of this work for theory, practice, and policy pertaining to early education and the arts. The study concludes with a discussion of some ways forward for theory, practice, and research into questions about the facilitation of therapeutic art play to enhance ‘being’, ‘becoming’, and ‘belonging’ for children in early education.

Date of Award	2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Western Sydney University
Supervisor	Rachael Jacobs (Supervisor)