The process of learning to become through handmade productions to sufficient respond to the complexities of the Self is unlikely to occur without guidance from relation with others. The main purpose of this paper is to inquire into teachers’ support to small children’s aesthetic learning processes. How may children’s aesthetic learning processes emerge and support the children’s becoming through questions to and from the children? The article highlights the small children’s approach to science by managing aesthetic material, colour and form and the teachers’ approach to good questioning. The methodology is inspired by deconstructive pragmatism and the design from action research. The methodology is further grounded in Charles Sanders Peirce’s triadic transdisciplinary pragmatic theory of semiotics where the interpretant relation between the child and the teacher is on focus. Understanding that Peirce semiotics, science of signs differs from two-valued logic and thus very well may incorporate feeling and aesthetics.  It was necessary to reconstruct the theories of Peirce for an actual appliance to the area of Aesthetic Learning processes. Mediation of the theme, to connect sign - action and mind builds on a hermeneutic model of mediation made by the author where sign features of icon, index, symbols and logical, social and emotional action codes are a few important tools of analysis.  The result from step one in this research shows that teachers’ questions are made to meet children’s different processes of orientation to sign-mindedness, from differentiation of Self from others as fundamental to more advanced, socially- shared sign meaning. This connects to the importance to relate to children as ‘educater’ in relation to the teacher and a link to relational education. The teachers’ were overwhelmed by the children’s knowledge and were stimulated to progress themselves in questioning. The result from step two shows that teachers’ questioning (to support children’s constructions of meanings to become) may be reachable at different levels of hermeneutic understanding. This support the teachers’ questioning quality of wholeness. This scientific understanding from a semiotic-cognitive perspective on children’s meaning emergence and teachers’ supported questioning and conversation could have consequences for the field of aesthetic learning processes in pre-school in the future.

The process of learning to become and adequately respond to the complexities of the Self through handmade productions is unlikely to occur without guidance. The support of this article’s idea is the ‘language turn’ of education from the 70s. It also seems important that students learn about art-action in an image-based global culture, including how images are important forms of human expression and substance in becoming. Thus teachers need to know how they give instructions to stimulate thinking through students’ languages of arts (style). Educational sciences of today support this idea where a Peircean mode of education gives support to a wide concept of the text including semiotic resources other than the verbal language. Researchers thus proclaim a horizontal concept of the text for the same purpose of giving equal epistemological status to verbal and semiotic sign-action. For the purpose of stimulating humans’ becoming, I argue for a pragmatic semiotic perspective and that language and visual action do not only include the linguistic and the figurative picture but also the material used, a wide and horizontal view on communication to cooperation. The students show unique ways of art in action, including means to become unique. MyAesthetic Learning processes in identity work -Love of the self and wanting to become unique.My method to find out about mediation of different themes to connect sign -action and mind builds on a hermeneutic model of mediation made by the author; it is a semio-cognitive re-construction of the sign. The result shows features to the students’ different processes of orientation to sign-mindedness and style through which meanings are accessible to becoming. Another result is that the zone of proximal comm unication between students and students’ pictures/texture and teachers makes a difference to the student’s ultimate unique becoming. The result could be of great importance to school aesthetics in the future.

Today visual culture is important in society but not in school. This article outlines some features of guidance in the authorities about how to support children’s aesthetic learning processes in relation to meaning construction and becoming. The purpose is to highlight the aesthetic learning processes from a semiotic approach to the field of knowledge in terms of how well the aesthetic learning processes are formulated in state support and policy documents. The methodology presents a pragmatic discourse analysis made on Government bills in Sweden. The question asked is: How do Government texts support the aesthetic language of education including integrative aesthetic hermeneutic skills? Educational function of qualification, segregated, extended and integrative modes of education, as well as likeness (iconic), relation (indexical) and conventional (symbolic) features of learning are important semiotic resources used as analytical tools in this study. The result shows that aesthetic learning processes and concepts related to it are phasing out. The conclusion is that it is of great importance to challenge a hermeneutic paradigm in support of teachers’ aesthetic education. Socialization into aesthetic self sign and experience of art activity as a language of education is lacking and thus qualification is not taken seriously.

This article reports reflections on a study addressing the role of a handmade picture in understanding pre-school children’s ideas about their future school context. How is it possible to handle communication by pictures dealt with in the framework of a general theory of signs to signify inquiry? The underlying aim of the study and related report are to deepen educational insights into drawing as communication, co-operation and discovery with meaning. This purpose will contribute to adeeper understanding of the role of picture breakdown and a semiotic modal-specific qualifyingconversation within integrative pedagogy. Interviews, picture explication as well as the children’s and teachers’ commentsare my empirical resources.The result features the children’s style and orientation to sign-mindedness, the pictures’ composition, and children’s discovery of the objectwith meaning and at the end a considered "figure of thought" from reconstruction the sign with a semio-cognitive potential.

The background of this article is that the educational sciences of today give priority to a wide concept of the text and researchers in Sweden proclaim a horizontal concept of the text for the same purpose of giving equal epistemological status to verbal and semiotic sign-action. Today’s ‘language turn’ and ‘visual turn’ do not only include the linguistic and the figurative picture but also the materials and its texture. The idea of this study is to inquire how small children use aesthetic materials for action and meaning and what teachers do and think about this. The meaning potential is the tension between the image’s character levels, the child’s lifeworld and the teachers’ subject-specific discourse with the child. The main purpose is to learn about how the zone of proximal communication between children and children’s pictures and teachers might become more stable. Therefore I find the meaning potential of interest to a pragmatic inquiry. The design is inspired from action research. The result features the children’s orientation to sign-mindedness from the ages of one to five as well as the teachers’ reflections on their own progress in meeting young children’s action regarding material to give them support in learning and development.

Bakgrunden till föreliggande paper återfinns i utvecklingen av vårt samhälle som en ytlighetskultur där yta och inbillad skönhet ersatt intellektualitet, kunskaper och djup. Media kan påverka ungdomars identitetsbildning i en sådan riktning och bör enligt forskningen tas på allvar. Till detta ska tilläggas att lärarutbildning och skola, inte minst det nya förslaget till lärarutbildning, tycks försumma bildens roll som ämnesspecifik och ämnesintegrativ resurs, en vidgad syn på text och horisontell mediering. Studien tar sin utgångspunkt i kritisk diskursanalytisk teori där system och livsvärld respektive segregerad, utvidgad och integrativ syn på språk, text och didaktik utgör några analytiska redskap. Hur forskning stöder behovet av bilden som ett språkligt verktyg och semiotisk resurs för intellektuell, medveten och meningsskapande utveckling är fokus i problembelysningen. Syftet med föreliggande undersökning är att samla och reanalysera samhällets styrning när det gäller bilden som fysisk och intellektuell resurs i lärande och meningsskapande. Studiens empiri utgörs av SOU 2008:109, En hållbar lärarutbildning, betänkande av utredningen om en ny lärarutbildning (HUT 07); SOU 1992:94, Skola för bildning huvudbetänkande och SOU 1999:63, Att lära och leda - en lärarutbildning för samverkan och utveckling, slutbetänkande.

Resultatet visar hur skilda diskurser råder och hur undervisning för meningsskapande genom bilden, ja även övriga estetiska ämnen, helt försummas i En hållbar lärarutbildning (SOU 2008:109) från att den i SOU 1999: 63 fokuserade estetiska kunskapens möjligheter efterfrågats, tankar som även följdes upp i den efterföljande regeringspropositionen (1999/2000: 135), En förnyad lärarutbildning. De estetiska ämnenas möjliga hantering för lärande diskuteras avslutningsvis i ett framtidsorienterat pedagogiskt sociosemiotisk perspektiv. Statlig styrning, som gör det möjligt för läraren att möta och stötta elevens estetiska läroprocesser bättre, efterfrågas.

What makes an aesthetic practice communicative? A wide view of language as opposed to a narrow view of verbal language is the focus of this presentation. Pictures are significant as signs, communicating how a person refers to and thinks about the world. Generally we do not count the hand-drawn picture (chirographic) as a statement. The informants in this study are students at an art school. They are mentally retarded and have a minor intellectual dysfunction. A theoretical framework called the "educational socio-semiotic perspective" (Ahlner & Malmström 1998) forms the basis of the present analysis. The world is recognised and interpreted by means of signs; signs allow us to speak of, refer to and think about how we think. The present research demonstrates with the aid of observations, interviews and picture analysis how a unique aesthetic practice can usefully employ participation and acknowledgement to enable the members to develop presence of mind and artistic uniqueness. The matrix of an extended social picture ground developed by the author has clear benefits, particularly with regard to the explication processes of aesthetic learning and meaning construction.

The intention of this paper is to reflect upon the relevance of Semiotics to Pedagogy and make a didactical application to the relations between the triad communicator – production – tutor. A wide view of language as opposed to a narrow view of verbal language on pedestal is of focus. Pictures are significant as signs, communicating how a person refers to and thinks about the world. Generally we do not count the hand-drawn picture or a sculpture as an argument. The informants are students at an art school, Unikum. They are mentally challenged and have a minor intellectual dysfunction. A theoretical educational socio-semiotic framework (Ahlner Malmström 1998) forms the basis of present research; the world is recognised and coded by means of signs. Signs allow, according to the American pragmatic philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839 – 1914), people to speak of, refer to and think about how they think.

The present research demonstrates with observations, interviews and art productions how a unique aesthetic practice usefully creates participation and acknowledgement to enable the members develop presence of mind and artistic uniqueness.  A matrix of an extended social sign ground developed by the author, has benefits with regard to the explication processes of aesthetic learning and meaning construction. Everyday work in an aesthetic practice allows tutoring and answering questions as: What room outside the picture is a production a picture of?  What is the graphic style of the subject?  What code is known or is to be learned? What knowledge and codes does the subject initiate? What is unique in a piece of art that makes the subject´s authenticity comes to mind? It is the author’s conclusion that this aesthetic practice proposes a context that opens up for nuances in knowledge about what constructional aesthetic work can be to subject construction.

Key words: educational semiotics, authentic communication, learning, sign, aesthetic reflection, meaning construction.