THE PAINTING CHILD. A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF AESTHETIC PROCESSES OF LEARNING IN RELATION TO DEWEY´S ART AS EXPERIENCE.

The aim of this study is to present a discourse analysis made on five-year-old children during art activities in a preschool in Sweden. The questions asked are: how does interaction take place between the children, or the child and the teacher, during art activities? And what does this tell us about the relationship to art in preschool? In Art as Experience John Dewey claims that art is separated from other experiences of life, but that it ought to be close to ordinary life-experiences. Today visual culture is important in society but not in school. This analysis shows that a socialisation into aesthetic codes as early as preschool and experience of art activities in the teacher education may make the separation between art and ordinary life smaller and the emphasize the importance of aesthetic learning.

Keywords: preschool, art activities, aesthetics, pragmatism, John Dewey, discourse analysis, teacher education, pedagogy