How do families with young children (2-4 years old) make meaning in a museum

1 How families with young children (2-4 years old) make meaning in a museum? Abigail Hackett Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy School of Education, University of Sheffield, June 2014 Abstract This thesis presents an ethnographic study of the meaning making of a group of parents and young children (aged 2-4 years) visiting museums over the course of a year Specifically, this study looks at the practice of family groups, making repeated visits to one of two local museums The researcher accompanied the families as a participant observer, usually accompanied by her own daughter of the same age Fieldnotes, and hand held video camera footage were the primary means by which data was collected Multimodality was employed as a lens, alongside ethnography, to make sense of the verbal and non-verbal modes of meaning making of the children and parents during the museum visits The emerging findings of this research stress the importance of non-verbal modes and of embodied meaning making of the children in the museums, and the tacit, situated knowing this generated In particular, this thesis foregrounds the children’s running, walking, dancing and other means of moving through the museum as a previously under researched aspect of young children’s meaning making In addition, this thesis stresses the importance of time in the families’ meaning making Over the course of the year, the museum became a familiar place to the families, who developed specific traditions or repeated situated practices, which they carried out on each subsequent visit This thesis draws on theories of space and time to make sense of these processes These findings add to a body of work on young children’s communicative practices, firstly by emphasising moving through as an important component of these practices, and secondly, by providing an example of how the meaning of these practices is situated in time and space Acknowledgements I would like to thank my family and friends, particularly Oliver, Isla and Nancy for supporting my studies over the last four years I am also grateful to my supervisor Professor Kate Pahl, for her ongoing enthusiasm, support and the insights she brought to this research I am indebted to the parents and children who gave up their time over many months to participate in this study Thank you so much for sharing your perspectives, experiences and ways of knowing with me This study would not have been possible without you Contents Chapter 1: Introduction 13 Coming to the field: moving from museums to research 13 The evolution of the research question .16 The research question: How families with young children make meaning in a museum? 18 Defining meaning making .22 The emergence of knowledge in this research 24 Research sites and research participants 28 Description of the research sites 28 The participant families 29 Structure of the thesis 31 Section 44 Chapter 2: Literature Review 44 Theories of communication as a social practice 47 Interpreting Vygotsky 47 Families’ learning in museums: the museums studies literature 49 Ethnographic studies of communication, literacy as a social practice 51 Multimodal theories of communication 55 Using and adapting Vygotsky’s concepts .58 Multimodal ethnography: working across two fields 61 Communication, cognition and children’s competencies 66 Sensory and affective aspects of communication 66 Children’s competencies within communication and learning .68 The spatial turn: space and movement in lived experience 70 Walking as place making 70 Social production of space 71 Space and place within childhood studies .73 Space, place and literacy practices 74 Conclusion 75 Chapter 3: Methodology 77 An ethnographic approach to knowing: defining ethnography 79 The story of my research 82 Starting my fieldwork story: the pilot 82 The story of the families at Park museum and the main research .84 The story of how the families at House museum came to be involved in the research 85 Making records of the field 88 Fieldnotes 88 FLIP video recordings 89 Parental interviews 91 Video interviews with the children 92 The ethics of my research 92 Voices and representation 94 Consent 95 Video and images 97 Collaboration and ownership 98 Leaving the field, and future avenues for research 99 Chapter 4: Presenting myself in the field, and collaborating with families 106 Introspective reflection: self and motherhood 107 Intersubjective reflection 109 Mutual Collaboration 113 Reflexivity and Social critique 116 Chapter 5: Analytic approach and process of analysis 123 Analytic approach .123 Experimenting with NVivo software 125 Analytic process 126 Being in the field and collaborating with parents 129 Cataloguing and transcription 129 Making choices about transcription .133 Desk-based data analysis 135 Tracing ‘fear’ as an example of an emerging theme in the data analysis .147 Planning my thesis 155 Presentation of data: fieldnotes, vignettes and multimodal transcription 155 Extracts from fieldnotes and interviews 155 Multimodal transcription .156 Vignettes .156 Section 158 Chapter 6: Zigging and Zooming all over the place: walking and movement as a communicative practice 158 Walk to discover: ‘scoping the joint’ 159 Family trails: envisaging and controlling families’ movement around the museum 166 Remembering the routes and leading the visit .169 Walking together: confidence to explore and power to make meaning 173 Walking to mark ownership 173 Walking and running as a communicative practice 175 The affordances of space as a medium for communication 176 Communication as an emotive and emplaced experience .177 Chapter 7: Communicative practices as socially situated, knowledge as embodied and emplaced 179 Drawing together: what I do, know what I know .182 Interrogating ‘the drawing posture’ through multimodal transcription 184 Embodied intersubjectivity in the museum .186 Marco the bear: a socially produced space for a developing friendship 188 Interrogating Marco the bear episodes through multimodal transcription 190 Social production of the space around Marco the bear 192 Chapter 8: Creating traditions: the temporal dimensions of the production of museum space 221 Repeated embodied actions in specific locations 223 The semiotic properties of dressing up clothes .227 Dancing in the art gallery as a group identity practice 234 Emerging social and spatial processes over time 239 The social production of the museum space 241 Dimensions of spatial history 243 Section 246 Chapter 9: Families’ meaning making in the museum, and the trialectic of human experience 246 Sociality .247 Time 250 Space 253 Conceptualisations of time, space and sociality in research, and the production of knowledge 255 Considering drawing from a child-centred perspective 258 Chapter 10: Discussion 262 What does this study contribute to our understandings of how young children communicate? And what and how they learn? .263 Communication .264 Learning 266 What are the implications of this study for adults? Both for museum and early years practitioners, and for parents? 268 How should young children’s learning be designed or anticipated for in a museum? 268 How should young children make visits to museums? 270 How should adults communicate with young children? .270 What are the methodological implications for this study, in terms of doing research with young children and their families? 272 Movement within methodology 273 Collaborating with parents within research 275 Changing ways of seeing .277 Conclusion 279 List of tables Table 1.1 Research questions from initial funding application p.17 Table 1.2 Breakdown of how words from the research study p.21 have been interpreted differently at different points in the research Table 1.3 Research participants p.35 Table 1.4 Who came on each visit? p.39 Table 1.5 Where did we go on each visit? p.40 Table 2.1 Tracing Vygotsky’s ideas in subsequent bodies of literature p.60 Table 2.2 The emerging field of multimodal ethnography p.65 Table 3.1 Timescale for fieldwork for this research project p.78 Table 3.2 Log of field visits and data collection June 2011 – Dec 2011 p.101 Table 3.3 Data set p.103 Table 3.4 Summary of the collaborative research projects I have p.104 carried out with families following the doctoral fieldwork Table 5.1 Timeline of data analysis activities during the research p.127 Table 5.2 Multimodal transcription p.130 Table 5.3 Walking maps p.132 Table 5.4 Deductive coding from the pilot data records p.135 Table 5.5 initial analytic framework: the imagined museum p.137 and the experienced museum Table 5.6 Categories identified in analysis of running p.143 and walking in the fieldnotes Table 5.7 Categories identified for parental accounts p.144 of running and learning in the interview transcripts Table 6.1 Examples of ‘scoping the joint’ behaviour p.161 on early visits to Park museum Table 6.2 Summary of the most and least popular p.168 locations in the museums Table 7.1 Summary of when the children drew in the art gallery at Park museum p.184 Table 7.2 Summary of which visits the children p.190 visited Marco the bear at House museum Table 7.3 Spatial categories the children create p.193 through their embodied movements around Marco the bear Table 7.4 Transcription of a portion of FLIP video p.196 101611f showing drawing at the art gallery at Park museum Table 7.5 Multimodal transcription of a portion of FLIP video p.206 140711 showing Anna and Izzy interacting with Marco the bear at House museum Table 8.1 The repetitions of embodied practices in the museum p.224 Table 8.2 The clothing that the children selected most frequently p.226 from the dressing up box in the octagon gallery at House museum Table 8.3 Summary of dressing up episodes at House museum p.231 Table 8.4 Summary of the embodied and verbalised meaning p.236 making the children took part in while dressing up Table 8.5 Summary of the episodes of dancing in the art gallery p.237 at Park Museum Table 8.6 Dimensions of spatial history at the museum p.244 Table 9.1 Key elements of time, space and sociality in my research lens p.254 Table 9.2 Revisiting drawing in the art gallery from a developmental p.261 perspective 10 List of figures Figure 1.1 Visual representation of Park Museum p.33 Figure 1.2 Visual representation of House museum p.34 Figure 1.3 Categories of propositional, procedural and p.26 experiential knowledge (Niedderer, 2007, p.6) Figure 4.1 Photo of Liam and Millie at the museum, p.115 taken by Susie, 13th October 2011 Figure 5.1 Walking map of Millie dancing in the art gallery p.132 Figure 5.2 The coding process on flip chart paper: p.143 example of the different categories and purposes of walking and running in the museum Emerging knowledge from this coding is discussed in chapter Figure 5.3 Example of the coding process on flip chart paper: p.144 parental interviews, thinking about how parents made sense of running in the museum Figure 7.1 The art gallery at Park Museum p.182 Figure 7.2 Still from FLIP camera video 16 th June 2011, p.183 Park museum Figure 7.3 Marco the bear at House museum p.188 Figure 7.4 Visual representation of the social production p.194 of space around Marco the bear 303 Stein, P (2003) The Olifantsvalei Fresh Stories Project: Multimodality, Creativity and Fixing in the Semiotic Chain In: C Jewitt and G Kress (eds) Multimodal Literacy New York, Peter Lang Publishing p.123-138 Street, B (1984) Literacy in Theory and Practice Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Street, B., Pahl K and Rowsell, J (2009) Multimodality and New Literacy Studies In: C Jewitt (ed.) 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Children in the Field Anthropological Experiences Philadelphia, Temple University Press p.91-120 Yamada-Rice, D (2010) Beyond words: An enquiry into children’s home visual communication practices Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 10 (3), 341-363 Young-Leslie, H (1998) The Anthropologist, the Mother and the Cross-cultured Child In: J Flinn et al (eds) Fieldwork and families: Constructing new models for ethnographic research Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press p.45-59 306 Appendices Appendix thesis Summary of FLIP video footage provided to accompany the Appendix List of all FLIP video data Appendix Incidences of Co-occurrence – Park Museum Appendix Incidences of Co-occurrence – House Museum Appendix Ethical approval letter Appendix Combined consent form and information sheet Appendix Sample of family trails sheet from House Museum Appendix 8: Summary of the participants in the study 307 Appendix 1: Summary of FLIP video footage provided to accompany the thesis 6.1 – Zigging and zooming all over the place, pilot visit 6.2 – Bryan’s fear in the natural history gallery, 16th June 6.3 – Bryan and Izzy bang drums and leave the arctic gallery, 13 th Oct 7.1 – Drawing posture, 16th June 7.2 – Marco the bear, 14th July 8.1 – Dressing up clothes 29th Sept 8.2 – Dancing in the art gallery, 16th June 308 Appendix 2: List of all FLIP video data The length of each piece of video footage is provided in minutes 16th June Park Museum 23rd June House Museum 14th July House Museum 20th June Park Museum 21st July Park Museum FLIP160611a – T tries to demonstrate S saying Bear FLIP 160611b – minute continuous L for walking map, Kumac’s story Also shows B marching up and down with the drum in a deliberate fashion Later, still holding the drum, he bangs while jumping up and down FLIP 160611c – S touching the polar bear – short clip FLIP 160611d – T teaches I names of fishes L tries to work out what the microscope does FLIP 160611e – 13 minutes B journey for transcription They go into What on Earth – a bit scary for B! B experiments with the interactive about sedimentation The end of this shows the dancing – worth finding a way to transcribe B learns from L how to start the Butler music – at the end of the video FLIP 160611f – drawing postures – each child copies the others, starting with Lena FLIP 160611g – Sylvie looks at a picture FLIP 160611h – more examples of jigsaw demonstrative behaviour! FLIP 160611i – B looks in a case FLIP 160611j – shot of the name of the picture FLIP 160611k – video shows how the girls walked together, mirroring each other’s stops and jumps 1.22 FLIP 230611a – bear – everyone poses FLIP 230611b - statue 0.34 0.03 140711a – A and I tickle the bear 140711b – A and I run and return 1.13 0.36 200611a – general record of the sports gallery 200611b - general record of the sports gallery 200611c – L films generally in the sports gallery 200611d – artic gallery – interactions with the drum 200611e – L and I at the microscope 200611f – everyone looks at the ants 200611g – exploring what on earth, together, lots of non verbal negotiation between the children 200611h – short footage in the communities gallery 210711a – entrance area 210711b – drumming in arctic area 210711c – drumming in arctic area 210711d – building an igloo 210711e – B and C in natural history area 210711f – S recording in natural history 5.09 4.50 4.39 3.12 0.33 0.46 3.28 4.56 0.05 2.54 13.38 1.46 0.11 1.04 0.27 0.06 1.07 0.16 0.40 1.08 0.06 1.03 2.15 1.10 309 25th August House museum 11th August Park museum 3rd Sept Park museum 22nd Sept Park museum 24th Sept House museum 29th September House museum 8th October Park Museum 13th October 210711g – L presses the buttons on the microscope 210711h – S films L in natural history 210711i – L is finally allowed to go to the buttons! 210711j –L sits wearing headphones 210711k – very short – L headphones 210711l – buttons, L and B 210711m – B and L dance and jump by the dance area 210711n – very short – L and the zoetrope 210711o – general in the sports gallery 210711p - B and L dance and jump by the dance area 250811a – A and N in the tree trunk 250811b – A and N in the tree trunk 250811c – I and A play peekabo with the tree trunk 250811d – three girls run around the bear 250811e – three girls look at the rabbit warren A – around the cow B – I and L in the natural history gallery C – Short bit of C and B D – all the kids dance and draw in the art gallery E – L filmed by S in the art gallery F – by the ants – filmed by S G – filmed by S in the natural history gallery – the children look at the badger H – short, nothing I – me making a record of the children’s drawings J – natural history gallery K – short, nothing L – arctic gallery – polar bears M – Arctic gallery - drum N – end of visit interview with all the children A – ants and bees B – short, nothing C – dancing in the art gallery D – playing in the shop in the communities gallery A – art gallery with drawing postures B – by the ants, drawing C – S looking at the rocks and minerals D – looking in the drawers E – Arctic gallery drums F – Arctic gallery, reading the interactive flaps A – I and A run around the bear B – I and A run around the dining room table C – I and A look at the dolls and chat A – shot of the buggy group in the park B – J dressed up C – in the dressing up room D – in the dressing up room A and B – J plays in the communities gallery C – E spins a sand interactive D – E bangs the arctic drum E – I bangs the arctic drum A – S films in the sports gallery – headphones, 0.13 0.24 0.10 1.59 0.03 1.41 2.34 0.05 0.16 2.14 0.23 0.09 0.26 2.24 0.55 0.54 0.48 0.09 2.14 2.04 0.47 3.53 0.07 0.12 1.31 0.01 1.07 0.21 5.16 2.24 0.01 2.09 2.28 2.25 0.17 1.43 2.08 2.33 0.23 1.09 0.14 0.52 0.12 0.02 0.04 0.11 0.39, 0.04 0.15 0.46 0.07 5.46 310 Park museum 28th October House museum 17th Nov Park museum 19th Nov Park museum 24th Nov House museum dancing, buttons B – filmed by S – the zoetrope C – nothing D – kids fight over the drumsticks in Arctic E – L bangs the drum F – I and B with the drums in the corridor G – B and I with the drums in the kitchen area H – S looks in a case I – drawing postures A – I and A with the bear B – in the dressing up room, I try to get A to use the FLIP camera C – in the dressing up room, A jumps and jangles D – A interview A – interview with I at home! B – headphones C – more headphones D – more headphones E – S walks F – filmed by S, dance mat and buttons G –nothing H – S filming in the Arctic gallery – inc S roaring at the polar bear, L’s polar bear family story I and J and l – arrows on air vents M – playing in the communities gallery N – communities gallery A – J and I play in the communities gallery B – J and I open flaps in the archaeology gallery C – J uses the touch screen D – J twirls a fishing rod E – J and I twirl fishing rods A – I and A with the bear B – continuation of A C – me showing Mr how to work the video D – Mr video of the lower rooms in the museum E – Mr video up the stairs and in the dressing up room F – Mr films in the dressing up room 1.25 5.46 0.01 0.16 1.12 1.54 1.17 0.42 1.00 0.25 0.44 0.40 1.38 2.36 0.47 0.06 0.19 0.06 3.29 0.10 10.45 0.01 1.20 2.13 2.39 0.54 0.54 0.05 0.58 1.26 0.35 0.07 1.45 7.25 5.48 311 Appendix 3: Incidences of Co-occurrence – Park Museum 312 Appendix 4: Incidences of Co-occurrence – House Museum 313 Appendix 5: Ethical approval letter 314 Appendix 6: Combined consent form and information sheet What happens when families with children under years visit a museum? What they do? What they enjoy? Does the museum benefit them? ‘How families with young children make meaning in museums?’ is a research project being carried out by Abi Hackett as part of her PhD studies at the University of Sheffield It involves visiting a museum as a family, with Abi, in order for her to find out what your experience is like when you visit a museum, what you do, and what you think Activities at the museum will be agreed beforehand, but could involve Abi observing while you visit, play and whatever you would normally, making short videos of your visit, and having discussions and conversations with Abi during and after the visit In the final report, you and your family will be anonymous (You can choose your own pseudonym) It is important that both you and your children are happy about participating in this project all the way through You can stop at any time, either to take a break from being involved or to stop completely You can ask at any time that your visits and the notes, photo and video collected about you are not used in the final research report □ I understand the purpose of the research project, and what my participation will involve □ □ I understand I am free to stop participating in the research at any time I understand that at the end of the research, I will be able to give or withdraw my permission for the data, images and video of my family collected during the research to be stored and used publically Signed: Date: Contact details: 315 Appendix 7: Sample of family trails sheet from House Museum 316 Appendix 8: Summary of the participants in the study All ages are given for December 2011, when the fieldwork ended Park Museum Adults Susie and Russell Clare and Ivan Tina and Joe Juliette and Bernard Mike and Samantha Children Liam 37 months and Olivia, 11 months Bryan, 36 months Millie, 38 months and Sienna, 16 months James, 36 months Emily, 37 months House Museum Adults Teresa Janice and Barry Children Anna, 48 months Natasha, 52 months and Miriam, 16 months ... question ? ?how families with young children (2-4 years) make meaning in a museum? This single question may seem somewhat general and vague compared to traditional approaches to research questions However,... situated meaning making practices, focused on gesture, whole body movement, and walking, running and dancing about the space 22 Defining meaning making As discussed above, the term ? ?meaning making”... rather than between adult and child Make meaning The following extract from an email I sent to Kate Pahl in 2009 provides a clear summary of how I was constructing meaning making at this point: