Children’s ‘eye views’ of an archaeological site: A multimodal social semiotic approach to children’s drawings

This paper presents eight-year-old children's ‘eye views’ of the archaeological site of the Agora in Athens, Greece, based on drawings made during an educational programme on site. Complementing a significant body of research on drawings, we introduce a multimodal social semiotic perspective to...

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Main Authors: Sophia Diamantopoulou, Dimitra Christidou
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of Leicester 2018-11-01
Series:Museum & Society
Online Access:https://journals.le.ac.uk/ojs1/index.php/mas/article/view/2793
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author Sophia Diamantopoulou
Dimitra Christidou
author_facet Sophia Diamantopoulou
Dimitra Christidou
author_sort Sophia Diamantopoulou
collection DOAJ
description This paper presents eight-year-old children's ‘eye views’ of the archaeological site of the Agora in Athens, Greece, based on drawings made during an educational programme on site. Complementing a significant body of research on drawings, we introduce a multimodal social semiotic perspective to explore drawings as ‘designed’ accounts of children’s ‘eye views’. We argue that each account arises as an agentive response to their interests and prompts in the environment framing their experience, such as features of the site and the educational programme. Based on four drawings, we identify salient elements of children’s experience in their representations which we analyze as material realizations of (i) their interests and agency, (ii) their visual and embodied engagement with the archaeological site, and (iii) the framing of the educational task and overall programme. Our findings contribute to research on the importance of visual in learning.
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spelling doaj.art-6e2eaa8390414861b8bb1d7925ee69ee2022-12-22T03:43:29ZengUniversity of LeicesterMuseum & Society1479-83602018-11-0116333435110.29311/mas.v16i3.27932650Children’s ‘eye views’ of an archaeological site: A multimodal social semiotic approach to children’s drawingsSophia DiamantopoulouDimitra ChristidouThis paper presents eight-year-old children's ‘eye views’ of the archaeological site of the Agora in Athens, Greece, based on drawings made during an educational programme on site. Complementing a significant body of research on drawings, we introduce a multimodal social semiotic perspective to explore drawings as ‘designed’ accounts of children’s ‘eye views’. We argue that each account arises as an agentive response to their interests and prompts in the environment framing their experience, such as features of the site and the educational programme. Based on four drawings, we identify salient elements of children’s experience in their representations which we analyze as material realizations of (i) their interests and agency, (ii) their visual and embodied engagement with the archaeological site, and (iii) the framing of the educational task and overall programme. Our findings contribute to research on the importance of visual in learning.https://journals.le.ac.uk/ojs1/index.php/mas/article/view/2793
spellingShingle Sophia Diamantopoulou
Dimitra Christidou
Children’s ‘eye views’ of an archaeological site: A multimodal social semiotic approach to children’s drawings
Museum & Society
title Children’s ‘eye views’ of an archaeological site: A multimodal social semiotic approach to children’s drawings
title_full Children’s ‘eye views’ of an archaeological site: A multimodal social semiotic approach to children’s drawings
title_fullStr Children’s ‘eye views’ of an archaeological site: A multimodal social semiotic approach to children’s drawings
title_full_unstemmed Children’s ‘eye views’ of an archaeological site: A multimodal social semiotic approach to children’s drawings
title_short Children’s ‘eye views’ of an archaeological site: A multimodal social semiotic approach to children’s drawings
title_sort children s eye views of an archaeological site a multimodal social semiotic approach to children s drawings
url https://journals.le.ac.uk/ojs1/index.php/mas/article/view/2793
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