Faculty of Education - Theses

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Author: Stephens, Margaret Vair × End date: 2000 × Start date: 2000 × Subject: Art × Subject: Australia ×

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    My place Tempatku : a search for meaning, a cross cultural study that investigates the ways in which children in Australia and Indonesia reveal their ideas and feelings about places of significance in their lives
    Stephens, Margaret Vair ( 2000)
    The study aimed to investigate ways in which groups of primary aged children in Australia and Indonesia responded to the metaphor My Place Tempatku, developed their ideas, and presented these using a range of visual art media and written stories. It grew out of the researcher's experiences and reflections as an art teacher, an artist in schools and a teacher educator. The study was designed with a travelling exhibition in mind and this intention was clearly communicated to all participants. It encouraged dialogue between the participants and the researcher with a particular focus on the art work and written stories as vehicles for communication within a cultural context. The researcher sought, at all times, to exclude from the study notions of racism or superiority. As such, the basis of the My Place Tempatku study was never intended to be a comparison of the techniques of drawings, the teaching methodologies nor of one curriculum to another. Rather, the study sought to document and so illuminate the emic views of the participants, the children in schools in Victoria and Bali and the views of the researcher as this particular study progressed. The instrumental case study is presented in a narrative style designed to evoke key features of the stages of the project and provide engaging interpretative accounts from the participants' perspectives. The My Place Tempatku study reveals that when children in a cross cultural context are engaged in art making that is relevant, challenging, expressive and personal, their imagery and final art work generate intense levels of interest for other children and their communities. The informal exhibition emerged as a significant phase and as the cultural exchange agent, facilitating observation and direct interpretation by children and teachers. In this cross cultural context the art work and bi-lingual translated written stories, served as vehicles for communication and exchange, substituting for face-to-face interrelationships. The children demonstrated shifts in their thinking and levels of understanding as a consequence of their observation and prolonged engagement with the exhibition My Place Tempatku