Leave only footprints: how children communicate a sense of ownership and belonging in an art gallery

Young Children's Engagement with Objects in Science Museums: A Rapid Evidence Assessment of Research

“…Drawing on post‐human theory, Wallis and Noble (2022) show how three‐ and four‐year‐olds individually and collectively made sense of their experience of being in museum spaces and the artifacts within them through mark making, which created opportunities for them to share, compare and interact with other people's experiences. The authors argue that museums can seem inaccessible and overwhelming for young children, so inviting them to leave their own marks and traces in different ways helped to transform their relationship with and movement within the museum.…”

The Aarhus Convention 1998 and the Environment Act 2021: Eroding Public Participation

“…Drawing on post-human theory, Wallis and Noble (2022) show how three-and four-year-olds individually and collectively made sense of their experience of being in museum spaces and the artifacts within them through mark making, which created opportunities for them to share, compare and interact with other people's experiences. The authors argue that museums can seem inaccessible and overwhelming for young children, so inviting them to leave their own marks and traces in different ways helped to transform their relationship with and movement within the museum.…”

Observing-without-reading; material attractions to stone and water

“…Instead, he makes sense of the museum by moving through it, engaging equally with the stairs, furniture, lighting and windows that frequently captivate young children in museums spaces (Hackett et al, 2018), as well as certain of the objects and cases that make up the museum collection itself. Wallis and Noble (2022) describe a relationship between children's movement through and in the museum and their sense of belonging in the space, arguing that children enter into dialogue with the building through traces, movement and mark making, as a way of developing a sense of belonging and ownership in cultural settings. This is a different kind of scenario to the one described in the paragraph above; rather than seeing objects and knowing the information about their relevance as a path to connection and belonging, fleeting movement and gesture via "footprints and pathways that the children (re)create, depict, extend and continue the dialogue with the museum space" (Wallis and Noble, 2022), enabling an attending to children's preferred modes of making sense of the space.…”

“…Wallis and Noble (2022) describe a relationship between children's movement through and in the museum and their sense of belonging in the space, arguing that children enter into dialogue with the building through traces, movement and mark making, as a way of developing a sense of belonging and ownership in cultural settings. This is a different kind of scenario to the one described in the paragraph above; rather than seeing objects and knowing the information about their relevance as a path to connection and belonging, fleeting movement and gesture via "footprints and pathways that the children (re)create, depict, extend and continue the dialogue with the museum space" (Wallis and Noble, 2022), enabling an attending to children's preferred modes of making sense of the space. Yet through these modes of meaning making, often preferred by young children, "meanings can solidify or slip-slide out of view again" (Hackett, 2021, p.154); observing children's learning / engagement via these kinds of modes creates uncertainty and questions, rather than evidence to buttress the observer's position and conclusions.…”