Title: "Let's pretend this [orange] is you!" : preschool children making meaning of a multimodal illustration offered at a Swedish Science Center
Source document: Studia paedagogica. 2015, vol. 20, iss. 4, pp. [139]-153
Extent
[139]-153
-
ISSN1803-7437 (print)2336-4521 (online)
Persistent identifier (DOI): https://doi.org/10.5817/SP2015-4-9
Stable URL (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/134942
Type: Article
Language
License: Not specified license
Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.
Abstract(s)
Science centers throughout Europe offer package deals to nearby schools and preschools in order to enhance scientific education through theme-related exhibits and activities. This article focuses on a group of preschool children as they visit such a center in Sweden, where they were presented with a multimodal illustration of a life jacket. By drawing on sociocultural and multimodal perspectives, the meaning that the children made of the illustration was studied as well as the illustration itself. The analysis builds upon Engebretsen's (2012) concepts of multimodal cohesion and tension and his three interactional dimensions: material, semantic, and performative dimension. The results show that high levels of tension between and within modes in an illustration seem to obstruct the meaning-making processes for young children. The concluding reflection offers a discussion about the need for attention both to the content's accuracy and to the ways in which illustrations are presented in science centers as well as in education elsewhere.
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[7] Jewitt, C. (2008). Multimodality, media, learning and identity. Medien Journal, 32(1), 31–40. | DOI 10.24989/medienjournal.v32i1.248
[8] Jewitt, C. (2013). Multimodal methods for researching digital technologies. In S. Price, C. Jewitt, & B. Brown (Eds.). SAGE Handbook of Digital Technolog y Research. London: SAGE.
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[12] Kress, G., Jewitt, C., Ogborn, J., & Tsatsarelis, C. (2001). Multimodal Teaching and Learning: The Rhetorics of the Science Classroom. London: Continuum.
[13] Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge.
[14] Lemke, J. (1998). Multimedia Literacy of the science curriculum. Linguistics and Education, 10(3), 241–271. | DOI 10.1016/S0898-5898(99)00009-1
[15] Ljung-Djärf, A., Åberg-Bengtsson, L., Ottosson, T., & Beach, D. (2015). Making sense of iconic symbols: A study of preschool children conducting a refuse-sorting task. Environmental Education Research, 21(2), 256–274. | DOI 10.1080/13504622.2013.870128
[16] Pintó, R., & Ametller, J. (2002). Students' difficulties in reading images. International Journal of Science Education, 24(3), 333–341. | DOI 10.1080/09500690110078932
[17] Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in Thinking: Cognitive Development in Social Context. New York: Oxford University Press.
[18] Rogoff, B. (1995). Observing sociocultural activity on three planes: Participatory appropriation, guided participatory, and apprenticeship. In J. V. Wertsch, V. Río, P. del Rio, & A. Alvarez (Eds.). Sociocultural studies of mind. New York: Cambridge University Press.
[19] Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). Thinking and speech (N. Minick, Trans.). In R. W. Rieber & A. S. Carton (Eds.). The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky, Vol. 1: Problems of general psychology (p. 39–285). New York: Plenum.
[20] Wartofsky, M. W. (1979). Models. Dordrecht: Reidel.
[21] Wells, G. (2008). Learning to use scientific concepts. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 3(2), 329–350. | DOI 10.1007/s11422-008-9100-6
[22] Wennås Brante, E. (2014). Möte med multimodalt material. Vilken roll spelar dyslexi för uppfattandet av text och bild? [Encounter with Multimodal Material. The Role of Dyslexia for Perceiving Text and Picture]. Gothenburg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis.