Visual arts in ECE: Strengthening intentional teaching through a network professional learning community

Over the past 100 years, educationalists such as Dewey and Eisner have proposed radical and progressive ways in which visual art can support and enrich learning in education (Lindsay, 2016b). The early childhood pedagogy of Reggio Emilia, in Italy, is a renowned example of how teachers take an active role in facilitating children’s artistic abilities with positive outcomes for children’s learning (Gandini et al., 2005). However, in New Zealand (NZ) early childhood education (ECE), visual arts teaching for young children is still enacted within a largely developmental frame, using a hands-off approach (Terreni, 2017). According to Lindsay (2021) and Smyth (2017), teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, knowledge and skills in art education need to be addressed in order to shift practice. Professional learning communities (PLCs) offer the potential to challenge teachers’ assumptions and beliefs and to foster transformative learning, resulting in observable shifts in art teaching practice (Damjanovic & Blank, 2017; Servage, 2008). This mixed methods study (Johnson & Christensen, 2019) within an interpretivist paradigm (Schwandt, 1994), examined the perceptions and practices of NZ ECE teachers about art education through a nationwide survey and a professional learning intervention using a network PLC approach. Situated and social cognitive theories, socio-cultural theory and transformative learning theory were interlinked in a bricolage approach (Tobin, 2018) to form a theoretical lens for this study. The first stage of the research involved a survey of ECE teachers regarding practices and perceptions about visual arts, and this provided a background context for the PLC project. Key survey findings included a dominant developmentalist view of children’s art learning amongst ECE teachers and confusion about the role of the teacher. In the embedded case study, a network PLC was established with seven teachers from four ECE services, meeting over 9 months with a mixture of practical and reflective learning about visual arts. The data collection included multiple sources for rich analysis: interviews; reflective writing; meeting dialogue; photographs; and learning story assessment documentation. Case study findings included the value of reflective and practical learning for visual arts teaching, the impact of a network PLC on the practice and perceptions of both the participants and their colleagues, the critical place of teacher self-efficacy in visual arts teaching practice, and the importance of leadership of various actors across the network to support the application and sharing of new learning. Overall, the outcomes of this study have important implications for visual arts pedagogy in ECE and effective professional learning approaches for teachers.