International Journal of Education & the Arts

Citation: Sakr, M., & Kucirkova, N. (2016). Parent-child moments of meeting in art-making with collage, iPad, tuxpaint, and crayons. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 18(2). Retrieved from http://www.ijea.org/v18n2/.

Previous research suggests that parent-child art making can foster opportunities for closeness between children and parents. Most studies however, have focused on art-making that involves paint and paper, or non-digital drawing technologies. There is a need for researchers to consider how a wider range of technologies, including digital technologies, might shape the interactions between children and parents during art-making. This is particularly important given current concerns that digital technologies are impacting negatively on children’s social interactions and their intimacy with others. This study takes a social semiotic perspective to explore how child-parent closeness was supported by different technologies. A three year old child and her father were observed across eight episodes of art-making in the home using a range of four technologies (two digital and two non-digital). A multimodal interaction analysis of the video data suggested that the different technologies were characterised by different types of interaction and distinct forms of closeness between the child and parent. These differences did not correspond neatly to a digital/non-digital divide, but instead related to a network of material factors, embodied actions and the participants’ sociocultural investment in each technology.