The Roles of Aesthetic Experience in Elementary School Science |
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| Authors: | Britt Jakobson and Per-Olof Wickman |
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| Institution: | (1) Department of Curriculum Studies and Communication, Stockholm Institute of Education, Box 34103, 100 26 Stockholm, Sweden |
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| Abstract: | The role of aesthetic experiences for learning was examined in elementary school science. Numerous authors have argued for
a science education also involving aesthetic experiences, but few have examined what this means empirically. Recordings of
children’s talk with each other and with the teacher during hands-on activities in nine different science units were made.
How the children and teachers used aesthetic judgements and how these judgements were part of aesthetic experiences of the
science assignments were analysed. For the analysis a pragmatist perspective was used, especially drawing on Dewey and the
later Wittgenstein. The results showed how aesthetic judgements occurred in moments of anticipation and moments when the science
activities were brought to fulfilment. In this way children used aesthetic judgements normatively about what belonged in science
class and what to include and exclude. In this way aesthetic judgements were an important part of learning how to proceed
in science class. In using aesthetic judgements the children also talked about their own place in science class and whether
they belonged there or not. In this way aesthetic experience is tightly related to learning science as participation. Learning
science also meant learning a special kind of aesthetics, that is, learning how to distinguish the science context from other
contexts. The fact that children liked or disliked something outside school did not necessarily mean that it was experienced
aesthetically in the same way in school, but needed to be re-learnt. What these results mean for science education is discussed
at length. The connection between aesthetics and learning to observe is also briefly discussed.
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| Keywords: | Aesthetic experience Elementary school Dewey Science learning |
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