Evoking emotions and unpacking layered histories through young children’s illustrations of racial bus segregation

Abstract

Drawing on theories of multi-modality and critical visual literacy, this article focuses on images that five-and six year-olds painted in a class-made book, Voice on the Bus, about racial segregation. The article discusses how children used illustrations to convey their understandings of Rosa Parks’ bus arrest in Alabama. A post-structural view focusing on images that five- and six year-olds painted in a class-made book, Voices on the Bus, about racial segregation, the article discusses how children used illustrations to convey their understanding of Rosa Parks’ bus arrest in Alabama. A post-structural (Kind, 2010) idea of art as an encounter, not as a fixed representation, shaped how the images were experienced for analysis. Using the notion of synaesthesia (the joining of senses), paintings were analysed for evoked emotions and blended sensations ( Berman, 1999 ; Boston, 2001 ). Additional analysis focused on sedimented meanings (Rowsell and Pahl, 2007), looking for traces from curricular conversations and local/global D/discourses about segregation, schooling experiences and religious undertones (Gee, 1996). The following analytical questions are discussed: In what ways does this illustration evoke a synaesthetic response? How is this image agentic? What are the sedimented meanings from the images? Insights gained are that children can create synaesthetic images to evoke emotions; educators can find traces of sedimented histories in student-made artefacts; and perhaps social action is embodied and expressed through art. Researchers are encouraged to continue using a hybrid of literacy theories and tools for multi-modal analysis.