This article reports on a study of young children and the nature of their learning through museum experiences. Environments such as museums are physical and social spaces where visitors encounter objects and ideas which they interpret through their own experiences, customs, beliefs, and values. The study was conducted in four different museum environments: a natural and social history museum, an art gallery, a science center, and a hybrid art/social history museum. The subjects were four‐ to seven‐year old children. At the conclusion of a ten‐week, multi‐visit museum program, interviews were conducted with children to probe the saliency of their experiences and the ways in which they came to understand the museums they visited. Emergent from this study, we address several findings that indicate that museum‐based exhibits and programmatic experiences embedded in the common and familiar socio‐cultural context of the child's world, such as play and story, provide greater impact and meaning than do museum exhibits and experiences that are decontexualized in nature.

Young children bring a wide repertoire of visitor behaviours to traditional art museums, using their minds, senses, and bodies to respond to and interpret artworks. When given opportunities for self-expression, choice, and control during an art museum visit, children are empowered in this environment. Allowing children to take a leading role as tour guides for their peers or adult partners is one way to engender such empowerment. This kind of experience shows them they have a valuable contribution to make and allows them to learn actively from artworks, through self-directed inquiry. This article outlines a number of art museum programs that have encouraged children as guides during school and family visits, and discusses the benefits of these programs — for both the children and their adult companions. The author also notes the importance of a supportive, responsive adult, who can extend children's conversations to introduce the language and concepts of the visual arts during child-led tours.

The Out of the Box Festival of Early Childhood is a unique public event in Australia designed to enrich the creative and cultural lives of children aged 3-8 years and their communities. The research linked to this festival is based on the premise that parents' participation in, and value of the arts, impacts engagements with, and value placed on the arts by their children. This study investigates the ways that a large cultural institution creates engaging relationships with parents of young children. We outline a program involving perception development, knowledge building, critical friends and outcome measurement and we identify attributes of the festival that enable a family-friendly arts environment. Early findings on the impact of activities on parent and child pursuit of the arts as an area of social and cultural enrichment enabled us to propose strategies for enhancing arts participation by parents and young children. RESUME:Le festival de la petite enfance "Out of the Box " est un ~w;nement public unique en Australie qui vise l 'enrichissement de la vie culturelle et cr6ative des enfants de 3-8 ans et de leurs communaut~s. La recherche lide gt ce festival est fand~e sur l 'idle que la participation parentale et la valeur qu 'ils attribuent ?t l 'art irzfluent sur l 'implication de leurs enfants et sur la valeur qu 'ils y accordent. Cette ~tude porte sur la fagon dont une importante institution culturelle cr{e des relations impliquantes avec les parents de jeunes enfants. Nous avons esquiss6 un projet comprenant : d~veloppement de la perception, construction de connaissances, amis critiques et mesure d'effets, et identifi6 les caract~ristiques du festival qui favorisent un environnement artistique familial-amical. Les premiers rdsultats concernant l'impact d'actions artistiques sur les parents et les enfants, comme espace d'enrichissement culturel et social, nous permettent de proposer des strat6gies pour accroftre la participation de ces derniers dans le champ artistique.RESUMEN: "El festival de Ia primera infancia" es un evento ~mico en Australia encaminado a enriquecer la vida creativa y cultural de los ni~os de 3 -8 a~os de edad y sus comunidades. La 8 European Early Childhood Education Research Journal investigaci6n asociada al festival se basa en premisas de participaci6n y valoraci6n de las artes por parte de los padres, y del impacto del envolvimiento y de la valoraci6n de las artes por parte de los ni~os. Este estudio investiga las formas en que una instituci6n cultural crea relaciones de compromiso con padres de ni~os peque~os. Trazamos un programa de desarrollo perceptivo, de formaci6n de conocimiento, de amistad crltica y de mediciones de resultados, e identificamos los atributos del festival que facilitaban un medio artfstico favorable alas familias. Hallazgos preliminares acerca del impacto de las actividades en los padres yen los ni~os encaminadas a hacer del arte un drea de enriquecimiento social y cultural, nos permiti6 proponer estrategias para intensificar la participaci6n artfstica de pa...

The year 2005 marks the sixth year of publication of Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood and it seems like only yesterday that we were writing the prospectus to try to interest publishers in a new early childhood journal! We appreciate the support from our readers and those who submit papers for publication, as it is you who have made the journal so widely read. The work of refereeing papers is a time-consuming responsibility but we have built up a group of professionals who provide detailed and focused feedback, which contributes significantly to the reputation of the journal. In terms of publication, we have been fortunate to be able to work with Symposium Journals, who keep ahead of technological developments and ensure that the finished product is always of a high standard. The first issue of 2005 covers a broad range of topics, some of which look from different perspectives at enduring matters in the field, while others introduce novel ideas associated with life in the twenty-first century. Empirical data of children's experiences of starting school form the basis of the first article by Sue Dockett & Bob Perry ('"You Need to Know How to Play Safe": children's experiences of starting school'). This article continues and extends recent work that focuses on children as research participants in their own right and uses children's conversations, drawings and photographs to describe their understandings and experiences of starting school. Children from four schools in two states of Australia were involved in the project, which asked the children to share their expertise with those who were soon to begin school. The four schools reflect a crosssection of socioeconomic , rural, urban, isolated and religious characteristics, and some of the photographs taken by the children are included. This article recognises the knowledge children have about their own lives in regard to starting school, and aims to use their expertise to improve transition programs and experiences associated with beginning school. Sexuality, children and early childhood education are three words that do not occur together very often in the same sentence. 'Children' and 'early childhood education' are frequently associated but the addition of 'sexuality' adds a dimension that some consider not to be the domain of early childhood educators. Nicola Surtees makes use of social constructionism, queer theory and discourse analysis to take a look at this combination in 'Teacher Talk about and around Sexuality in Early Childhood Education: deciphering an unwritten code'. She laments the omission of sexuality in the inclusive aims of New Zealand's early childhood curriculum, Te Whäriki, and observes that children are sexual beings and that early childhood centres are 'sexualized sites'. Data from individual interviews with three teachers and a group interview with the same three teachers are used to conclude that there is a 'metaphorical and unwritten code of practice' that guides teacher talk about sexuality in early childhood education. Surtees conte...

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