Valuing children’s voices across diverse global contexts: A gallery exhibit of children’s multimodal art

Abstract

This article describes an international classroom partnership with twenty-eight 5-to 7-year-old Canadian and Tanzanian children, and outlines the meaningful ways they were involved in the research process. In this project, the children shared their valued school-based experiences and environments through multiple self-chosen modes. The children’s arts-based multimodal texts, descriptions of their valued school experiences and environments, and their personal biographies were then shared at a 2-week exhibit at a national art gallery in Canada. The findings across both data sets revealed the children’s interest in spending time outdoors in their local contexts, engaging in collaborative and imaginative play. This project also addresses the importance of providing a space for children to share their perspectives, which aligns with Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Child. Article 12 addresses the importance of children having a right to have a voice and to have their opinions heard in matters that affect them. Article 13 is also highlighted in this project and outlines children’s right to freedom of expression. This right includes the freedom ‘to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child’s choice’. In this project, the Canadian and Tanzanian children’s multimodal texts of their valued school-based experiences revealed more similarities than differences in relation to what learning experiences mattered to them at school. During this project, the children in both contexts became interested and invested in their international peers’ lives and school-based experiences, and felt a sense of connectedness and kinship across the globe.