Early childhood arts curriculum: a cross-cultural study

ABSTRACT

Many countries, including Australia, China, the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand, have included art subjects in their core curriculum. Using the theory of governmentality as a critical lens to investigate the intricate power–knowledge system in relation to curriculum, arts and pedagogy, this paper makes a comparative document analysis of two contemporary arts curricula for children aged 5–6 years—the Beijing Kindergarten Happiness and Development Curriculum in the arts learning area (upper class in kindergarten), and the Australian Curriculum: The Arts (Foundation level). Curriculum is best understood as a multi-faceted phenomenon and this paper draws from research which categorized curriculum into three phases: the intended (or planned) curriculum, the enacted (or implemented) curriculum and the experienced (the learner experience) curriculum. By focusing on the first phase: the intended curriculum, this paper compares the documents that comprise the planned curriculum from two very different contexts, and thus makes a contribution to cross-cultural understanding of early childhood arts curriculum in ways that may lead to social change.

KEYWORDS:

• Early childhood
• curriculum
• arts
• cross-cultural
• social change

Acknowledgments

We confirm that this work is original and has not been published elsewhere, nor is it currently under consideration for publication elsewhere.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Amy Hamilton

Amy Hamilton is a practicing Visual Artist and Associate Professor in Visual Art and Arts Education in the College of Education, Psychology and Social work at Flinders University. She has extensive experience teaching Visual Art from early childhood to the tertiary level. Amy’s research is predominantly Arts practice-based research, usually in the form of painting or printmaking. Her research interests are varied, including engaging students through arts-based pedagogies to de-camouflaging the military.

Yan Jin

Yan Jin is a cross-cultural researcher in early childhood education. Her research interests include creativity study, arts education, comparative study in the early years, students mental health and wellbeing, curriculum and pedagogy.

Susan Krieg

Susan Krieg is Adjunct Associate Professor at Flinders University. Susan’s experience includes early childhood teaching and leadership at local, state, national and international levels. Her educational research focuses on social justice and repositioning children (and student teachers) in the learning process as a way of achieving more equitable outcomes in early childhood education.