Interpolating Peace in the Curriculum: How Peace Education is Feasible Through Art among Malaysian Pre-Schoolers

Ahmad Zulfadhli Khairuddin; Faizah Idrus; Afareez Abd Razak; Nik Ahmad Hisham Ismail

doi:10.29333/ajqr/12956

Ahmad Zulfadhli Khairuddin ¹ ^* , Faizah Idrus ², Afareez Abd Razak ², Nik Ahmad Hisham Ismail ²

More Detail

AM J QUALITATIVE RES, Volume 7, Issue 1, pp. 191-203

https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/12956

OPEN ACCESS 762 Views 534 Downloads

Download Full Text (PDF)

Abstract

Children should not be left behind in discussing about peace. In this qualitative study, it discovers the potential use of visual aids for teaching peace values among young children. It aims to explore the use of visual representations, such as pictures and video clips in a study of peace education to develop their understanding of the principles and values of peace. This study employed a qualitative multiple case study approach to investigate twenty children’s artworks (between the age of 5 to 6 years old). They have been selected using purposive sampling method. In-depth semi-structured interviews and field notes were also used to triangulate data extracted from the drawing and successfully portrayed peace elements in their artworks. Later the codes were extracted and organized to find the emerging themes. The focus was to analyze the KEMAS preschoolers’ drawings and their reactions to the drawings and selected video clippings provided in the research framework. Using Feldman’s model of art criticism, each drawing was analyzed using the thematic analysis and interpreted using a network of coding. Some of the themes extracted from their artworks are unity and safety symbols, love and happiness, togetherness and survival, peace, conflict, and tranquility. The findings suggested that pictures and video clippings could be a suitable method for conveying powerful messages, including abstract concepts, such as peace and war to young children. Young children have a dissimilar capability to make sense of their surrounding world and putting it into words unlike adults. The use of pictures and clippings would give a practical advantage in helping researchers gather valuable information about how peace education can be taught to children of young age. The need for further research is deemed essential to extend the link between how children learn about peace values and the use of multiple means to teach peace education effectively to students of various ages.

Keywords: Qualitative research, Early childhood education, Art analysis, Peace education, Malaysia, Pre-schoolers.

References

Ahmad, J. F. (2018). Children’s drawings in different cultures: an analysis of five-year-old Jordanian children’s drawings. International Journal of Early Years Education, 26(3), 249–258. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2018.1444587
Baxter, P., & Jack, S. (2008). Qualitative Case Study Methodology : Study Design and Implementation for Novice Researchers. The Qualitative Report, 13(4), 544–559.
Becker, H. W. (1982). Art Worlds. University of California.
Carney, J. D., & Carney, J. D. (2009). A Historical Theory of Art Criticism. The Journal of Aesthetic Education, 28(1), 13–29.
Congdon, K. G. (1994). Art and Teaching for Peace and Justice. The Journal of Social Theory in Art Education, 13–31.
Dhanapal, S., Kanapathy, R., & Mastan, J. (2014). A study to understand the role of visual arts in the teaching and learning of science. Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, 15(2).
Duckworth, C. L., Allen, B., & Williams, T. T. (2012). What do students learn when we teach peace? A qualitative assessment of a theater peace program. Journal of Peace Education, 9(1), 81–99. https://doi.org/10.1080/17400201.2012.664548
Dyregrov, A., Yule, W., & Olff, M. (2018). Children and natural disasters. In European Journal of Psychotraumatology. https://doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2018.1500823
Feldman, E. B. (1982). Varieties of Visual Experience. Prentice Hall.
Grady, C. L., Mcintosh, A. R., Rajah, M. N., & Craik, F. I. M. (1998). Neural correlates of the episodic encoding of pictures and words. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 95(5), 2703–2708. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.95.5.2703
Hakvoort, I. (1996). Peace and Conflict : Journal of Peace Psychology Children ’ s Conceptions of Peace and War : A Longitudinal Study. November 2014, 37–41. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327949pac0201
Hanna, G., Patterson, M., Rollins, J., & Sherman, A. (2011). The Arts and Human Development. In The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (Vol. 33, Issue 2). National Endowment for the Arts. https://doi.org/10.2307/429096
Ismail, A. M., Stapa, Z., Othman, M. Y., & Yaacob, M. (2012). Islam in Education and Its Relation to the Formation of Malay Ethnic Identity in Malaysia. Jurnal Hadhari Special Edition, 37–50.
Jaafar, J., Kolodinsky, P., McCarthy, S., & Schroder, V. (2004). The impact of cultural norms and values of the moral judgment of Malay and American adolescents: A brief report. Papers from the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology Conference, 399–414.
Jabbar, S., & Betawi, A. (2019). Children express: war and peace themes in the drawings of Iraqi refugee children in Jordan. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 24(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673843.2018.1455058
Maagerø, E., & Sunde, T. (2016). What makes me happy, and what makes me scared? An analysis of drawings made by Norwegian and Palestinian children. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 24(2), 287–304. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2016.1143267
Malboeuf-Hurtubise, C., Léger-Goodes, T., Mageau, G. A., Taylor, G., Herba, C. M., Chadi, N., & Lefrançois, D. (2021). Online art therapy in elementary schools during COVID-19: results from a randomized cluster pilot and feasibility study and impact on mental health. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, 15(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13034-021-00367-5
Mastor, K. A., Jin, P., & Cooper, M. (2000). Malay Culture and Personality: A Big Five Perspective. American Behavioral Scientist, 44(1), 95–111. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027640021956116
Mills, H. (2014). The importance of creative arts in early childhood classrooms. Texas Child Care QuarTerly, 38(1), VOLUME 38,. https://doi.org/childcarequarterly.com
Myers-Walls, J. A., & Lewsader, J. (2015). A qualitative approach to identifying the developmental progression of children’s understanding of peace. Journal of Peace Psychology, 21(3), 508–514. https://doi.org/10.1037/pac0000090
Nathan, D. (2006). Art, Meaning, and Artist’s Meaning (pp. 282–295).
Ormrod, J. E. (2009). Human Learning (5th Editio). Pearson Prentice Hall.
Patra, J. N., & Mete, J. (2015). Peace Education in 21st Century. In R. K. Jana (Ed.), Modern Trends in Education (1st ed., pp. 444–450). APH Publishing Corporation.
Prater, M. (2010). Art Criticism. The Aldine, 8(12), 382. https://doi.org/10.2307/20637464
Rahman, A. (2018). Needs Analysis of the Trauma Healing Program for Children After a Flood Disaster in Sungai Pua District in 2018: Implementation of Disaster Management. Jurnal Penelitian Dan Kajian Ilmiah, 12(7). https://doi.org/10.33559/mi.v12i7.843
Samuel, T. K. (2018). Undergraduate Radicalisation in Selected Countries in Southeast Asia: A Comparative Quantitative Analysis on the Perception of Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism among Undergradutes in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philipines, Singapore and Thailand. The Southeast Asia Regional Centre for Counter-Terrorism (SEARCCT).
Stake, R. (1995). The Art of Case Study Research. In Thousand Oaks. Sage Publications Ltd.
Subramaniam, M., Hanafi, J., & Putih, A. T. (2016). Teaching For Art Criticism: Incorporating Feldman’s Critical Analysis Learning Model In Students’ Studio Practice. Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Technology, 4(1), 57–67.
Walker, K., Myers-Bowman, K. S., & Myers-Walls, J. A. (2003). Understanding war, visualizing peace: Children draw what they know. Art Therapy, 20(4), 191–200. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421656.2003.10129605
Waller, D. (2006). Art therapy for children: How it leads to change. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 11(2), 271–282. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359104506061419
Yilmaz, F. (2018). Road to Peace Education: Peace and Violence from the Viewpoint of Children. International Education Studies, 11(8), 141. https://doi.org/10.5539/ies.v11n8p141
Yin, R. K. (2009). How to Do Better Case Studies. In D. J. Bickman, Leonard & Rog (Ed.), The Sage Handbook of Applied Social Research Methods (2nd ed., pp. 254–282). Sage Publications, Inc.
Zakai, S. (2019). “Bad Things Happened”: How Children of the Digital Age Make Sense of Violent Current Events. The Social Studies, 110(2), 67–85. https://doi.org/10.1080/00377996.2018.1517113

Citation

Zulfadhli Khairuddin, A., Idrus, F., Abd Razak, A., & Hisham Ismail, N. A. (2023). Interpolating Peace in the Curriculum: How Peace Education is Feasible Through Art among Malaysian Pre-Schoolers. American Journal of Qualitative Research, 7(1), 191-203. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/12956

Zulfadhli Khairuddin, A., Idrus, F., Abd Razak, A., and Hisham Ismail, N. A. (2023). Interpolating Peace in the Curriculum: How Peace Education is Feasible Through Art among Malaysian Pre-Schoolers. American Journal of Qualitative Research, 7(1), pp. 191-203. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/12956

Zulfadhli Khairuddin A, Idrus F, Abd Razak A, Hisham Ismail NA. Interpolating Peace in the Curriculum: How Peace Education is Feasible Through Art among Malaysian Pre-Schoolers. AM J QUALITATIVE RES. 2023;7(1), 191-203. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/12956

Zulfadhli Khairuddin, Ahmad, Faizah Idrus, Afareez Abd Razak, and Nik Ahmad Hisham Ismail. "Interpolating Peace in the Curriculum: How Peace Education is Feasible Through Art among Malaysian Pre-Schoolers". American Journal of Qualitative Research 2023 7 no. 1 (2023): 191-203. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/12956

Zulfadhli Khairuddin, Ahmad et al. "Interpolating Peace in the Curriculum: How Peace Education is Feasible Through Art among Malaysian Pre-Schoolers". American Journal of Qualitative Research, vol. 7, no. 1, 2023, pp. 191-203. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/12956

Zulfadhli Khairuddin A, Idrus F, Abd Razak A, Hisham Ismail NA. Interpolating Peace in the Curriculum: How Peace Education is Feasible Through Art among Malaysian Pre-Schoolers. AM J QUALITATIVE RES. 2023;7(1):191-203. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/12956