Contributions of Arts-Based Research to Early Childhood Care in Educational Contexts

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to present some contributions of Arts-Based Research –ABR– as an alternative epistemological and methodological proposal for the promotion of care practices with children in early childhood and their relational agents. To this end, the importance of care as an essential component is discussed, based on the ethics of care approach, its main characteristics in educational contexts, and its link with ABR. This perspective contributes to the creative, aesthetic, and relational deployment, allowing a horizontal and flexible communication of girls and boys with themselves, with other people, and with their world, which helps the questioning of pre-established discourses for the sake of the search for collective well-being from the first years of life. In conclusion, the importance of articulating the ABR focused on the ethics of care is highlighted, as a way of guaranteeing other types of relationships and learning of care practices with children. Therefore, the investigators recommend implementing artistic methodologies with boys and girls from their first years of life to make their voices, feelings, experiences, situations, and problems visible, a first step for them to recognize themselves as critical subjects capable of being, feeling, thinking, and doing differently.