Making matters? Unpacking the role of practical aesthetic making activities in the general education through the theoretical lens of embodied learning

Abstract

New knowledge on cognition and learning generated in the various fields of neuroscience is now being incorporated into the learning sciences. This development might have broad significance for the theoretical development of the field of education, in particular leading to a renewed and more nuanced understanding of learning as an embodied process. The Nordic countries have a long and rich tradition of including arts and crafts as core subjects in children’s education; however, there is an ongoing discussion of its potential role in the twenty-first century. The new knowledge on cognition and learning opens up new vistas on practical-aesthetic “making” activities in the general education of children. This article establishes a theoretical lens of embodied learning as an operational translational framework for questioning the assumption that “making matters” and uses it as a tentative analytical tool to unpack an example of making activities.