The wonder project: an early years arts education project with Traveller mothers and their children

ABSTRACT

The Wonder Project was a collaborative early-years music and visual arts project developed in partnership with Traveller children and their mothers, involving artists, Fingal County Childcare Committee, Fingal Travellers’ Organisation and the Arts Education Research Group in Trinity College Dublin. This qualitative study aimed to create an artistic space for young children (aged 0–5 years) and mothers from the Traveller community. Accounting for less than 1% of the population, Irish Travellers are a small indigenous ethnic group who are recognised for their shared history, rich cultural and arts traditions, and distinct language [Murray, C., and M. Urban. 2012. Diversity & Equality in Early Childhood. An Irish Perspective. Dublin: Gill Education.]. Facing severe discrimination for centuries, the Irish Traveller community were officially recognised as an ethnic minority in Ireland in 2017. The area of arts engagement with ethnic minorities is under-researched [DiMaggio, P., and P. Fernández-Kelly. 2015. “Immigration and the Arts: a Theoretical Inquiry.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 38 (8): 1236–1244.], with little evidence pertaining to the early years. At the social, cultural, political, economic and policy levels, the relevance of arts engagement and participation for ethnicized minorities has been hypothesised [Vertovec, S. 2009. Conceiving and Researching Diversity. Göttingen: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, MMG Working Paper 09-01.], but greater research is needed to better understand how artistic expressions play a role in the assertion of local identities and protect against the assimilating forces of the dominant social, cultural and political order [Martiniello, M. 2015. “Immigrants, Ethnicized Minorities and the Arts: A Relatively Neglected Research Area.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 38 (8): 1229–1235.]. Working within a Freirean and participatory and collaborative arts framework, this study aimed to examine the potential of arts education to impact on the relationship between Traveller mothers and their young children, and its potential to facilitate artistic exchanges between artists, mothers and children. Increased access to the arts, outdoor play and well-being between Traveller children and mothers was documented through audio recordings, still photographs, artists’ evaluations and semi-structured interviews. The success of The Wonder Project illustrates the importance of non-mainstreamed arts interventions for marginalised minority groups.