Conditions for learning: partnerships for engaging secondary pupils with contemporary art.

The pupil recognised that his project homework provided an outlet for therapeutic,
expressive almost cathartic responses. He suggested that he usually finds it difficult
to work this way in a public forum, possibly because of the emphasis on emotional
disclosure, a practice in which boys are often reluctant to participate [19].

4/resistant: .. they gave us a sketchbook to take back home, we did pictures of how
we felt. First I thought it was a bit strange. When I went home, I found it kind of
easy. cause I am a very imaginative person... a kind of like release or stress...

Eventually I got the idea. So I wanted to do like a cartoon book, where you kind of lift
the pages and things that move. We did it with a video camera and play-dough.

This pupil evidently prefers to work in haptic modes, engaging physically with plastic
materials in combination with new technologies; preferences that correspond to the
findings of Ofsted who claim that ‘the interests and achievements of boys, in
particular, can be secured by starting with direct exploration of materials or the use of
ICT’ [20]. At a later stage in the interview the pupil comments on the acoustic
potential of the gallery space, ‘Surroundings... kind of, we just shout and echo’. In
this different space he revels in the materiality of ‘noise’ recognising that certain
spaces afford a different acoustic, a place to foreground sound. This recognition
reinforces his preferences for non-logocentric, physical experiences, preferences that
in contemporary art are valued as multimodal resources [21].

Strategies to encourage ownership

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