‘The best day in my whole entire life’ – Young Children, Wellbeing and the Arts

Abstract For more than 25 years, a large percentage of young Australian children has been involved in arts and cultural experiences, but very little systematic information has been gathered to understand what they gain from these encounters. This article investigates young children’s cultural engagement and wellbeing within a festival experience – as creators making work for an exhibition at the festival, and as consumers participating in theatre, dance and festival activities. The case study involved 105 children (64 girls and 41 boys, aged 7 years 11 months to 9 years 1 month) and used a mixed methods approach incorporating quantitative surveys, qualitative focus groups and participant observation. Though the surveys did not show any changes in children’s views of wellbeing before, during or after the festival, focus group conversations revealed almost unanimous perspectives of positive wellbeing after the festival. The findings indicate that children’s wellbeing is a complex phenomenon that may be best explored using composite standpoints of children, teachers, parents and artists for achieving a clearer understanding.