Following is a study that explores learning in community in a fully-integrated, team taught course at a community college in New England. These classes, Learning Communities (LCs) represent rich opportunities for exploring and practicing democratic education. From a theoretical grounding in social learning theories and an exploration into learning and community as active, ongoing phenomena, I present narrative, relational research as enactment. Data from field notes, interviews, focus groups and researcher reflections inform findings and analysis. I represent this as an experience parallel to -- not claiming either to mirror or replace -- the experiences of the other participants. In these findings, I identify a duality of circles and lines, with circles representing open inquiry, community, collaboration, and democratic discourse. Lines represent reification, hierarchical and binary thinking, and the threat of positivism. Long hours, intense interactions, openness to collaboration, flexible pedagogy, and emerging curriculum all make for complicated relationships that allow for questions, confusions and tensions around what it means to know, who gets to decide, and what are the parameters and epistemologies of academic disciplines. I hope, through this text, to report, celebrate, and participate in these conversations.

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<p>Grounded in postmodern and social constructionist theories, this research was designed to challenge 'mainstream' views of social work practice. Three social workers with extensive backgrounds in various social work roles were asked to submit individual arts-based representations of 'alternative' social work. The arts-based representations (a story, a tool box, and a medicine wheel) were shared in a focus group where the topics of mainstream and alternative social work were collectively explored. I present an analysis of the representations, offer a brief structural narrative analysis of how the participants talked about mainstream and alternative social work, and explore the dissonance surrounding the term 'alternative social work.'</p> <p>The findings indicate that social workers who are interested in, or identify with alternative social work implement creative strategies to balance many, often conflicting, responsibilities and commitments. At the core of this study is a fundamental ideological tension in how social work is understood. The focus group revealed that what is commonly identified as 'alternative' social work, is judged by these research participants as 'good' social work. Rather than being a form of resistance to mainstream social work, alternative social work appears as a means of implementing participants' visions of effective, responsible and humane practice.</p> <p>This study highlights how social workers struggle to represent themselves and their (desired) practice in today's political context. Images of 'good practice' offer insight into how social workers can and do respond to neoliberal pressures; these images and participants' reflections on them have potential to widen public and professional consciousness.</p> / Master of Social Work (MSW)

The aim of this arts-based research study was to experience, analyze, and gain insight into songs written by adolescents who have had adverse childhood experiences and who identify with Hip Hop culture. This study investigated the aesthetic components of eleven songs including their musical elements, the compositional techniques, the affective-intuitive qualities, and the interaction between the music and the lyrics. An arts-based research design, rooted in the ethos of Hip Hop, was employed to gain a holistic understanding of the songs. My artistic encounters and subsequent analyses of the songs revealed the complex inner struggles and developmental challenges for adolescents who have experienced extreme trauma. Three groupings of songs emerged: Songs that Protect Vulnerability, Songs of Abandonment, and Songs of Faith and Love. Each category reflects a different stage of developmental growth for the songwriters. Employing Fowler's (1981/1995) stages of faith development, a music-centered developmental model of therapeutic songwriting with adolescents is proposed in this study. This model consists of three therapeutic songwriting stages: Imitation, Developing Self-Reflection, and Developing Self-Love. The implications for this study include developing an arts-based method of song analysis for students and professionals, developing a music-centered therapeutic songwriting assessment, developing a perspective for music therapy practice and research rooted in the ethos of Hip Hop, and developing longitudinal arts-based research studies that track the life of songs across various stages of developmental growth. / Music Therapy

The purpose of this study was to examine the ways in which the academic and professional experiences of Black people in American music therapy reflect current attitudes within the field towards diversity and cultural awareness, and how understanding those experiences can lead to enhanced, culturally sensitive practice. An arts-based narrative inquiry methodology using poetry was employed as a means to understand the experiences of Black people in the field through artistic forms that invite readers to enter the affective worlds of the participants. A total of 10 music therapy students, clinicians and educators participated in open-ended, semi-structured interviews. Transcripts of these interviews were analyzed for thematic material as well as to provide content for poems in the participants’ voices that described their experiences. Additionally, the researcher created poems responding to each participant that reflected on aspects of the interactions, content and sub-text of the interviews. All poems were analyzed for thematic material. That material was compared with previously derived themes out of which seven main themes emerged. Those themes are: things and people are not as they seem; being the only one/one of a few; self-definition versus being defined by others; adding value to the field; dealing with the status quo; calling for greater cultural awareness, acceptance and equality; and importance of support. Findings indicated that participants did not feel as if they fully belonged in the profession and that the music therapy community inconsistently recognized and addressed the need for diversity, cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity. Implications for music therapy training and practice, along with recommendations for the field and future research are also presented. / Music Therapy

In recent years, a multitude of literature have discussed the turbulent nature for young adults to navigate the difficulties of suicide bereavement with lack of support. This experience can be further cumbersome when the bereavement is co-occurring within an academic profession, such as attending university. This study explored three participants experience of suicide bereavement support at a university level, utilizing a phenomenological arts-based approach for inquiry. Data analysis revealed eight common themes that reflect the university students' lived experiences of the phenomenon discussed: Acknowledgment of the communicated loss by faculty, provision of academic support, lack/absence of practice, reluctance, emotional response, non-faculty support, recall, omission. The findings within this study highlight the unique nature of arts expression and the use of it as a communicative tool to those experiencing a death loss. Results suggest a reluctance to disclose for fear of a further loss of professionalism within the University setting and the absence of a solidified grievance plan that left individuals feeling further unsupported. Furthermore, individuals spoke to a heightened need for meaning making of the experience to facilitate the bereavement process and a reliance on the self rather than community due to previous fears of disclosure. Our understanding of suicide bereavement would benefit from an inclusion of non-art affiliated participants, a wider sample size and individuals that associate outside of the female identification for a more diverse range of experiences.

Our current times are marked by the unprecedented challenges of environmental and social crisis. Transformative changes need to take place and in this study, we explore the role of Gotlandic citizens engaged in sustainability in creating a sustainable future. We follow a recent scholarship focusing on the power of imagination in the context of shaping sustainable futures. Through the theory lens of spaces, we map Gotlandic citizens’ individual experiences of context where they engage with sustainability in different forms of rational and imaginative reflection, alone or together. We conduct qualitative interviews to investigate existing spaces combined with action research where we create a new space of shared imagination in the form of a workshop. An in-depth understanding is gained of the reactions and emotions that our study participants express towards all of these spaces. Going beyond the (k)now, both in the meaning of going beyond traditional forms of knowledge but also in the sense of going into an uncertain future, allowed us to investigate the role of arts-based imagination in the context of an island community. Our findings suggest that spaces for practicing imagination are lacking, but are highly valued when experienced. They provide an alert hopefulness and a gentle way for ordinary citizens to engage with the complex topic of sustainable futures. Another key result of our study is that communities are important spaces where collective visions can grow.