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.

This study reveals the impact of an exemplar narrative arts learning programme on the self-concept of Grade 9 learners in the Life Orientation classroom. The episodic narrative arts learning programme was designed in response to a suggestion in the government guidelines for Life Orientation and merged the outcomes for Arts and Culture and Life Orientation. The aims of narrative counselling were employed to allow the learners to tell their stories to themselves and others. The arts component, based on the arts therapies, allowed the learners an opportunity to give visual substance to their individual and collective narratives through arts activities that occurred within a small group. Brief video recordings were made of each group’s interactions during the narrative arts episodes in order to compile an edited video overview of the process that could be screened for the learners on completion of the programme. The aims of positive psychology were embedded in the structure and design of the arts episodes and activities. This is an interpretive study with a phenomenological focus, because the lived experiences of the participants and the teacher-researcher are paramount and the narrative element in the study necessitates the inclusion of the postmodern paradigm. This qualitative arts-based research project is based on a two-month Life Orientation learning programme that occurred during school hours on the grounds of a faith-based school. Forty-seven learners were divided into six small groups of approximately eight learners each in which they remained for the duration of the programme and were assigned to a specific teacher-facilitator. Fourteen learners volunteered to participate in four rounds of interviews, which were conducted with each participant to determine the impact of the narrative arts activities on the self-concept over the course of the programme. The transcribed interview responses were interpreted and classified according to five predetermined self-concept domains established by an examination of literature. Data analysis occurred in four cycles which align with the four rounds of interviews. Two data analysis approaches were employed and the data triangulated: a scientifically-accountable and a more intuitive approach. Findings based on the interpreted interview responses of these 14 participants indicate that the exemplar narrative arts programme primarily impacted on two self-concept domains, namely the social and personal-emotional domains. The participants’ self-descriptors revealed that the small group arts activity context allowed them to become gradually more other focused and stimulated varied measures of self-insight and self-growth. Once the limitations are recognised, the study could contribute to the inclusion of more arts-based assignments in Life Orientation programmes to aid the development of self-concept, the inclusion of this particular exemplar approach in more educational settings, openness to “team teaching” in the high school and more innovative applications of video recording within an educational or research setting. The exemplar narrative arts approach is a means for strengthening psychological support services in the school, because it reinforces the formulation of identity by allowing learners an opportunity to become actively busy writing and living their life stories / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

This research was simultaneously collective and individual. In this dissertation, my team and I inquired into what it means to undertake playbuilding as qualitative research and be a practitioner, specifically focusing on the roles of artist, researcher, and educator from an applied theatre graduate student perspective. I drew upon the methodological and theoretical frameworks of playbuilding as qualitative research and a/r/tography. Playbuilding as qualitative research offers creative methods for un/re/covering collective and affective ways of knowing. A/r/tography offers the opportunity to explore self and roles through art-making and reflexivity. For me, both are manifestations of the same creative impulse to make meaning and generate new understandings expressed through different perspectives and processes. This research consisted of a cohort of applied theatre graduate students who collectively explored and devised a play on what it means to be an artist/researcher/educator. The play, To Spin a Red Yarn: Enacting Artist/Researcher/Teacher stands as an artefact to the collectives’ generation, interpretation, and performance of research. In addition, I wrote an exegesis that spins my individual story within our collective. The exegesis, Behind the Curtain, extends the world of the play into the text by taking the reader on a dramatic journey through soliloquizing as dialogue. As a result of this study, I theorized a translated a/r/tographical framework into theatre- based language for the use by practitioners that is rooted in theatre practitioner praxis (theory and practice). This praxis-based study was intended to provide knowledge for artist-researchers, educators, and theatre-makers. This research offers artists/researchers/educators access to more stories, insights, and ideas about what it means to be a theatre-based artist/researcher/educator undertaking playbuilding as qualitative research. This research opens up rich possibilities that are commonplace to theatre-makers and performing artists on how different theatrical conventions could be used in playbuilding as qualitative research. For theatre-makers who are interested in combining theatre with academic research, it offers another paradigm to consider, expand, and interconnect the work that they do. Likewise, for a/r/tographers who are theatre-based, this research offers a way to conceive the work they do rooted in theatre-based language. / Graduate / 0465 / 0516 / 0727 / bishopk@uvic.ca

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:42:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Jade Pena Magave.pdf: 7217758 bytes, checksum: ba7f70c1f369db8325a72e36759c91a5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-12-01 / What is the role of art within the Academy? How can art be conceived as something beyond a contemplative object and become an active base for research? Such questions, which inquire about the potential of art as a way of knowledge, will give the guide lines to this work on Arts-Based Research, allowing us to rethink the role of art in the academic research and, more generally, aiming for a deeper understanding of art as a way of thought. With that in mind, this research addresses questions regarding the relation between art and knowledge and for that it explores the Arts-Based Research field based on the writings of Elliot Eisner and Tom Barone (2012); Joaquin Roldan and Ricardo Marin Viadel (2012). The Arts-Based Research is also analyzed in a case study: six papers presented during the 1st Conference on Arts-based Research and Artistic Research held in Barcelona in 2012. Furthermore, this work includes some visual and verbal narratives, expanding the reflection and analysis of the potential use of art in research, as well as emphasizing the importance of creation processes in the construction of knowledge in academic research. / Qual o papel da arte dentro da Academia? Como a arte pode ser mais do que um objeto contemplativo para se tornar uma base ativa de pesquisa? Perguntas como essas, que questionam o potencial da arte enquanto forma de conhecimento, norteiam este trabalho que busca na Pesquisa Baseada em Arte um meio de repensar o papel da arte na pesquisa acadêmica e, de uma forma mais geral, busca aprofundar o entendimento da arte como forma de pensamento. Assim, essa pesquisa se dirige a questões quanto à relação entre arte e conhecimento e para isso explora a Pesquisa Baseada em Arte tomando por base os escritos de Elliot Eisner e Tom Barone (2012), Joaquin Roldán e Ricardo Marín Viadel (2012). A Pesquisa Baseada em Arte é também analisada em um estudo de caso: seis trabalhos apresentados na 1st Conference on Arts- Based and Artistic Research realizada em Barcelona em 2012. No decorrer do trabalho são apresentadas narrativas visuais e verbais ampliando a reflexão e análise das potencialidades do uso da arte na pesquisa ressaltando a importância dos processos de criação no processo de construção de conhecimento em uma pesquisa acadêmica.

As the number of non-native English speakers in US schools continues to rise, there is growing need to find a way to teach English while still engaging with students’ fluid identities around citizenship and national identity. This MFA thesis document explores the impact of an autobiographical playbuilding project with refugee and immigrant youth. The mixed-methods study uses a quantitative performance assessment scale and grounded theory analysis of playscript and performance to examine how students’ definition and understanding of citizenship is activated through the pedagogy and practice of theatre. Throughout, this document argues that arts-based research practices can support both qualitative and quantitative research goals. However the findings suggest that qualitative research offers a more complex understanding of potential program impacts. The document concludes with a discussion of the tensions between research and practice when applied theatre is facilitated in an educational context. / text

The purpose of this research study was to explore how the significance of place serves as a part of Indigenous—specifically Diné (Navajo)—education cultural responsiveness in the art classroom. Further, objectives of the study included learning how North American art teacher educators can more effectively weave Indigenous understandings of place into pre-service art teacher education to benefit Indigenous learners' needs. I employed a qualitative approach to this study using multiple methodologies: ethnography, phenomenology, an Indigenous research methodology, and arts-based research. Through personal interviews with six participants—two Diné artists, two art teacher educators, and two unfamiliar art teachers new to reservation-serving schools—I sought to locate culturally situated perspectives and values. The goal of the interviews was to gather ideas about the significance of place, about relationships between place and art, and about art teacher preparation for teaching in Diné-serving schools. The design of the study also included new unfamiliar non-Diné art teacher preconceptions and in-situ learning experiences of teaching on the reservation. Beyond the participant interviews, I engaged an arts-based exploration of my experiences with Diné people as an outsider/insider member of the Diné community. The artwork I created also helped weave together data from participant interviews. Findings from the Diné artist participants suggested that places hold significance in Diné culture, art making, and the display or use of art. According to Diné epistemological perspective, place is more than just a physical location, and different from some mainstream ideas about place. For Diné interviewees, place is a container of aspects of life such as energies, nature, spirits, people, and a multitude of other significances, some tangible and some intangible. Findings from interviews with art teacher educators of other Indigenous groups also indicated that place is significant to many Native American peoples, and the idea of that significance is difficult to transmit to Euro-American pre-service teachers. Interviews also indicate that focusing teaching education on social justice theories and employing Native American art and artists can assist in the preparation of pre-service art teachers to teach in reservation or pueblo communities. However, there are deeply rooted cultural concepts that come into play once the new teacher reaches her/his teaching assignment community. Lastly, findings revealed that new unfamiliar art teachers experience a number of obstacles upon entering Diné communities when their prior understandings about the place is limited. Challenges include understanding acceptable cultural observances, student proclivities, and art making practices. Understanding significance of place, stereotyping concerns, and positionality challenges are among the themes that arose as a result of cross-participant analyses. The implications of this research study advocate for: a) building further knowledge about educating pre-service teachers about cultural relevance, stereotyping, and positionality in Native American-serving art classrooms; b) the need for continued cultural learning and mentoring in-situ; and c) the need for unfamiliar art teachers to develop culturally relevant teaching practices with the help of people in the community.

Internet Memes transverse and sometimes transcend cyberspace on the back of impossibly cute LOLcats speaking mangled English and the snarky remarks of Image Macro characters always on the lookout for someone to undermine. No longer the abstract notion of a cultural gene that Dawkins (2006) introduced in the late 1970s, memes have now become synonymous with a particular brand of vernacular language that internet users engage by posting, sharing and remixing digital content as they communicate jokes, emotions and opinions. For the purpose of this research the language of Internet Memes is understood as visual, succinct and capable of inviting active engagement by users who encounter digital content online that exhibits said characteristics. Internet Memes were explored through an Arts-Based Educational Research framework by first identifying the conventions that shape them and then interrogating these conventions during two distinct research phases. In the first phase the researcher, as a doctoral student in art and visual culture education, engaged class readings and assignments by generating digital content that not only responded to the academic topics at hand but did so through forms associated with Internet Memes like Image Macros and Animated GIFs. In the second phase the researcher became a meme literacy facilitator as learners in three different age-groups were led in the reading, writing and remixing of memes during a month-long summer art camp where they were also exposed to other art-making processes such as illustration, acting and sculpture. Each group of learners engaged age-appropriate meme types: 1) the youngest group, 6 and 7 year-olds, wrote Emoji Stories and Separated at Birth memes; 2) the middle group, 8-10 year-olds, worked with Image Macros and Perception memes, 3) while the oldest group, 11-13 year-olds, generated Image Macros and Animated GIFs. The digital content emerging from both research phases was collected as data and analyzed through a hybrid of Memetics, Actor-Network Theory, Object Oriented Ontology, Remix Theory and Glitch Studies as the researcher shifted shapes yet again and became a Research Jockey sampling freely from each field of study. A case is made for Internet Memes to be understood as an actor-network where meme collectives, individual cybernauts, software and source material are all actants interrelating and making each other enact collective agencies through shared authorships. Additionally specific educational contexts are identified where the language of Internet Memes can serve to incorporate technology, storytelling, visual thinking and remix practices into art and visual culture education. Finally, the document reporting on the research expands on the hermeneutics of Internet Memes and the phenomenological experiences they elicit that are otherwise absent from traditional scholarly prose. Chapter by chapter the dissertation was crafted as a journey from the academic to the whimsical, from the lecture hall to the image board (where Internet Memes were born), from the written word to the remixed image as a visual language that is equal parts form and content that emerges and culminates in a concluding chapter composed almost entirely of popular Internet Meme types. An online component can be found at http://memeducation.org/

This thesis portfolio presents an autoethnographic account of a prison educator engaged in a research project that explores creative approaches to arts, prison education, work and training in custodial settings. The position of the researcher is located in-between and across professional practices including arts in prisons, prison education, work and training environments, which have conflicting agendas that, nevertheless, share the same institutional space. Policymakers and management bodies regulating these professional practices expect education and training to contribute to reducing reoffending. Procedurally, the research process was precariously balanced between, on the one hand, performing to measures of quality based on the requirement to reduce recidivism, and on the other, crude outcome measures driven by a utilitarian marketization of prison education that includes course completion rates calculated on the basis of minimum contact time. This broader context created an uncertain and constantly shifting context for the research, which began with my search for an effective creative practice in a Performing Arts Department (PAD) and ends in a Functional English classroom (FEC). Conceptually, the research draws on the What Works debate (McGuire, 1995; Brayford et al. 2010), which continues to create a disjuncture between policy and implementation resulting from unrealistic assumptions that arts and education programmes in prison might prevent reoffending, with evidence relying solely upon randomisation, reductive causation and numerical calculation. It also draws on desistance theory (Maruna, 2001; McNeil, 2006), which argues that desistance from crime can be understood as an indirect process, rather than an event. From an examination of my efforts to implement and develop creative approaches to education via autoethnographic tools, including fictional performative writing, I argue two main points. Firstly, the autonomy required by the creative prison educator engaged in an advanced research project re-positions the professional in a particular relationship with the bewildering processes of power, protectionism and performance management in the criminal justice system. Secondly, and as demonstrated through fictional performative writing, I argue that research methods engaging voices from the frontline of educational environments, can reveal seemingly small details relating to the challenges and possibilities of creative education in prisons that, nonetheless, have significant implications for developing productive and innovative approaches to desistance from crime. Moreover, from this grounded, yet restricted position, I speculate how such approaches might extend both creativity and creatively beyond the validation of this doctorate qualification.