This arts-based research study is an examination of the influence of drama education on the development of high school students. Five recent graduates were interviewed (including the researcher) about their high school drama experiences. All participants had been selected for this study because they have been impacted as a result of their time in/with drama. Culminating in a script, the research takes the form of an arts-based playwriting inquiry, shaped by A/r/tography and rhizomatic influences, making use of Barone and Eisner’s five phase creative process. Adhering to an Aristotelean story arc outlined by Martini, metaphor in the four-scene play is used to explore and subsequently communicate concepts. In so doing, the researcher offers an expanded audience a renewed perspective on the impact that drama education has on the development of high school learners and invites viewers to consider drama’s impact on adolescent learners. Four main concepts were examined in the analysis: initiation, transition, habits of mind and, interdependency and it was found that these are central to all participants’ development. It was also found that learning contained within these four concepts, as experienced through drama education, has the potential to impact and equip students for life beyond high school. The process based, holistic learning central to drama education allowed participants to recognize and succinctly denote areas in their lives that were, and continue to be impacted by the dramatic experiences they took part in. / May 2017

Increased metacognition, social-emotional growth, and career viability are all researched benefits of including the arts as part of core content instruction, with even greater impact for struggling students, English Language Learners, and students with special needs. Some turnaround schools that are federally funded School Improvement Grant (SIG) schools are beginning to implement an arts-rich method of school reform by teaching core content both through and in the arts. This approach is most often presented as a choice in the high-stakes testing environment of turnaround schools. Since teachers have the most direct impact on students, yet a relatively low amount of authorship in the way school reform is approached, their voice and experience is highlighted in this phenomenological study. The participants are from three public turnaround schools in the South. The researcher used traditional research methods layered with an arts-based research approach mirroring the techniques used in an arts-rich classroom. The researcher found that participants experienced their work as a vocational calling, used methods of engaged pedagogy, and experienced a number of roadblocks to their work. They swiftly moved through these roadblocks to create pathways leveraging the arts to change their curriculum and classroom contexts, applied the arts as an access point for content areas, and then experienced the use of an art-rich classroom as a contagious practice. Potential implications for this study include a scalable model for turnaround schools, investment in engaged pedagogical practice for turnaround schools, and increased agility for teachers to become curriculum bricoleurs.

Through the creation of a graphic novel based on a Romanian Holocaust survivor’s testimony, this study attempts to clarify the role of artistic creation in meaning-making during Holocaust and genocide education. In facilitating empathy and moral education, the creative process encourages a deeper exploration of these troubling topics than is possible within the confines of a traditional academic approach. In order to understand this process, I worked with the testimony of Zoly Zamir, who escaped Bucharest following the Iron Guard Rebellion of 1941. The creation of the graphic novel took me from Austin to Houston and Romania, where I sought to trace the echoes of history in architecture and environment. Translating Zamir’s story into word and image produced an empathetic bond to the narrative and the region, facilitating a deeper understanding of the hows and whys of the Holocaust. That engagement spurred a desire to continue to ask questions, to look beyond a regimented understanding and view the broader implications of the history. / text

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For this study, the researcher sought to implement a visual arts-based Afrivisual to help inspire, motivate and empower African American students in gaining a culturally relevant education in Euro-American-centered schools. Using the Afrivisual in this work as an action-oriented tool the researcher sought to expose African American students to an African historical context. This research project utilized three African-centered theoretical frameworks: (1) Afrocentricity, (2) Africana Philosophy, and (3) Africana Critical Theory. The problem this work addresses is found in four areas, (1) American history is Eurocentric, (2) African history has been distorted, (3) Africa’s contribution to world civilization has been ignored, and (4) African American students have suffered from identity issues. The primary purpose of the study was to show how African American students may react to culturally relevant exposure to African history and to investigate if exposure to African history is culturally relevant for them. The researcher also hoped to present an effective strategy for Black students from an African-centered point of view. The central questions of this study were, “How do native-born African American community college students respond to a culturally relevant visual tool? What experiences have they had with history? How has their exposure to history affected them?” Both quantitative and qualitative phases of this study were based on data and interviews with African American community college students. Descriptive statistics, including frequency percentages shown in tables were used to present the questionnaire data. Qualitative coding techniques were used to present the focus group data. The qualitative phase of the study highlighted the introduction of the Afrivisual, a visual arts-based and culturally relevant educational tool. There were similarities between the survey sample and the interview sample. The quantitative and qualitative data combined to show the strong desire African American students have to study African history, African civilizations, and to learn about their African ancestors. The triangulation of the data revealed that African American students who were found to be proud to be Black, vowed to be vigilant in future history classes about what they’re being taught, and to present questions about African history. The students also expressed a tremendous need to share what they’ve learned about African history with other African Americans. The significance of this study is that the Afrivisual can be a potentially effective teaching strategy. Also additional researchers may be able to build upon the findings of this inquiry by using another media form of the Afrivisual. Lastly, it exposed weaknesses in the self-hatred thesis as it applies to African American adults, and called for the groundbreaking theoretical framework to be revisited.

Children’s experiences are the cornerstone of all that matters in elementary schools. It is therefore the purpose of this study to shed further light into what those experiences might be, particularly as they are present in arts-infused education. Over a period of almost two school years I followed a group of primary grade students in and out of their classrooms at Central Arts Elementary School in an urban mid-Western Canadian school district. Through conversation, recordings, artwork, scripts, and visual images, as teacher-researcher-artist, I collected a series of moments that I believe best describes the nature of these students’ experiences in arts-infused education. Concepts of identity, place, imagination, and self were explored. I considered the lived curriculum of the classroom, and also the ways in which the children’s experiences with the arts resonated alongside my own artistic endeavours. The study is a multi-method inquiry informed by arts-based, narrative, and ethnographical research practices. There are elements of ethnodrama, in the ways in which some events are portrayed through scripted descriptions in a concluding chapter of the work. Children’s art, and the art of classroom life are revealed through both image and text. Puppets, masks, and a variety of other artistic media are brought forward for the purposes of consideration and discussion. In all, the work is unique in its attention to the words of children, and extended researcher engagement. Implications of the study include the importance of listening to children when they speak, continuing to offer the arts as pathways to greater awareness in schools, and considering children’s relationships as powerful mentoring experiences for one another.

This study explores how self-imposed limitations affect anxieties about art-making and the art-making process. As a teacher, I was interested in how limitations affected student art-making. I used arts-based research methodology to explore spiritual and personal quandaries in my own life through the process of art-making. A consistent thread throughout this investigation was using the process of making art as a way to gain understanding about my own life and teaching. I was also able to create a culture of vulnerability and honesty in my classroom and help my students embrace themselves and their physical, emotional, and situational limitations through the art-making process.

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Through this study, I aim to increase understanding of how young moms experience, perceive, make meaning, and conceptualize positive support within the context of service provision (education, residential services, legal services, healthcare etc.). More broadly, I aim to illuminate ways that societal notions of vulnerability and autonomy may be shifted to offer improved quality of support to young mothers and other marginalized communities. Such a shift would counter paternalistic attitudes that have historically influenced how “support” has been imposed on young mothers. Although a full transformation would take time, we may begin to undertake the necessary work of reimagining support, gradually shifting towards the goal of building capabilities toward relational autonomy. 25 moms from diverse socio-economic backgrounds in Ontario, Canada, between the ages of 16-25 years, participated in creating visual art images and/or verbally sharing what support meant to them. I engaged in a relational approach to interaction and dialogue, centering a praxis of reflexivity and ethical treatment of everyone involved in the interview process. Guided by a critical feminist framework that included intersectionality, maternal theory, and vulnerability theory, I engaged in a feminist phenomenological approach to the analysis of transcripts and co-constructed visual analysis of imagery with the moms. Study findings reveal how service provision contexts are shaped by traditional ways of understanding vulnerability and autonomy as a binary and in opposition to one another, with an overvaluation of invulnerability. Yet young moms describe that they understand positive support as a combination of both responses to the effects of exposure to sources of vulnerability and as efforts to build autonomy in relationships with service providers, infrastructure, and broader communities of care. In addition, young moms describe positive qualities of service design and delivery, such as being non-judgemental, reliable, and sensitive, with attuned and caring interactions. The combination of these qualities can facilitate a process of internalization of positive attitudes, culminating in the development of an identity as a confident caregiver. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Through this critical feminist arts-based study, I aim to increase understanding of how young moms make meaning of the concept of positive support within the context of service provision. 25 moms in Ontario, Canada, between the ages of 16-25 years, participated in creating visual art images and/or verbally sharing what support meant to them. I engaged in a relational approach to interviewing, and a feminist phenomenological approach to the analysis of transcripts and visual analysis of imagery. Study findings reveal how service provision contexts are shaped by traditional ways of understanding the concepts of vulnerability and autonomy as a binary and in opposition to one another. Yet young moms asserted that effective forms of positive support must be designed and delivered as a combination of both a response to the effects of exposure to sources of vulnerability and as efforts made to build autonomy in-connection to others and the world(s) around us.