abstract: The purpose of this study is to raise questions by exploring, writing, imagining, and telling the musical life stories of Billy Cioffi. Billy Cioffi is a professional musician, band leader, private teacher, professor of English, and, formerly, a musical director for acts such as Chuck Berry, Del Shannon, and others. In this document I explore the life of Billy Cioffi with the following questions in mind: 1. What might Billy's musical experiences, expertise, teaching, and learning teach us about music education? 2. What might the story of Billy’s musical life cause us to question about institutional music education? 3. How might his story trouble beliefs and perceptions about music teaching and learning? Prior to Billy’s story, which appears as a novella, I raise questions about popular music, its histories, and its place in music education contexts. Following the novella, I invite readers into four different “endings” to this document. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Music Education 2017

Este trabalho se insere na área de Educação Musical, especificamente na educação musical escolar, vista sob a perspectiva dos alunos. Teve como objetivo compreender os significados que as participantes atribuem às experiências que tiveram nas aulas de música da escola. A pesquisa baseia-se em princípios metodológicos e epistemológicos do método (auto)biográfico, a partir de Bolívar (2012) e Abrahão (2004), em diálogo com a pesquisa narrativa de Connelly e Clandinin (1990) e Clandinin (2006). Participaram desta pesquisa duas estudantes do 1º ano do ensino médio, ex-alunas do pesquisador, que tiveram aulas de música na escola durante a educação infantil e séries iniciais e que, em encontros ocasionais com seu ex-professor de música, manifestavam sentir saudades das aulas. Para a produção de informações foram realizados um encontro preliminar e três entrevistas narrativas com as participantes. A análise narrativa das informações produziu sete tramas que resultaram em sete textos narrativos. Os textos narram diferentes tipos de significação atribuída pelas participantes às aulas de música. Os primeiros textos as mostram significando as aulas de música como parte de um conjunto de experiências que constituem a época da qual elas sentem saudades e como momento de integração entre fenômeno sonoro e movimento corporal. Elas também identificam a influência das aulas de música em quem elas são hoje e mostram que, dependendo da perspectiva, podem considerá-las ou não como momentos de aprendizagem musical. A aula é caracterizada como agradável pelo modo animado como o professor atua, pela autonomia dos estudantes na realização das tarefas, pelo aspecto socializador e pelo resultado esteticamente bonito da prática musical. A aula é caracterizada como agradável pelo modo animado como o professor atua, pela autonomia dos estudantes na realização das tarefas, pelo aspecto socializador e pelo resultado esteticamente bonito da prática musical. As participantes consideram importante e desejável ter aulas de música em seu nível de ensino atual, mas encontram dificuldades em conceber isso na prática. Em um tempo futuro de suas vidas, elas projetam que a música terá importante significado. As articulações entre as tramas narrativas permitem argumentar que há relação entre a caracterização da aula de música como experiência agradável e sua não significação como momento de aprendizagem musical. Essa relação passa pelo modo como os espaços de aprendizagem são constituídos pela cultura escolar. Permitem também perceber que as participantes constroem os significados das aulas de música a partir da característica coletiva pela qual o dia-a-dia das experiências musicais que vivenciaram está estruturado. Finalmente, essas articulações sugerem que cada participante tem seu modo particular de se relacionar com as experiências da aula de música e esse modo norteia a produção de significados que atribuem a elas. Uma delas se conecta pelo aspecto das relações sociais de integração proporcionadas pela aula de música e a outra através do aspecto prático, do fazer musical. A pesquisa contribui para ampliar a compreensão do significado das aulas de música na escola trazendo a perspectiva de estudantes que estão longe dessa prática há mais de quatro anos. O trabalho procura relacionar a produção de significados das participantes a um contexto escolar maior e, com isso, chama atenção para a complexidade de ações envolvidas nessa produção. / This work is set on Musical Education research field, particularly on the musical education at school, considered from the students’ perspective. It aimed to comprehend meanings that participants assign to the experiences lived in musical education at school. It is based on methodological and epistemological principles of (self)biographical research method, from Bolívar (2012) and Abrahão (2004) in dialogue with narrative inquiry of Connelly and Clandinin (1990) e Clandinin (2006). Participants of this research were two first year high school students, former researcher´s music students, that took music education at school on kindergarten and elementary levels and that told their former teacher, occasionally, they missed music classes. Information was produced by one preliminary meeting and three narrative interview with participants. Narrative analysis built seven plots that generated seven narrative texts. Texts narrates different kind of signification that participants assign to the music class. In the first texts participants signify music classes as a part of a set of experiences that constitute the time that they miss and as an integration moment between sound and body movement. They also identify music class influences in who they are in present and demonstrates that they may or may not signify music class as musical learning moments, according to the point of view. Music class is characterized as enjoyable because of the lively way that the teacher works, of the students’ autonomy in doing activities, the socializing aspect and the beautiful musical practice production. Participants consider that is an important and desirable issue in their current scholar level to have music class, but they find difficulties in conceiving that practically. In future, participants project that music will have important meaning for them. Articulations between narrative plots allow argue that there is a relationship between characterizing music class at school as an enjoyable experience and not signifying it as a musical learning moment. This relationship has to do with how learning places are constituted by scholar culture. They also allow us to perceive that participants built the meanings of music class from an essentially collective characteristic that structures musical experiences that participants lived. Finally, these articulations suggest that each participant has a particular way to relate to the music class experiences and this way guides the production of meaning they assign to music classes. One participant connects through social relation aspect the music class provides and the other one connects through the aspect of practice, musical practicing. This research contributes to extend the understanding of the meaning of music class at school taking the perspective of students that have been away of this practice for more than four years. This work wants to relate participants’ production of meaning to a wide scholar context and through this way it puts light to the complexity of the actions involved in that production.

Este trabalho se insere na área de Educação Musical, especificamente na educação musical escolar, vista sob a perspectiva dos alunos. Teve como objetivo compreender os significados que as participantes atribuem às experiências que tiveram nas aulas de música da escola. A pesquisa baseia-se em princípios metodológicos e epistemológicos do método (auto)biográfico, a partir de Bolívar (2012) e Abrahão (2004), em diálogo com a pesquisa narrativa de Connelly e Clandinin (1990) e Clandinin (2006). Participaram desta pesquisa duas estudantes do 1º ano do ensino médio, ex-alunas do pesquisador, que tiveram aulas de música na escola durante a educação infantil e séries iniciais e que, em encontros ocasionais com seu ex-professor de música, manifestavam sentir saudades das aulas. Para a produção de informações foram realizados um encontro preliminar e três entrevistas narrativas com as participantes. A análise narrativa das informações produziu sete tramas que resultaram em sete textos narrativos. Os textos narram diferentes tipos de significação atribuída pelas participantes às aulas de música. Os primeiros textos as mostram significando as aulas de música como parte de um conjunto de experiências que constituem a época da qual elas sentem saudades e como momento de integração entre fenômeno sonoro e movimento corporal. Elas também identificam a influência das aulas de música em quem elas são hoje e mostram que, dependendo da perspectiva, podem considerá-las ou não como momentos de aprendizagem musical. A aula é caracterizada como agradável pelo modo animado como o professor atua, pela autonomia dos estudantes na realização das tarefas, pelo aspecto socializador e pelo resultado esteticamente bonito da prática musical. A aula é caracterizada como agradável pelo modo animado como o professor atua, pela autonomia dos estudantes na realização das tarefas, pelo aspecto socializador e pelo resultado esteticamente bonito da prática musical. As participantes consideram importante e desejável ter aulas de música em seu nível de ensino atual, mas encontram dificuldades em conceber isso na prática. Em um tempo futuro de suas vidas, elas projetam que a música terá importante significado. As articulações entre as tramas narrativas permitem argumentar que há relação entre a caracterização da aula de música como experiência agradável e sua não significação como momento de aprendizagem musical. Essa relação passa pelo modo como os espaços de aprendizagem são constituídos pela cultura escolar. Permitem também perceber que as participantes constroem os significados das aulas de música a partir da característica coletiva pela qual o dia-a-dia das experiências musicais que vivenciaram está estruturado. Finalmente, essas articulações sugerem que cada participante tem seu modo particular de se relacionar com as experiências da aula de música e esse modo norteia a produção de significados que atribuem a elas. Uma delas se conecta pelo aspecto das relações sociais de integração proporcionadas pela aula de música e a outra através do aspecto prático, do fazer musical. A pesquisa contribui para ampliar a compreensão do significado das aulas de música na escola trazendo a perspectiva de estudantes que estão longe dessa prática há mais de quatro anos. O trabalho procura relacionar a produção de significados das participantes a um contexto escolar maior e, com isso, chama atenção para a complexidade de ações envolvidas nessa produção. / This work is set on Musical Education research field, particularly on the musical education at school, considered from the students’ perspective. It aimed to comprehend meanings that participants assign to the experiences lived in musical education at school. It is based on methodological and epistemological principles of (self)biographical research method, from Bolívar (2012) and Abrahão (2004) in dialogue with narrative inquiry of Connelly and Clandinin (1990) e Clandinin (2006). Participants of this research were two first year high school students, former researcher´s music students, that took music education at school on kindergarten and elementary levels and that told their former teacher, occasionally, they missed music classes. Information was produced by one preliminary meeting and three narrative interview with participants. Narrative analysis built seven plots that generated seven narrative texts. Texts narrates different kind of signification that participants assign to the music class. In the first texts participants signify music classes as a part of a set of experiences that constitute the time that they miss and as an integration moment between sound and body movement. They also identify music class influences in who they are in present and demonstrates that they may or may not signify music class as musical learning moments, according to the point of view. Music class is characterized as enjoyable because of the lively way that the teacher works, of the students’ autonomy in doing activities, the socializing aspect and the beautiful musical practice production. Participants consider that is an important and desirable issue in their current scholar level to have music class, but they find difficulties in conceiving that practically. In future, participants project that music will have important meaning for them. Articulations between narrative plots allow argue that there is a relationship between characterizing music class at school as an enjoyable experience and not signifying it as a musical learning moment. This relationship has to do with how learning places are constituted by scholar culture. They also allow us to perceive that participants built the meanings of music class from an essentially collective characteristic that structures musical experiences that participants lived. Finally, these articulations suggest that each participant has a particular way to relate to the music class experiences and this way guides the production of meaning they assign to music classes. One participant connects through social relation aspect the music class provides and the other one connects through the aspect of practice, musical practicing. This research contributes to extend the understanding of the meaning of music class at school taking the perspective of students that have been away of this practice for more than four years. This work wants to relate participants’ production of meaning to a wide scholar context and through this way it puts light to the complexity of the actions involved in that production.

This study takes a social constructionist approach, using narrative inquiry methods to analyse posts made by teenager girls on an online eating disorder forum. The study draws upon the sociology of childhood, which argues that children should be recognised as social actors, and as both ‘beings’ in the present, as well as future ‘becomings’. The study also draws upon the sociology of diagnosis, which recognizes the contested nature of diagnoses and medical authority in contemporary society. As lay people have increasing access to information, they have more power to challenge the ways in which their bodily experiences are constructed, as well as their potential medicalisation and demedicalisation.The study makes use of data from a website called TeenHelp, focusing specifically on the ‘eating disorders’ forum. Posts were selected from those made by girls aged 13 to 19 over the two years prior to the study (i.e. 1 April 1014 – 1 April 2016). Posts from 12 girls were analysed using narrative inquiry methods.The study identified the following six narratives: 1) identity narratives; 2) health narratives; 3) diagnostic narratives; 4) lay and expert narratives; 5) demedicalisation narratives and 6) recovery narratives. Importantly, these narratives do not exist in isolation from one another, but interact resulting in the ‘co-construction’ of eating disorders. These narratives are also not static, but are contested – constantly being challenged and negotiated on the forum.Overall, the posts analysed in this study showed that these teenage girls are always walking a fine line between being and becoming. They occupy a liminal space between being ‘thin’ and ‘fat’; between being ‘sick’ and ‘healthy’; between being ‘lay patients’ and ‘expert advisers’; between ‘treatment’ and ‘recovery’. The narratives analysed here show how these young women are wrestling with the complex notion of eating disorders as a potential source of identity, a medical diagnosis and condition which they may or may not ever fully recover from.

This study presents the process of creating a performance ethnography of my family’s narratives about familial chronic illness and disability. I label this process performing narrative medicine. By documenting and granularly analyzing the process of my performance ethnography, the following chapters provide a step-by-step discussion of how families communicate about chronic illness/disability through storytelling and humor, and how/what performance does as a method, metaphor and object of study to further our current communicative practices and understandings of chronic illness and disability in families. I argue that performing narrative medicine is a heuristic for families living with chronic illness and disability, and a method that may be used and applied outside the context of my own family. The chapters in my dissertation directly address the following questions: How does my performance work as embodied knowledge to gain greater understanding of the lived experience of familial disability/chronic illness? How does the use of humor as a communicative construct, and performance ethnography work as a practice of “performing narrative medicine?” What are our scholarly stakes in performing narrative? How too might binding narrative medicine to performance inform how we do qualitative research? How do the respective motions of narrative medicine and research practices/principles of performance ethnography converge and cross-fertilize each other? Does a work like narrative medicine endow storytelling and performance with a consequentiality? This performance ethnography of familial disability and chronic illness contributes to understandings of families dealing with chronic illness/disability, extends narrative medicine as a theoretical construct, and speaks to a long tradition of the practice of performance ethnography. Overall, performing narrative medicine reveals the underlying communication competencies at work in families living with chronic illness and disability. Through the use of humor and performance as a communication practice, I reveal the power of empathy. The power in realizing our own human capacities to relate to one another across differences, and continue the work of “living well.” This dissertation emphasizes the power of performance to constitute alternative ways of performing and understanding familial chronic illness, by emphasizing the work of creating, implementing and studying performance.

Doctor of Education / Department of Special Education, Counseling and Student Affairs / Warren J. White / The purpose of this case study was to explore how two people with language-based learning disabilities, who have graduated from Masters of Fine Arts Master’s (MFA) programs describe their coping mechanisms, career aspirations, and identity development as a result of being involved in the creative arts. This qualitative study was conducted with purposeful and criterion-based sampling. The participants must have graduated from a MFA program with a focus on a studio art and have a language-based learning disability. Arts-based narrative inquiry research was used to explore the manner in which each participant negotiated their path through multiple educational settings from K-12 to a terminal master’s degree. The participants’ narratives were articulated using a Bildungsroman format to share their coming of age story as their identities developed. Findings indicate the participants with language-based learning disabilities used multiple coping mechanisms to negotiate their path through the education settings they encountered as they grew into adults and completed terminal MFA degrees. They relied on extra time, isolation, help from others, and their creativity in an attempt to hide their language-based learning disabilities. The study raised implications about the amount of support students with learning disabilities have at each level of education. It also raised questions about what help students with disabilities need for long term success as they transition from one level of education to the next, this includes mental health support.

Although each of the life stories and cases of teachers are personal and specific, and although they have already become subjects of attention for anthropologists, educationalists, sociologists and psychologists, there is still a lack of in-depth research examining the actual processes and dynamics of teaching careers as experienced by individuals. This is especially true of China. The actual situation of teachers’ professional development in China remains a mystery. Since biography, the changes in society and their impact on education are intimately connected, this study intends to uncover and explore these connections in relation to Chinese College English teachers. It discusses and studies eight Chinese College English teachers’ professional development stories in the specific context of one university. The main aim of the study is to reveal how those teachers in a Chinese context and at different stages of their careers, construct, maintain and develop their professional identities. The study explores, in particular, how far China’s educational changes over the past sixty years (1949-2009) have impacted on these three groups of Chinese College English teachers’ professional identities. The focus on teachers’ lives in this study will enable the teachers’ voice to be heard. The study draws data from three groups of Chinese College English teachers: early-career, mid-career and late-career, reflecting the footprints of China’s educational changes over the past sixty years. It hypothesises that the professional identity construction of these teachers may be influenced by the Chinese historical background that their professional development may be a microcosm of Chinese history of education and that the career of each group may be in stark contrast with the others. To fully understand their professional development, a life history narrative was adopted. During eight-week’s fieldwork, a series of in-depth interviews combining topical interview with narrative interview were carried out with eight College English teachers at Sun Yat-sen University. A voice-centred approach combining (i) a voice-centred relational method of data analysis with four steps of reading and (ii) thematic narrative analysis was undertaken. Drawing on stories identified from Reading 1 and combining it with thematic narrative analysis method, I looked for what I think to be ‘critical events’. In Chapter 4, teachers’ stories are told in ‘I’ poems generated from Reading 2, which combines longer summaries of the content of the transcript and direct quotes to illustrate diverse and sometimes conflicting factors which influenced the development of teacher identity along with the participants’ professional teaching journeys. The narratives of each individual are guided by the processes they went through in their professional development (becoming a teacher - being a teacher - future development) and therefore were able to illustrate any general patterns that could be found in other interviews. Participating teachers’ stories illustrate the complexity of the experiences of Chinese College English teachers. Their experiences have shown the dynamic nature of teachers’ professional identity construction in times of educational changes. Their stories illustrate how the broader sociocultural and political context shapes teachers’ professional identity and how teachers play out their agency throughout the process of their professional identity construction. Based on roles emerging from Reading 2 which focuses on how the teachers speak about themselves and combining it with thematic narrative analysis, teachers’ professional identity construction is examined through the lens of what they do (their professional role identities) in Chapter 5. The findings show that no matter which career stages they were at, they are all capable of taking on the roles of manager, professional, acculturator and researcher. The construction of role identities is a self-internalised process, which needs continuous negotiation through interactions in specific social settings. In Chapter 6 teachers’ professional identity construction of the relational context of teaching was explored by combining thematic narrative analysis with Reading 3 which focuses on how teachers talked about themselves in relation to others. From the difference between teachers at different career stages, the findings reveal the teachers’ professional identity construction is a process of self-mirroring based on their understanding of how others (especially students and colleagues) perceive them. Moreover, there are two steps of the self-mirroring process: the individual recognises who she or he is and the individual identifies her or his uniqueness. Since the second step only showed in the mid and late-career teachers’ stories, the first and second step appears to be in a sequence. The connection between the teachers’ professional identity construction and the context was investigated in Chapter 7. In this chapter thematic narrative analysis is combined with Reading 4 which sets the context by placing the teachers within the cultural context and social structure. Analysis showed the teachers’ sense of professional identity appears to be largely characterised by their personal histories and experiences and it is constantly reshaped by the new relationships developed within the professional context where the initial conception of teaching and teachers confronts changes. Throughout the participating teachers’ life stories, even though they were unique, they were not disengaged from society and context. On more than one occasion, they made reference to different social and contextual issues that were shaping their selves either consciously or unconsciously. Additionally, when the narratives of all participating teachers are brought together they reveal important aspects of how the broader community - society and context - behaves and evolves. The contextual influences in teachers’ professional identity construction in this study could be classified in three main categories: micro-social, meso-social and macrosocial, which are interwoven with each other. Furthermore, the study provides the evidence to show that teachers’ career stages, employment status and life stage/age all contribute to their perceptions of their professional identity construction. Through each teacher’s stories, we are able to get to know each teacher as a whole person with complex lived realities. Those individual voices can be put together to show the collective voices from each group and those groups can be put together to show the collective voices from the cohort of eight College English teachers. The research is significant in collecting individual voices from Chinese College English teachers, and building their collective voice through exemplification, orchestration and amplification. Individual stories are examples which show how teachers live and struggle in their meso context with cultural uniqueness and the macro context of reforms. The hypothesis (see page iii) was not fully upheld – i.e., personal/individual and meso context seemed much more significant than macro. Teachers’ experiences and interpretations are orchestrated through comparing, contrasting and building theory/theories from the ground stories as an attempt to produce a new but coherent narrative at an intellectual level. The orchestration of teachers’ voices can be amplified in terms of its scope of impact and to inform the public of the subjective reality experienced by teachers. This small-scale, in-depth research project attempts to begin that process. It is anticipated that it will resonate with teachers who lived under the same context, and illuminate their perspectives for those who did not.

Background: Child and adolescent mental health is an important public health issue within the UK. Providing support to young people, to help them cope with everyday life, is a key aspect of the school nurse’s role. Yet there is a paucity of published research within the UK and internationally about how this support is provided. Methodology: Using a narrative inquiry approach, presented as a performative text, this study set out to address the following research question, ‘How do school nurses provide support to young people?’ Stories were gathered from eleven school nurses to explore their experiences of providing support to young people using purposive sampling. The stories were analysed using an adapted version of the interpretivist-interactionist model (Savin-Baden, 2004). Poetic re-presentations were used to tell the stories of individual school nurses; an approach seen to be a novel in school nursing research. Using Soja’s (1996) spatiality theory as a framework the stories were analysed collectively, to explore different spaces used when providing support to young people. Findings: This study extends school nursing current literature about what it means to provide support. The importance of regular support and building trusting relationships is identified. Yet challenges exist in terms of the amount of emotional investment required by the nurses, as well as a lack of workforce capacity and organisational demands. It provides an original contribution to the body of school nursing knowledge by using an approach new in school nursing research, and distinguishing different and new spaces in which they perform to provide support to young people. Recommendations: Further research is necessary to gather stories from young people themselves. Additional support and training is recommended to enhance school nurses’ knowledge and skills in providing support. Findings should be conveyed to commissioners to provide insight into the school nurses’ role.

Although interpersonal communication studies have focused on various aspects of interpersonal relationships, research on the player identity and gendered emotional manipulation in romantic relationships has received little attention. This narrative research inquiry was undertaken to explore perceptions of men and women related to the player identity and gendered emotional manipulation. This investigation used social construction as a theoretical perspective to understand three areas of investigation that include: the existence and relevance of the player identity, the player’s relation to emotionally manipulative behaviour, and the connection between socially constructed gender conventions and the player identity. Hesse-Biber’s (2006) feminist interviewing approach guided semi-structured interviews with six male and six female participants. Respondents reported the existence and relevance of the player identity in romantic relationships today, connecting this identity to emotionally manipulative behaviour, as well as relating this identity to traditional gender conventions. Finally, implications for men and women in romantic relationships today and future areas of research are discussed in light of these findings.

L’idée m’est venue, après 35 ans de carrière en éducation de faire des études doctorales, question de boucler ma vie professionnelle par un exercice de synthèse significatif. Or au cours de cette carrière, j’ai eu à travailler quelques années avec des directions d’écoles élémentaires qui avaient à jongler, à la fois, avec le mandat de cette école particulière qu’est l’école de langue française en milieu minoritaire, avec la présence majoritaire d’enfants issus de l’immigration et avec les exigences de performance et d’efficacité telles que précisées par le ministère de l’Éducation de l’Ontario. Je me suis demandé comment le care et l’éthique du care interviennent dans le processus de conciliation de ces différentes exigences dans ce contexte. L’approche narrative (narrative inquiry) m’a offert la structure méthodologique requise pour réaliser mon travail de recherche. J’ai fait des entrevues phénoménologiques avec quatre directions d’école. Leurs récits d’expérience jumelés au mien ont permis d’explorer notre paysage du savoir professionnel puisque l’expérience est source de savoir. Les récits institutionnels issus du ministère et des conseils scolaires de district ont aussi offert une toile de fond à la réflexion. Le phénomène du care, sa forme et ses modalités d’expression dans le milieu scolaire a été au cœur de mes interrogations et de ma démarche. Cette démarche, en fait, se présente sous la forme d’une thèse/récit en mode narratif qui se veut un collage esthétique de trois livres. Ainsi, dans le Livre des savoirs, j’explicite le care et présente la méthodologie de recherche. Ensuite, dans le Livre des conversations, j’ai organisé mes données sous la forme de onze conversations qui me permettent de livrer les propos des directions d’école ainsi que les récits institutionnels. Chaque conversation est suivie d’une décantation, premier niveau d’interprétation. Vient en troisième lieu, le Livre des méditations qui est le résultat de mon effort interprétatif, herméneutique et systémique pour expliciter et cerner le care et l’éthique du care dans le milieu scolaire. Je me suis appuyée sur les phases du care et les qualités morales qui y sont inhérentes (Tronto, 1993, 2009) pour présenter, à travers les propos de directions d’école, comment le phénomène du care prend forme dans leur paysage professionnel. J’ai jeté un regard particulier sur les besoins distinctifs des personnes et des écoles en contexte linguistique minoritaire dégageant ainsi que, s’il est possible de parler de care au plan individuel, il est aussi important d’en considérer la forme et les exigences au plan institutionnel. En supposant que le care est le reflet d’une éthique relationnelle, il m’a fallu intégrer la notion d’éthique écologique dans ma réflexion sur les écoles en milieu linguistique minoritaire pour refléter l’importance de la composante communautaire dans la vision du care. De cette façon, ma recherche contribue à placer le care en éducation dans le domaine public et à élargir les pourtours de la conception du care en tant qu’outil de consolidation ou de développement communautaire.