Arts-based research in education: foundations for practice

290 Pages·3.47 MB·English

by  Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor (ed.), Richard Siegesmund (ed.)

Arts-Based Research
in Education
Presenting readers with definitions and examples of arts-based educational
research, this text identifies tensions, questions, and models in the field
and provides guidance for both beginning and more experienced prac-
tice. As arts-based research grows in prominence and popularity across
education and the social sciences, the barriers between empirical, institu-
tional, and artistic research diminish and new opportunities emerge for
discussion, consideration, and reflection. This book responds to an ever
increasing, global need to understand and navigate this evolving domain
of research. Featuring a diverse range of contributors, this text weaves
together critical essays about arts-based research in the literary, visual,
and performing arts with examples of excellence in theory and practice.
New to the Second Edition:
• Additional focus on the historical and theoretical foundations of
arts-based educational research to guide readers through the devel-
opment of the field since its inception.
• New voices and chapters on a variety of artistic genres, including
established and emerging social science researchers and artists who
act, sing, draw, and narrate findings.
• Extends and refines the concept of scholartistry, introduced in the
first edition, to interrogate excellence in educational inquiry and ar-
tistic processes and products.
• Integrates and applies theoretical frameworks such as sociocultural
theory, new materialism, and critical pedagogy to create interdisci-
plinary connections.
• Expanded toolkit for scholartists to inspire creativity, questioning,
and risk-taking in research and the arts.
Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor is Professor of TESOL and World Language
Education at the University of Georgia, USA.
Richard Siegesmund is Professor of Art+Design Education at Northern
Illinois University, USA.

Arts-Based Research
in Education
Foundations for Practice
Second Edition
Edited by
Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor
and Richard Siegesmund
Second edition published 2018
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 Taylor & Francis
The right of Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor and Richard Siegesmund
to be identified as the authors of the editorial material,
and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Routledge 2008
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Cahnmann-Taylor, Melisa, editor. | Siegesmund,
Richard, editor.
Title: Arts-based research in education: foundations for
practice / edited by Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor and Richard
Siegesmund.
Description: Second edition. | New York: Routledge, 2018. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017039774 | ISBN 9781138235175 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781138235199 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781315305073 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Education—Research—Methodology. | Art
in education—Philosophy.
Classification: LCC LB1028 .A68 2018 | DDC 370.7/2—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017039774
ISBN: 978-1-138-23517-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-23519-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-30507-3 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by codeMantra
Cover Image: Microbe 5, by Erin McIntosh
1992 South Park Elementary School
In dedication to teachers and students, past and present,
who made it imperative to be both a researcher and artist in
the field of education.
—poem by Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor
The unbearable uncertainty of purple inked
mimeographed fingers, broken chalk, bars
crisscrossing cloudless LA skies, urine
fogging corridors, Santa Monica fires
ashing lots, sleepless third-grade eyes
that petrified twenty-year-old commuting, – car stalled
– late for work – one small deaf ear to a teacher’s
temper. And I taught P.E., art,
music, language arts, watched the union rep
prop feet on fourth grade desks and say
we should let them teach themselves
with what they pay us. At first, I confused
disability with disrespect, marched
past principals to one university
after another where I could learn
to forgive myself for driving more than one
dear student to tears.

Contents
Acknowledgments x
About the Editors xii
About the Contributors xiii
1 Introduction 1
MELISA CAhNMANN-TAyLOr AND rIChArD SIEGESMUND
2 Celebrating Monkey Business in Art Education and Research 12
MADELEINE GrUMET
3 Putting Critical Public Pedagogy into Practice:
Reorienting the Career Path of the Teacher-Artist-Scholar 19
yEN yEN WOO
4 Art, Agency, and Inquiry: Making Connections between
New Materialism and Contemporary Pragmatism
in Arts-Based Research 32
JErry rOSIEk
5 Wild Imagination, Radical Imagination, Politics, and the
Practice of Arts-Based Educational Research (ABER) and
Scholartistry 48
DONALD BLUMENFELD-JONES
6 Being Pregnant as an International PhD Student:
A Poetic Autoethnography 67
kUO ZhANG
viii Contents
7 What Is an Artist-Teacher When Teaching Second Languages? 82
yOhAN hWANG
8 Ethnographic Activist Middle Grades Fiction: Reflections
on Researching and Writing Dear Mrs. Naidu 91
MAThANGI SUBrAMANIAN
9 Misperformance Ethnography 99
MONICA PrENDErGAST AND GEOrGE BELLIvEAU
10 Songwriting as Ethnographic Practice: How Stories
Humanize 115
krISTINA JACOBSEN
11 The End Run: Art and the Heart of the Matter 128
DANA WALrATh
12 Expanding Paradigms: Art as Performance and
Performance as Communication in Politically
Turbulent Times 137
PETULA SIk-yING hO, CELIA hOI-yAN ChAN, AND SUI-TING kONG
13 HAPPENINGS: Allan Kaprow’s Experimental,
Inquiry-Based Art Education 147
ChArLES r. GArOIAN
14 Turning Towards: Materializing New Possibilities
through Curating 163
BrOOkE hOFSESS
15 The Abandoned School as an Anomalous Place of
Learning: A Practice-led Approach to Doctoral Research 174
NATALIE LeBLANC
16 Thinking in Comics: An Emerging Process 190
NICk SOUSANIS
17 For Art’s Sake, Stop Making Art 200
JOrGE LUCErO
Contents ix
18 Finding the Progress in Work-in-Progress: Liz Lerman’s
Critical Response Process in Arts-Based Research 212
JOhN BOrSTEL
19 A Researcher Prepares: The Art of Acting for the
Qualitative Researcher 228
kAThLEEN r. McGOvErN
20 Learning to Perceive: Teaching Scholartistry 241
rIChArD SIEGESMUND
21 Four Guiding Principles for Arts-Based Research Practice 247
MELISA CAhNMANN-TAyLOr
Index 259