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2009
Palpable Pedagogy: Expressive Arts, Leadership,
and Change in Social Justice Teacher Education
(An Ethnographic/Auto-Ethnographic Study of
the Classroom Culture of an Arts-Based Teacher
Education Course)
Lucy Elizabeth Barbera
Antioch University - PhD Program in Leadership and Change
Follow this and additional works at:http://aura.antioch.edu/etds
Recommended Citation
Barbera, Lucy Elizabeth, "Palpable Pedagogy: Expressive Arts, Leadership, and Change in Social Justice Teacher Education (An
Ethnographic/Auto-Ethnographic Study of the Classroom Culture of an Arts-Based Teacher Education Course)" (2009).Dissertations
& Theses. 12.
http://aura.antioch.edu/etds/12
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PALPABLE PEDAGOGY:
EXPRESSIVE ARTS, LEADERSHIP, AND CHANGE IN
SOCIAL JUSTICE TEACHER EDUCATION
(AN ETHNOGRAPHIC/AUTO-ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF THE CLASSROOM
CULTURE OF AN ARTS-BASED TEACHER EDUCATION COURSE)
LUCY ELIZABETH BARBERA
A DISSERTATION
Submitted to the Ph.D. in Leadership & Change Program
of Antioch University
in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
January, 2009
This is to certify that the dissertation entitled:
PALPABLE PEDAGOGY: EXPRESSIVE ARTS, LEADERSHIP, AND CHANGE IN
SOCIAL JUSTICE TEACHER EDUCATION (AN ETHNOGRAPHIC/AUTO-
ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF THE CLASSROOM CULTURE OF AN ARTS-BASED
TEACHER EDUCATION COURSE)
prepared by
Lucy Elizabeth Barbera
is approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in
Leadership & Change.
Approved by:
________________________________________________________________
Chair date
Carolyn Kenny, Ph.D.
________________________________________________________________
Committee Member date
Laurien Alexandre, Ph.D.
________________________________________________________________
Committee Member date
Laura Shapiro, Ph.D.
________________________________________________________________
External Reader date
Maxine Greene, Ph.D
Copyright 2009 Lucy Barbera
All rights reserved
I would like to dedicate this dissertation to the memory of Thomas Anthony Barbera Sr.,
brother-of-my-heart, July 12, 1948—February 13, 2008; to my sisters Joyce, Margaret, Laura,
and Faith; to my brothers Barney and Jack; and to my parents Giacoma and Baldassare, and
thank them for their unwavering love and support.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Carolyn Kenny, my dissertation chair and educator extraordinaire,
who, through her guidance, support, and trust in me, provided a model of how beauty, truth, and
justice make transformational learning possible. I would like to thank Laura Shapiro, who broke
through hard ground with her original arts-based research, making it possible for me to walk in
her footsteps for my own inquiry. I would like to thank Laurien Alexandre for her vision of
leadership education and the benefits that vision has manifested in my life and learning. I would
like to thank Maxine Greene for the inspiration she has given me and so many others in
education to apply the power of the imagination toward social justice. I would like to thank
Rebecca Hosmer, my copy editor, and Matthew Swerdloff, my technologist, for their constant
support and dedication to my dissertation’s publication, without which it would not have been
possible. Finally, I want to thank my students for their courage and authentic expressions. I have
learned so much from them.
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Abstract
Palpable Pedagogy: Expressive Arts, Leadership, and Change in Social Justice Teacher
Education is an arts-informed ethnographic study of the pedagogy and culture engendered when
the expressive arts are employed in social justice teacher education. Palpable Pedagogy is a
qualitative study that examines the power of the expressive arts to identify, explore, and address
issues of inequity in the context of a social justice teacher education course that I taught over
three consecutive years. The literature in the field outlines the essential components for effective
social justice teacher education (identity, reflection, and dialogue) and neatly explores them.
However, with the exception of Art teacher education, where national learning standards require
that cultural diversity be explored through the arts, little has been written about the utilization
and power of the arts as a pedagogical tool in general teacher education for social justice. My
objective in Palpable Pedagogy is to reveal the layers of felt meaning, transformational learning,
and release of the imagination (Greene, 1995) for leadership and change that my students
experienced in my social justice teacher education course, “Expressive Arts, Leadership, and
Change.” The arts themselves provide a splendid methodological match for research of this kind.
McNiff (1998) proposes that there is no better way to study the effects of the arts than through
the arts themselves. Using an aesthetic approach in my ethnographic study, I employ participant
observation, field notes, photography, videography, interviews, and student art process, and
product as my data, creating a text/context of the phenomenologically understood life worlds of
my students. A bricolage results, with the inclusion of my justice educator/artist self-study,
situating me both emicly and eticly in the life world of my students and classroom. Readers will
aesthetically experience data presented in the forms of student and researcher poetry,
performance, painting, mask making, sculpture, and narrative, as a way of understanding and
ii
knowing. This study reveals the inherent potential of the expressive arts as a pedagogical tool to
reclaim art as a necessary human behavior/ birthright (Dissanayake, 1992) to make meaning,
galvanize learning, catalyze leadership, and inspire action—thus, creating a unique and palpable
pedagogy for social justice teacher education.
This dissertation contains embedded images in jpg format. It also includes nine
associated video files in avi format and two associated audio files in mp3 format. The electronic
version of this dissertation is available in the open-access OhioLink ETD Center,
www.ohiolink.edu/etd .
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements i!
Abstract ii!
Table of Contents iv!
List of Figures vi!
List of AV Files xii!
Chapter I: Introduction 1!
The Study 5!
The Epistemology of Aesthetics 6!
Teacher Education, Leadership, and the Arts 8!
Social Imagination and Palpable Pedagogy 10!
Identity, Dialogue, and Reflection in Social Justice Education 15!
Identity 15!
Dialogue 17!
Student Action Plan Presentation: Taking the “Diss” Out of Disability 17!
Reflection 20!
The Crisis of Representation—Art as a Form of Knowledge 23!
Art as Process 23!
Summary 24!
Chapter II: Literature Review 26!
The Roots of Art, Beauty, Justice, and Humanity 27!
Aesthetic Education 31!
Critical Theory and Humanistic Education 35!
Multicultural Art Teacher Education 39!
Arts-based Teacher Education and the Arts and Social Justice in Adult Education 41!
Aesthetic Leadership 46!
Chapter III: Research Methodology 50!
Philosophy and Theory of the Arts as Inquiry Tool 50!
Ethnographic/Autoethnographic Methods 55!
Research Process and Participant Selection 57!
Ethical Considerations 59!
Summary 61!
Chapter IV: Findings and Results of Study 64!
Introduction 64!
“The Arts” Defined 67!
The Themes 68!
A Few Words About Beauty 71!
Identity: Autobiography—Past, Present, and Future 71!
Reflection 82!
Reflection Through Journal Writing 84!
Mask-making as Reflection Tool 89!
Emotion and Action 94!
iv
Fear of the Arts 96!
Dialogue 106!
Community 113!
Compassion, Connection, Unity 117!
Mandala-making and Community 122!
Summary 129!
Chapter V: Autoethnography 131!
Dream 131!
Autobiography: Unfolding Into the Present, Emboldened Into the Future 134!
Autoethnographic Journal: July—December 2007 140!
The Roots of Art—We Are All Connected In This Way 144!
Finding Home: A Map to Finding My True Voice 146!
Self-Study Research and Social Justice Education 167!
Closing—Retrospective Show 168!
Next Steps 170!
Autoethnograpic Journal: Epilogue, July 2008-April 2009 171!
Chapter VI: Discussion of Conclusions 181!
Art as Mystery 181!
Palpable Pedagogy 186!
Interconnecting Themes Revisited 188!
Antagonists to the Arts 190!
Chapter VII: Implications for Leadership and Change 196!
Brief Recapitulation of the Study 196!
Literature Review Revisited 196!
Relevance of the Study to Leadership and Change 197!
Aesthetic Leadership and the Art of Leadership 198!
Leadership Development of Teachers: Reflective Teacher Leaders 201!
Suggestions for Future Explorations and Research 203!
Challenges of the Study and Findings 205!
Closing 206!
Appendices 208!
Appendix A 209!
Appendix B 221!
Appendix C 223!
Appendix D 226!
Appendix E 227!
References 229!
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Description:(An Ethnographic/Auto-Ethnographic Study of the Classroom Culture of an Arts-Based Teacher. Education Course). Lucy Elizabeth Barbera. Antioch University - PhD Program in Leadership and Change. Follow this and additional works at: http://aura.antioch.edu/etds. This Dissertation is brought to you
