Summary
This text also highlights the utility of arts-based research concepts toward building innovative curriculum-making strategies for educational practice both within and beyond the classroom setting. Accessible examples of analytic, synthetic, critical-activist, and improvisational arts-based research methodologies and their outcomes were solicited from a wide range of researchers in varying disciplines, including senior faculty and emerging graduate level scholars. Chapters include a paradigm analysis of the characteristics of arts-based research; brief historical overviews along with a review of recent ABR literature; charts, diagrams and photographs representing ABR approaches for addressing diverse kinds of questions; suggestions for using an ABR inquiry model when writing a research paper; and detailed glossaries of key concepts and terms.
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author(s)/editor(s)
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- 1. A Paradigm Analysis of Arts-Based Research
- Initial Sketches
- Objectives
- Ways of Knowing the World
- An Alternative Hypothesis: The Arts-Based Research Paradigm
- The Pre-History of Arts-based Research
- The Recent History of Arts-based Research
- Toward a Working Hypothesis of the ABR Paradigm
- Glossary
- 2. A Flexible Theory-Building Architecture for Arts-Based Research
- The Curious Case of Objectivity in Science-Based Research
- The Informative Nature of Art and Culture
- The Representative Tools of Arts-based Research Inquiry
- Interpretive Strategies: Starting Points for Works of Art and Research
- Theory-Building Practices for Doing Arts-based Research
- Implications for Writing Research
- Implications of Arts & Design Practices in Curriculum-making and Learning
- Glossary
- 3. Arts-Based Research as Analytic Research Practice
- Postmodern Precedents for an Analytic Arts-Based Inquiry Architecture
- How to Write an Analytic Arts-Based Research Paper
- Analytic Arts-Based Curriculum-making Strategies for Educational Practice
- Glossary
- 4. Arts-Based Research as Synthetic Research Practice
- Postmodern Precedents for a Synthetic Arts-Based Inquiry Architecture
- How to Write a Synthetic Arts-Based Research Paper
- Synthetic Arts-Based Curriculum-making Strategies for Educational Practice
- Glossary
- 5. Arts-Based Research as Critical-Activist Research Practice
- Postmodern Precedents for a Critical-Activist Arts-Based Inquiry Architecture
- How to Write a Critical-Activist Arts-Based Research Paper
- Critical-Activist Arts-Based Curriculum-making Strategies for Educational Practice
- Glossary
- 6. Arts-Based Research as Improvisatory Research Practice
- Postmodern Precedents for an Improvisatory Arts-Based Inquiry Architecture
- How to Write an Improvisatory Arts-Based Research Paper
- Improvisatory Arts-Based Curriculum-making Strategies for Educational Practice
- Glossary
- References and Further Resources
- Index
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Initial Sketches
Theory/Theōria
A representative construction— or re-construction—of a phenomenon of life shaped as a set of interrelated constructs represented in a distinguishable manner or form in order to describe, explain, and/or interpret the variables and variability of an experience within the world.
Praxis/Prattein
Praxis is the sum total of our moral and artistic activities; the enactment, practice, embodiment, or realization of our individual and collective contemplation and speculation regarding the experience of social life within the natural world.
The purpose of arts-based research (ABR), like all research, is theory-building. Theory—a word that has its origin via late Latin from the Greek word theōria— involves the “contemplation” or “speculation” of natural laws and phenomena of life. Ultimately, a theory is a representation of experience so that others may also acknowledge and understand. Theory is distinguished from the word praxis, which takes its origin from the Greek language via medieval Latin; praxis literally means “doing,” from the word prattein. According to Aristotle, theorizing suggests a rational exercise that occurs at rest from the moral and artistic activities, or doings, of humankind. Theories are conveyed as representative constructs—or re-constructions—of the experiential worlds of the researcher, both lived and speculative. Theoretical reconstructions of experience may be conceptual, transcribed, or physically manufactured. ← 1 | 2 →
Heuristic Devices
Interpretive tools enabling deeper understanding of a phenomenon or experience through the further development and reinterpretation of initial perceptions.
The associated concepts, definitions, assumptions that constitute a theory either naturally cohere, or are otherwise fabricated, to act as enduring filters, lenses and/or models making sense of lived contexts. Borrowing from both Kerlinger (1986) and Hoy (2010), a theory may be succinctly defined as a set of interrelated constructs represented in a distinguishable manner or form, the major function of which is to describe, explain, and/or interpret the variables and variability of a phenomenon or experience within the world. While theories are built up initially as abstractions representing our most basic apprehensions of the worlds we live in, they also serve as heuristic devices—interpretive tools enabling advanced knowledge of a phenomenon or experience through the further development and reinterpretation of initial perceptions. A general understanding of how theories are built will be addressed and expanded upon in the subsequent chapters.
Ontology
A particular worldview; a rationale about the nature of one of the worlds we live in, containing propositions of what that world consists of and why.
Worldview
An expressed orientation of an individual or group of people that describes their knowledge or point-of-view, understood to be an acquired position that offers valuable perspectives of the human experience—while also obscuring some others.
When a theory is built and deployed as a heuristic device, an abstract and internal sense of a person, place, event or thing may then be further ideated—or made visibly manifest—in the form of palpably remembered, written or otherwise recorded, and even physically embodied bits of knowledge. The theories stocking our shared warehouse of assorted ideas about the human experience are assembled into developmental bridges wherein each theory is made practical and practicable, further shaping our personal ontologies. An ontology is a rationale about the nature of one of the worlds we live in, containing propositions of what that world consists of and why. To characterize an ontology is to ask: “What is the nature of the ‘knowable’? Or, what is the nature of ‘reality’?” (Guba, 1990, p. 18). An important way to understand the limits of personal ontology is to think of it as a worldview, an acquired position that offers valuable perspectives of the human experience—while also obscuring some others.
Creative Worldview
A creative worldview is an ontology that supports the practice of arts-based research, wherein theory and praxis are viewed as co-constructing one another in an ongoing cycle of cause resulting in effect, and effect regenerating cause. Understands works of art as works of research.
For example, within a cause-and-effect world-view, theories are typically understood as partitioned from action. A cause-and-effect worldview ← 2 | 3 → proceeds from the assumption that ideas are either linearly derived from action, or may be ultimately converted into action—but never the twain shall meet. However, within an ontology that supports the practice of arts-based research, theory and praxis co-construct one another in an ongoing cycle of cause resulting in effect, and effect regenerating cause. While this latter creative worldview values the creative work of the artist or designer in society, it is also a position and perspective that is alien to many scientific researchers. Providing a means to ameliorate this blind spot was one of the primary motivators in writing this text.
Paradigm
A body of beliefs and values, laws, and practices that govern a community of practitioners characterized by its success in representing the prevailing understandings, shared beliefs and research solutions of that community as a concisely defined worldview.
Details
- Pages
- 174
- Year
- 2013
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9781433145964
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9781453910863
- ISBN (MOBI)
- 9781433145971
- ISBN (Softcover)
- 9781433116490
- DOI
- 10.3726/978-1-4539-1086-3
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2013 (April)
- Keywords
- Educational research Social science Analytic research Synthetic research Critical-activist research
- Published
- New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, Oxford, Wien, 2013. 174 pp., num. ill.
