Description
The research aims to investigate how the use of the arts can contribute to the development of trainee teachers for the lifelong learning sector, and explore the extent to which arts-based curriculum approaches and interventions in professional education may have a transformative impact. It seeks to understand whether engagement with the arts in teacher training can lead to a ‘reframed, new, or transformed way of being’ (Salazar 2014, p. 34), and potentially ‘catalyse transformative change’ (Allan 2014). Key writers and advocates of the arts such as Maxine Greene (1986, 1995, 2010) and Elliot Eisner (2002, 2008) have highlighted the potential for transformation when knowledge is constructed through the arts and aesthetic experience. According to Jarvis and Gouthro (2015), the arts can provide a rich resource in professional education. They suggest that the use of the arts in professional studies and training is one way of developing the capacity for professionals to be able to work with change and uncertainty, to be creative, critical and reflective, and to ‘not only survive, but also to thrive’. Cultural awareness and expression is one of eight key competences which should be integrated into strategies and the infrastructure of lifelong learning (European Union 2016), and Henley (2012, p. 48) in a review for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) into cultural education in England, made recommendations to increase the exposure of trainee teachers to cultural education.Arts-based practices and embodied learning have been recognised as playing a part in the field of transformative learning theory (TLT), with their importance in the role of stimulating, fostering and supporting transformative learning recognised Cranton 2009; Hoggan & Cranton 2014; Lawrence 2012). However, with reference to this theory, Cranton (2009, p. ix) states that ‘surprisingly little has been written’ about how educators can incorporate the use of creative and expressive approaches into their practice. Research has been published since then but literature on the use of the arts specifically within the context of lifelong teacher education is also limited, and this research study contributes to a particular need for research in the area.
To answer the research questions, a series of arts-based approaches and curriculum interventions have been designed and used with the research participants. The participants have been trainee teachers for the lifelong learning sector undertaking a Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) course at a university in the North of England. The research has been conducted across three academic years (2015/2016, 2016/2017, 2017/2018), with three separate Pre-Service (one year full-time) PGCE groups of approximately 20 students. The arts-based pedagogic approaches and interventions have included collage enquiry, visual imagery, poetry, poetic enquiry using ‘cut-up’ techniques with ‘found words’), film, photographic journalism, drama, sculptural modelling, musical experience, body mapping, art gallery interventions, storytelling and reflective walking in the manner of ‘walking artists’.
Access has not been an issue, but ethical implications have been carefully considered, particularly with regard to issues of power which is inherent in conducting research with students. Practitioner–research conducted with own student groups should include scrutiny of the researcher’s position. The ‘positionality’ of an insider researcher has required careful consideration, as there are disadvantages such as the risk of bias, subjectivity, and a vested interest in the results and outcomes of the research.
The methodology has drawn upon facet methodology (Mason, 2011) and used case study, as the research has been clearly bounded by context and fixed time frames. The methodology includes an original aspect, drawing upon a/r/tography, in the form of a visual narrative, which has been created as a series of concertina booklets. Research methods with participants have not included art-based research methods, to avoid potential for confusing overlap with the arts-based pedagogy under investigation. Methods have included interviews, focus groups, written responses by students, and field notes including observation, diary notes and memos. Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2022) has been used and findings under following themes discussed:
• The invitation of the arts (protection, safety, comfort; pleasure and play; freedom and liberation; self-expression)
• The puncture and immediacy of the arts (beyond desks, vivid memory and recall)
• The illumination of the arts
• The catalyst of the arts (spark and trigger, catalyst for thinking, affective learning, embodied learning)
• Critical consciousness through the arts (awakenings and realisations, critical consciousness through photography, of community)
• Change and transformation
As a theoretical framework, transformative learning theory originally formulated by Mezirow (1978, 2000, 2012) and more recently developed by Lawrence and Cranton (2015) and Hoggan (2017) has framed and informed the research study. Through the concepts and lens of transformative learning theory, the analysis, interpretation and discussion of data has been completed.
The study concludes that arts-based pedagogy can make a valuable contribution to professional teacher education for the lifelong learning sector, and that through arts-based pedagogy, transformative growth, learning and change can be fostered, stimulated and realised.
| Period | Oct 2022 → … |
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| Examinee | Sarah Williamson |
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