Exploration 2- Arts-Based Research

 

"A social justice approach to arts-based research involves continual critical reflexivity in response to injustice" (Keifer-Boyd, 2011). 

Dr. Keifer-Boyd breaks down arts-based research centered around issues of social justice into five categories, insight, inquiry, imagination, embodiment, and relationally (2011). After reading, I felt as though my thinking around what arts-based research is had stretched to accept that it can look and exist in varying formats. For instance, when relating this learning to Lisa Kay's article, "Collages and Poetry and a Play: An Arts-Based Research Journey", ways in which arts-based research can exist were highlighted in very real, authentic mediums. 

Kay investigates how artmaking can be used by researchers as a way to examine patterns and make meaning (2014). Through this journey, Kay uses beaded bracelets, poetry, and play writing as varying ways to collect data on how students and teachers characterize art education. As an educator immersed in the busyness of every day learning, this article resonated with me. Suddenly, research and data looked a lot less like the numbers and statistics I had previously constructed in my head and began to take form of the meaningful learning experiences I was engaging in with my students, daily. 

In addition to seeing connections between ways of engaging with arts-based research and what was already happening in my classroom, I started to think about how this research can be used to explore issues of social justice. Keifer-Boyd mentions inquiry as a means for researching an artist's work/process (2011). Alison Weir (2008) describes social justice arts-based research as a reconstitution of self, by listening to and witnessing another's experience. When taking a social justice approach to arts-based research, a responsible researcher must listen to the voices and stories of others. By working with an inquiry mindset, the researcher can not only begin to ask questions about others, systems, and power, but can begin to turn inward and pose these questions internally, as an exploration in identity. 

Problem Statement:

The purpose of this project is to create a collaborative learning experience in which 3rd grade students will explore their identity through self expression in art and music. Students will engage in critique, discussion, and reflection as they explore their sense of identity. I will lead the learning experience over the course of three class periods and document student artwork, discussion, and my observational notes of their process to capture student learning over the course of this experience. 




Kay, L. (2014). Collages and poetry and a play: An arts-based research journey. In M. L. Buffington & S. Wilson McKay (Eds.), Practice theory: Seeing the power of teacher researchers (pp. 109-110). Reston, VA: The National Art Education Association.

Keifer-Boyd, K. (2011). Arts-based research as social justice activism: Insight, inquiry, imagination, embodiment, relationality. International Review of Qualitative Research, 4, 1, 3-19.




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