Arts Based Research Barone, Tom; Eisner, Elliot W; Barone, Tom, Jr
2011, 2012, 2011-03-29, 2011-03-28
eBook
Provides a framework for broadening the domain of qualitative inquiry in the social sciences by incorporating the arts as a means of better understanding - and rethinking - important social issues.
Narrative construction is an approach to social research in which data are configured into any of a variety of diachronic, or storied, formats. Having recently gained popularity, this approach is now ...in danger of marginalization (along with other qualitative and quantitative forms of social research) as a result of politically charged attempts to reinstitute a narrow methodological orthodoxy. In an attempt to prompt discussion about the future of this inquiry approach, the author asks questions that highlight recurring issues within ongoing conversations among educational researchers who advocate and/or engage in the construction of narratives. These questions relate to the political character of stories, fictionalization, audience, modalities of representation, quality control, research purpose, and strategies for maintaining and enlarging the space for narrative construction as a qualitative research approach within an era of political retrogression.
In commenting on Coulter and Smith (2009), the author explores issues related to the place of the political in education research and in literature, but especially in forms of narrative research that ...possess both scientific and literary dimensions. More specifically, the author examines four sets of issues related to the researching and writing of forms of narrative composition that exhibit an overtly progressivist orientation. These issues involve (a) the fundamental purposes for which the research is undertaken, (b) the role of opposing tropisms operating through textual design elements that tend to promote or discourage multiple perspectives, (c) ethical issues related to assumed privileges of authorship by the researcher, and (d) the political prerogatives and responsibilities of readers of literary forms of narrative research in education. (Contains 1 note.)
The author of this essay comments upon the contents of the other articles in this issue of The Journal of Educational Research. He locates both similarities and differences within several dimensions ...of narrative research by the authors of these articles. These dimensions relate to: the definition(s) of narrative research, decisions about whose experiences are worthy of study by narrative researchers in the field of education, the manner in which narrative research may improve teaching and schooling, and the epistemological premises that support the purposes for engaging in narrative research. The author suggests that the differences-within-commonalities found in these articles reflect a healthy maturation of the field of narrative research.
In commenting on Coulter and Smith (2009), the author explores issues related to the place of the political in education research and in literature, but especially in forms of narrative research that ...possess both scientific and literary dimensions. More specifically, the author examines four sets of issues related to the researching and writing of forms of narrative composition that exhibit an overtly progressivist orientation. These issues involve (a) the fundamental purposes for which the research is undertaken, (b) the role of opposing tropisms operating through textual design elements that tend to promote or discourage multiple perspectives, (c) ethical issues related to assumed privileges of authorship by the researcher, and (d) the political prerogatives and responsibilities of readers of literary forms of narrative research in education.
This article addresses issues of quality in film-based educational research projects. It recommends criteria related to aesthetic form and substance as appropriate for judging the usefulness of ...educational films in achieving one possible goal for film-based educational research. That goal is to effectively challenge the prevailing educational imaginary. This imaginary is described as a set of images of schools and school people, rooted in the larger culture, that supports a debilitating master narrative about education. Issues of quality and utility are explored within the context of one teacher-made film exhibited at (among other places) a film festival at the author’s college of education.
Examines a distinctive genre represented by the ethnodrama, "Finding My Place," relating this work to the practice of arts-based research in educational ethnography. The drama highlighted the ...relationship between a prominent educational ethnographer and the young man who was his research subject. Discusses the kinds of textual practice invented during the phase in the history of qualitative research known as the "movement of blurred genres." (SM)
