The Role of the Arts in Professional Education: Surveying the Field

Many educators of professionals use arts-based approaches, but often explore this within the confines of their own professional disciplines. This paper consists of a thematic review of the literature on arts and professional education, which cuts across professional disciplines in an attempt to identify the specific contribution the arts can make to professional education. The review identified five broad approaches to the use of the arts in professional education: exploring their role in professional practice, illustrating professional issues and dilemmas, developing empathy and insight, exploring professional identities and developing self-awareness and interpersonal expression. Woven through these approaches we found that the development of a more sophisticated epistemology and a critical social perspective were common outcomes of art-based work in professional education. Arts-based approaches may help learners to make a critical assessment of their own roles and identities within professions, and to consider the impact of professions in shaping the broader society

Theorising the value of collage in exploring educational leadership

This article contributes to theorising the value of collage as a methodological approach. It begins with a discussion of the methodological difficulties of exploring hidden meanings and individual experience through the research process. The illuminative potential of arts-based methodologies in qualitative research is then investigated. The article makes the case for the specific advantages of using collage to explore the experience of leadership, through a discussion of two collage-based studies. It proposes a variant of the ‘think aloud’ process, used in conjunction with collage, as a route to producing deep understandings of the multiple ways in which leadership is experienced and understood as a social process. The argument is made that collage enables the accessing and sharing of profound levels of experience not accessible through words alone, and considers the impact of the physicality of collage on its potential to release these profound insights. A five-stage process for the analysis of collage is then set out. The article concludes by offering a theory of the value of collage as a methodological approach to exploring experiences of leadership, through use of the concepts of physicality, wholeness and participant agency.Peer reviewe

Research into literacy and technology in primary classrooms: an exploration of understandings generated by recent studies

Whilst much has been written about the implications for ‘literacy’ for practices surrounding digital technologies (Gee, 2000a; Luke and Carrington, 2002; Snyder, 1998), there has been surprisingly little research investigating new literacies in primary classrooms (Andrews, 2003; Labbo and Reinking, 2003: Lankshear and Knobel, 2003). This review examines the kinds of understandings that have been generated through studies of primary literacy and technology reported during the period 2000-2006. It uses Green’s distinction between ‘operational’, ‘cultural’ and ‘critical’ dimensions of primary literacy (Lankshear and Bigum, 1999; Snyder, 2001) to investigate the focus and methodology of 38 empirical studies. It explores ways in which research may be informed by assumptions and practices associated with print literacy, but also highlights the kinds of studies which are beginning to investigate the implications of digital texts for primary education. The paper concludes by arguing for further ethnographic and phenomenological studies of classroom literacy practices in order to explore the complex contexts which surround and are mediated by digital texts

Musical identities, learning and education: Some cross-cultural issues

In sum, the aims of this paper are to consider some of the ways in which individual musical identities are formed through formal and informal music-learning across a range of contexts afforded by the contemporary dialectical relations between local and global musical cultures; to suggest some ways in which both similarities and differences occur in the processes of musical identity-formation and the content of musical identities; and to consider some of the effects of globalisation and localisation in relation to the provision and content of formal music education. (DIPF/Orig.

Archaeological practices, knowledge work and digitalisation

Defining what constitute archaeological practices is a prerequisite for understanding where and how archaeological and archaeologically relevant information and knowledge are made, what counts as archaeological information, and where the limits are situated. The aim of this position paper, developed as a part of the COST action Archaeological practices and knowledge work in the digital environment (www.arkwork.eu), is to highlight the need for at least a relative consensus on the extents of archaeological practices in order to be able to understand and develop archaeological practices and knowledge work in the contemporary digital context. The text discusses approaches to study archaeological practices and knowledge work including Nicolini’s notions of zooming in and zooming out, and proposes that a distinction between archaeological and archaeology-related practices could provide a way to negotiate the ‘archaeologicality’ of diverse practices

Leadership and the ATHE

In today’s increasingly globalized, competitive, and fiscally-afflicted, higher-education environment, academic leaders are regularly expected to serve as both “visionaries” and “managers” adept in all forms of political, economic, and social engagement. Likewise, performing arts leaders share a similar fate, as they need to be versatile tacticians skilled equally in both business and art. Given these realities, for higher education performing arts programs, the challenges are greater. These programs — and their parent institutions — require leadership and leaders capable of handling both immediate complexity and long-term transformation. As such, leadership development critical to this mission is a priority. This article explores the intricacies of higher education and the performing arts, and discusses the correlative characteristics of leadership, management, mentoring, coaching, and networking. Additionally, it provides in-depth description and critical analysis of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Leadership Institute — as the institute is a unique leadership initiative specifically designed to address this enigmatic niche subset of higher education

Putting research first? Perspectives from academics and students on first-year undergraduates learning research

Exploring the place and potential of ‘research’ in undergraduate degrees has stimulated higher-educational debate for decades, strongly influencing policies, practices and structures. This article’s consideration of some problems associated with teaching and learning about research during the first year of undergraduate degrees, helps throw that debate into a sharper light. Should first-year undergraduates be asked to learn from their own or others’ research, and what difficulties might they experience? What relevant previous learning about research, or lack of it, might they bring with them into their degree? Working with empirical data from across one English university, and literature from universities across the world, these questions are discussed by exploring first-year undergraduate teaching and learning, through the lenses of critical inquiry and constructivist grounded theory.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

The art of togetherness: reflections on some essential artistic and pedagogic qualities of drama curricula

The paper examines two quite different examples of drama and theatre education in order to identify how drama curricula are shaped both by external forces and by a common pedagogic and artistic tradition or trajectory. The paper argues that the first and most significant shaping of curriculum is in response to the ideological and political imperatives of the government in power and that this shaping shifts in response to shifts in the field of power. However, the paper argues for maintaining a critical and pro-social pedagogy as the core of any drama curriculum whatever its technical appearance might be. This pedagogy is identified through the two cases and placed in a wider context of pedagogic and artistic thought and practice with the suggestion that by better understanding how the rich traditions of drama and theatre education sit within a broader struggle to give young people pro-social and critical pedagogic and artistic opportunities, drama can strengthen its resolve during periods of curriculum reform