29. Research on Arts Education
Paper
Analysis < > Affect: Arts Integration in Secondary Poetry Education
Heidi Höglund, Sofia Jusslin
Åbo Akademi University, Finland
Presenting Author: Höglund, Heidi;
Jusslin, Sofia
This research delves into the intricate intertwinements between analytical and affective approaches within the context of arts-integrated poetry education. Several researchers have emphasized the importance of integrating analytical and affective approaches, recognizing them as integral components of literary reading that mutually support each other (e.g., Felski, 2008; Xerri, 2013). Despite the acknowledgment of this symbiotic relationship, there is a notable gap in empirical studies that explore how this integration manifests within a classroom context. Furthermore, researchers point out an ambiguity between text-oriented and reader-oriented literature instruction and the ways in which different frameworks of literary theory influence teachers’ instruction (e.g., Pieper, 2020). Addressing this ambiguity is crucial to exploring alternative approaches to teaching literature that allow students to immerse themselves in literature without abandoning an analytical focus. This necessitates an approach to literature teaching that combines the analytical and the affective, acknowledging both the aesthetics of the literary text and its potential to influence and engage the reader (Felski, 2008).
One pedagogical approach to combining analytical and affective approaches in poetry teaching is arts integration. Serving as a transdisciplinary teaching approach, arts integration provides innovative opportunities for teaching poetry in combination with other art forms, such as dance or photography. The goal is to attain equal emphasis on all included art forms or subjects (e.g., Sanz Camarero et al., 2023). Arts-based approaches to teaching poetry have been scarcely researched in secondary education, and scholars call for more research (see Jusslin & Höglund, 2021). Nevertheless, recent research in primary and secondary education implies that arts integrated literature teaching can have the potential to promote both analytical and affective approaches. Studies have indicated that working with art forms, such as dance and visual art, requires close reading of literary texts and enables the incorporation of students’ voices and experiences in the teaching (Curwood & Cowell, 2011; McCormick, 2011). Given these promising gains, arts integration might provide opportunities to focus simultaneously on analytical and affective approaches in secondary poetry education.
Against this backdrop and a genuine wondering about what happens when the art forms of dance and photography are integrated with poetry teaching, this study aims to explore what this integration produces in terms of the relationship and possible friction between analytical and affective approaches in poetry education—and arts education more broadly. This exploration builds on empirical material of teaching that integrated poetry with dance and photography in upper secondary education in Finland.
The study is theoretically grounded in postfoundational theories, which oppose binaries such as body/mind, human/nonhuman, matter/discourse. As such, postfoundational theories can offer valuable perspectives in exploring what is produced in the intertwinements of analytical and affective approaches during the arts-integrated poetry lessons. In this study, we explore how Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987/2013) concepts of smooth and striated spaces can offer opportunities to theoretically explore such intertwinements. Whereas an analytical approach to reading poetry can be understood as a striated space, which is bounded and guided by rules, (e.g., literary elements such as imagery and rhythm), an affective approach might signify the open and allowing perspective of a smooth space. Deleuze and Guattari (1987/2013) emphasize that these spaces exist only in mixture; a thought that might be productive for envisioning how the analytical and affective approaches to reading poetry might intertwine.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe study is methodologically grounded in post-qualitative inquiry (Jackson & Mazzei, 2023). Post-qualitative inquiry questions research as merely representational and the researcher as detached from the researched. Instead, it seeks to embrace the researchers’ and participants’ embodied engagements in the research process. In post-qualitative research, the research process does not necessarily start with predetermined, fixed research questions, but in curiosity (Lather & St. Pierre, 2013). This calls for an open approach to the research process, prioritizing theory and concepts over methods.
Consequently, the study analytically follows the approach of thinking with theory (Jackson & Mazzei, 2023) and data that glows (MacLure, 2013) as analytical approaches. Thinking with theory, as proposed by Jackson and Mazzei (2023), involves putting theories to work in empirical material rather than focusing on the interpretation of material through systemic coding or the identification of themes. In this study, we engage with the theoretical concepts of smooth and striated spaces, developed by Deleuze and Guattari (1987/2013).
The data for the study comprises video recordings of six lessons in an upper secondary literature classroom in Swedish-speaking Finland, as well as students' texts and researchers' embodied engagements. In the teaching, the researchers collaborated with a teacher in first language (L1) and literature education. During the lessons, the students worked with poems from the poetry collections “Strömsöborna” by Finnish poet Rosanna Fellman and "White Monkey" by the Finnish poet and author Adrian Perera (2017) through creative dance and visual work, specifically sketching and photography.
When approaching the data, we followed the analytical approach proposed by MacLure (2013) known as data that glows. According to MacLure, the researcher does not stand outside the data, ready to categorize and calibrate. Instead, the data might resonate with the researcher in an embodied manner, affecting the body and the mind. This resonant connection is what MacLure refers to as the “glow”. Consequently, data is not seen as an inert and indifferent mass waiting to be coded, but rather as something that has its own ways of making itself intelligible to us. In the still ongoing analysis, we analyze moments of glow in the data to explore relationships and possible frictions between analytical and affective approaches when poetry is taught together with dance and visual arts.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsIn the presentation, we will share the results and discuss the implications that this research might have for poetry teaching, specifically, and arts integration and arts education more broadly. Focusing on both theory and practice, the study´s expected results aim to contribute knowledge about arts integration in poetry education. Specifically, it seeks to elaborate on how and if arts integration can offer support for the intricate intertwinements of analytical and affective aspects within literature teaching. While situated within a poetry educational context, the study also contributes to advancing the understanding of arts integration in secondary educational contexts more broadly. Current educational policies and scholarly initiatives (see e.g., Klausen & Mård, 2023) emphasize the importance of integrated education as a means to address the complex needs of contemporary education. In this context, considering arts integration as a crucial objective is essential. Additionally, the study contributes to the development of insights into how postfoundational theories and post-qualitative inquiry can be applied in literature education research, and arts educational research more broadly.
ReferencesCurwood, J. S., & Cowell, L. L. H. (2011). iPoetry: Creating Space for New Literacies in the English Curriculum. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 55(2), 110–120. https://doi.org/10.1002/JAAL.00014
Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (2013). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Bloomsbury Publishing (Original publication 1987).
Felski, R. (2008). Uses of literature. Blackwell Publishing.
Jackson, A., & Mazzei, L. (2023). Thinking with theory in qualitative research. Viewing data across multiple perspectives. 2nd Edition. Routledge.
Jusslin, S., & Höglund, H. (2021). Arts‐based responses to teaching poetry: A literature review of dance and visual arts in poetry education. Literacy, 55(1), 39–51. https://doi.org/10.1111/lit.12236
Klausen, S.H., & Mård, N. (2023). (Eds.) Developing a didactic framework across and beyond school subjects. Cross- and Transcurricular teaching. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003367260
Lather, P., & St. Pierre, E. A. (2013). Post-qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 26(6), 629–633. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2013.788752
MacLure, M. (2013). Researching without representation? Language and materiality in post-qualitative methodology. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 26(6), 658–667. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2013.788755
Mazzei, L., & Jackson, A. (Ed.) (2024). Postfoundational approaches to qualitative inquiry. Routledge.
McCormick, J. (2011). Transmediation in the Language Arts Classroom: Creating Contexts for Analysis and Ambiguity. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(8), 579–587. https://doi.org/10.1598/JAAL.54.8.3
Pieper, I. (2020). L1 education and the place of literature. In B. Green & P-O. Erixon (Eds), Rethinking L1 education in a global era. Understanding the (post)national L1 subjects in new and difficult times. Springer.
Sanz Camarero, R., Ortiz-Revilla, J., & Greca, I.M. (2023). The place of the arts within integrated education. Arts Education Policy Review. https://doi.org/10.1080/10632913.2023.2260917
Xerri, D. (2013). Colluding in the ‘torture’ of poetry: Shared beliefs and assessment. English in Education, 47(2), 134–146. https://doi.org/10.1111/eie.12012
29. Research on Arts Education
Paper
Can the Images Be Another Thing?
Margarida Dias1, José Paiva2
1i2ADS/FBAUP, Portugal; 2i2ADS/FBAUP, Portugal
Presenting Author: Dias, Margarida;
Paiva, José
As part of the research project that took place between 2023 and 2024, entitled “[in]visible - [in]visibility of identities in Portuguese 1st grade elementary textbooks of Social & Environmental Studies after 1974”, we questioned the presence of a subliminal discourse inducing discriminatory values in the representations of images in these textbooks. The research focused on identifying these discriminatory contents that disseminate the naturalised values of a culture built in the West, heir to a colonial, patriarchal and racist past.
By analysing the representations of identity in textbooks between 1974 and 2023 and building a critical reading archive based on this research, the project aimed to identify the impact of the information made (in)visible in these books (https://invisible.i2ads.up.pt/).
The purpose of this communication is to question the possibility that images representing identities could be different, in defence of anti-discriminatory values.
Based on a workshop held with students from the Master in Illustration, Edition and Print
[MIEI], in the subject “Illustration Project”, at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto [FBAUP] in February 2024, who experienced the possibilities of integrating these values into illustrations, the team proposes to present an analysis of the results of this session, in the context of the research carried out.
The relation between the workshop images and the studied textbooks' pictures will be part of the presentation.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedA focus group was set up with MIEI students at the FBAUP, on a voluntary and informed basis, coordinated by their teacher designer and accompanied by members of the project team. The workshop took place while promoting the full freedom of each of the participants, without conditioning them on political or cultural values.
The [in]visible team provided illustrations related to (un)representation of identities, and the task of the participants was to think about these images and illustrate the invisible characters.
The work session was recorded, with each participant's authorisation.
In the end, the participants answered a semi-structured survey with questions about the work process, any hesitations, decisions made, and reflections shared.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsAll the research in the [in]visible project is aimed at building an extended archive of the presence and absence of images of identities in Portuguese textbooks, continuing the study for textbooks in other subjects and school years, and extending it to the international field, in continuity with the actions already carried out in Argentina (“Congreso Internacional Territorios de la Educación Artística en Diálogo. Investigaciones, experiencias y desafios”, 2022), Brazil (“Encontro Internacional de Arte/Educacão · Grupos de Pesquisa ENREDE”, 2023), Cape Verde (“VII Encontro Internacional sobre Educação Artística”, 2021) and Mozambique (“VIII Encontro Internacional sobre Educação Artística”, 2023).
Several communications and publications have already been presented from the study and the respective evaluation reports (https://invisible.i2ads.up.pt/?page_id=30).
ReferencesDIAS, Margarida Dourado (2023). Proyecto [in]visible. In Gabriela Augustowsky & Damián Del Valle (Coord.), Territorios de la educación artística en diálogo (pp. 105-112). Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires: Universidad Nacional de las Artes. ISBN 978-987-3946-28-8. https://formaciondocente.una.edu.ar/noticias/se-lanza-el-libro-territorios-de-la-educacion-artistica-en-dialogo_40418
DIAS, Margarida Dourado (2023). Naturalizing Attitudes on Others Through Images in Portuguese PrimaryTextbooks. Arts and Research in Education: Opening Perspectives. Proceedings of ECER 2022 NW 29: Research on Arts Education: Yerevan (online), Armenia, 44-50. http://hdl.handle.net/10256/23035
FUCHS, Eckhardt & BOCK, Annekatrin (Eds.) (2018). The Palgrave Handbook of Textbook Studies. Palgrave Macmillan.
MAGALHÃES, Justino (2011). O Mural do Tempo. Manuais escolares em Portugal. Edições Colibri.
MERLIN, Nora (2017). El poder de la imagen. In Colonización de la subjetividad. Los médios
massivos em la época del biomercado (pp. 99–103). Letra Viva.
MERLIN, Nora (2019). Colonización de la subjetividad y neoliberalismo. Revista GEARTE,
6(2), 272-285. http://dx.doi.org/10.22456/2357-9854.92906
RICHAUDEAU, François (1979). Conception et production de manuels scolaires. UNESCO.
SERRA, Filipe M. (2005). A imagem nos manuais do ensino primário do Estado Novo. Cultura, 21, 151-176.
SOVIČ, Anja, & HUS, Vlasta (2015). Gender stereotype analysis of the textbooks for young
learners. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 186, 495-501. doi:
10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.04.080, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187704281502340X
SUI, Jiajia (2022). Gender Role of Characters in the Illustrations of Local and Introduced Edition Textbooks of College Portuguese Teaching in China. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 13(6), 1232-1242. https://doi.org/10.17507/jltr.1306.11
29. Research on Arts Education
Paper
What if We All Spread Our Ears Around the World? The Idea of a Community of Free Listeners in Becoming
Mário Azevedo1, Paulo Nogueira2
1FBAUP/ESMAE/i2ADS, Portugal; 2FPCEUP/i2ADS, Portugal
Presenting Author: Azevedo, Mário;
Nogueira, Paulo
We have turned this question into an essay on alterity in music, on how we can bend the boundaries of the sound we already know, and how we can now project it towards the infinite, the endless sound, and that which is yet to be known.
It's about exposing an uneasy experience of thinking that inhabits and is present in a teacher - musician - researcher, and listener who hears voices that confirm the incompleteness of what he is made of when confronted with the infinity and materiality of sounds.
So here are some fragments of this meditative discourse. Here are the most recent declarations-eruptions of this volcanic activity on his thinking, in which what is most clear is, above all, the emergence of what is said, not so much because of its truth, or even falsity, but much more because of what is said.
falsity, but much more because of his desire for contact and wandering between concepts that project him onto the sonorous face of the Other.
It's important to make it clear that the Other is not a threat, but a challenge, and this must be affirmed.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedBased on long-standing research associated with post-doctoral studies, the idea of which is called 'infinite listening', we present here, for a collective comparison between peers, the substantive elements of this work. To showcase this work, we'd address a community of listeners in training - students of music, performance and the arts.
The data collected from an extensive reading on the state of the art of listening, drawing on authors close to the post-structural, critical, and continental philosophy atmosphere (Rosa Braidotti, Gilles Deleuze, Karen Barad, Peter Pal Pelbart and Jacques Derrida, Adorno and Walter Benjamin).
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThis reflection leaves us with the idea that it's worth adding what we've already heard to what we haven't heard, in the hope of being able to remake - this is our micro utopia - the profile of existing music.
To do this, we need to embrace the sound that has always been marginalised, by questioning the canons and endowing music - this is post-music - with the power of the multiple, of the porous and the strangeness that comes from sonic otherness and that can be rehearsed from a device - a war machine that we now call the aesthetic literacy of otherness.
When we talk about post-music, we are talking about the previous futurity that it contains, because it is this that forces us to feel it as a negation of the finite. Post-music is a sonic case of excess because it is capable of being unfaithful to the culture and history that subtracts from it.
When we talk now about the aesthetic literacy of alterity, we are at the epicentre of an epistemic hurricane because we know that no two listenings are the same. Because of this, we suspect that no two places of speech are the same either. If that's the case, why don't we propose plural ways of understanding the world and let ourselves get caught up in the one-way street of the hierarchical comfort of sameness?
By fighting for the device of the aesthetic literacy of otherness, we are summoning all of us to an exercise of disobedience to the canon and affirming that listening is no longer just about obeying (listening in Latin means obeying, obeying).
ReferencesAgawu, Kofi, L’imagination africaine em musique, Ed. Philarmonie de Paris, 2020
Bal, Mieke, Travelling concepts in Humanities: a rough guide, Ed. U. Toronto Press, 2002
Césaire, Aimé, Discurso sobre o colonialismo, Ed. Vs, Vilarinho das Cambas, (1950) 2022
Deleuze, Gilles & Guatarri, Felix, Mil Planaltos: Capitalismo e Esquizofrenia, Ed. Assírio & Alvim, Lisboa, 2007
Derrida, Jacques, A escritura e a Diferença, Ed. Perspetiva, S. Paulo, 2019
Derrida, Jacques, Sepcters of Marx, The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New international, Routledge, 1994
Fisher, Mark em Fantasmas da minha vida, Ed. Vs, 2020
Levinas, Emanuel, Totalidade e Infinito, Ed. 70, Lisboa, 1980
Quignard, Pascal, O Leitor, Ed. Sr. Teste, 2023
Quignard, Pascal, La haine de la musique, Ed. Gallimard, 2019
Quignard, Pascal, Todas as manhãs do mundo, Sr. Teste, 2022
Llansol, Maria Gabriela, LisboaLeipzig, O encontro inesperado do diverso e O ensaio de música, Ed Assírio & Alvim, Porto, 2014
Lopes, Silvina Rodrigues Lopes, O Nascer do Mundo Nas Suas Margens, Ed. Saguão, 2021
Kalinovski, Isabelle, La mélodie du monde, Ed. Philarmonie de Paris, 2023
29. Research on Arts Education
Paper
Early Childhood Children’s Creativity During Creative Play: Two Case Studies
Evi Loizou, Eleni Loizou
University of Cyprus, Cyprus
Presenting Author: Loizou, Evi;
Loizou, Eleni
Early Childhood Education literature considers play as the most appropriate way to plan and promote learning and development. Moreover, we acknowledge the importance of the teacher’s role in children’s play (Loizou, Michaelides & Georgiou, 2019. Vygotsky, 1978) and in enhancing children’s learning focusing on creativity (Leggett,2017). Creative play, as another type of play, connects play with creativity and the arts and provides children with the right context to develop their creativity (Szekely, 2015). The purpose of this study was to show how a creative play program affects children’s creativity focusing on two case studies. Creativity theoretically is defined as an attitude or a habit (Sternberg, 2007) and as a transforming activity for children, which can lead to different ways of acting or thinking (Leggett,2017). Additionally, it is considered as the processes followed by children, such as generating ideas (Robson, 2014), or as the characteristics of the products created, such as originality (Glaveanu, 2011.Weisberg, 2015). In this study we are referring to creative play occurring at play areas in a pre-primary class, as specified by the Early Childhood Education Curriculum of Cyprus (2020). We concur with the definition of creative play ‘as a flow of actions’, where teachers and children ‘in the context of the arts’, participate ‘in the process of creation and creativity’ (Loizou & Loizou, K., 2022, p. 3-4). The research question guiding this study was: How does the implementation of a creative play program impact children’s creativity?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThis is qualitative research (Creswell,2007) and the participants were a boy and a girl, 6 and 5,5 years old. The two children were chosen as case studies based on observations focusing on their creativity development. Data was collected through four video recordings (326 minutes) of creative play at two play areas (the ‘Bakery’ and the ‘Toy Factory’), before and after children’s participation in a Creative Play Program implemented in their class. The Creative Play Program lasted for four months and included free/structured creative play in the two above mentioned play areas, Preparatory Structured Activities (P.S.A.) and Creativity Enhancing Structured Activities (C.E.S.A.) in different content areas. Parents agreed for their children’s participation and their anonymity was ensured. Consent and assent forms with a withdrawal option were signed and pseudonyms were used. Data was analysed using the Children’s Creativity Description Tool, that was created through theoretical thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Research on creativity highlights several variables that one can observe and describe during children’s creative play (e.g., creative process, creative product). Those were identified specific ‘themes and sub-themes, related to children’s creativity (e.g., transformations as a sub-theme of creative process) were noted. The Children’s Creativity Description Tool included the themes and sub-themes that emerged through the theoretical thematic analysis and was used to analyze the data from the two children.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsFindings suggest that the Creative Play Program had a positive impact on the creativity of the two children, since the observed variables (e.g., motivation, originality) occurred more frequently after the implementation of the program. Specifically, findings show that the Creative Play Program positively affected children’s creative attitude during creative play (e.g., motivation), the creative processes they followed (e.g., idea generation) and their creations (e.g., originality of the products). Findings emphasized the importance of offering children the opportunity to participate in creative play experiences to explore and activate their creative potential. Also, specific Creative Mind Tools are highlighted, as activity strategies that children employ during their creative play, these include ‘Plan’, ‘Solve’ and ‘Connect’. Finally, this study underlines children’s Zone of Proximal Creative Development (ZPCD), in which they act during creative play.
ReferencesGlăveanu, V. P. (2011). Children and creativity: A most (un)likely pair? Thinking Skills and Creativity 6(2), 122– 131. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2011.03.002
Leggett, N. (2017). Early Childhood Creativity: Challenging Educators in Their Role to Intentionally Develop Creative Thinking in Children. Early Childhood Education Journal, 45, 845–853. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-016-0836-4
Loizou, E., & Loizou, E. K. (2022). Creative play and the role of the teacher through the cultural-historical activity theory framework. International Journal of Early Years Education, 30(3), 527-541. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2022.2065248
Loizou, E., Michaelides, A., & Georgiou, A. (2019). Early childhood teacher involvement in children’s socio-dramatic play: creative drama as a scaffolding tool. Early Child Development and Care, 189(4), 600-612. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2017.1336165
Robson, S. (2014). The Analysing Children's Creative Thinking framework: development of an observation‐led approach to identifying and analysing young children's creative thinking. British Educational Research Journal, 40(1), 121-134. https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3033
Sternberg, R. J. (2007). Creativity as a habit. In A. Tan (Ed.), Creativity: a handbook for teachers (pp.3 –25). World Scientific.
Szekely, G. (2015). Play and creativity in art teaching. Routledge.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: Development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press.
Weisberg, R. W. (2015). On the usefulness of “value” in the definition of creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 27(2), 111-124. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2015.1030320
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