Network
NW 07. Social Justice and Intercultural Education, NW 20. Research in Innovative Intercultural Learning Environments and NW 29. Research on Arts Education
Title
Arts-based research and education: School and Community Engagement, Participation, Innovation and Power-Sharing
Abstract
Arts-Based Educational Research (ABER) uses inventive, sensory and relational methods to deepen understanding of experience. Similarly, participatory research (PR) methods invite active co-creation of knowledge, challenging traditional research dynamics and valuing marginalised perspectives. Arts-based techniques provide accessible, non-verbal means for participants to share their insights, supporting culturally sensitive and contextually relevant research. These approaches encourage researchers to be reflexive and ethically sensitive in addressing power asymmetries throughout the research process. With this joint special call, we invite educational researchers to present how they practice ABER and PR and strive for school and community engagement, participation, innovation and power sharing.
The Call
For more than 30 years, arts-based educational research (ABER) has been a living reference that folds and unfolds from different frameworks, perspectives and fields of knowledge. It is a research that brings us a better and deeper comprehension of our experiences, from the senses, the aesthetic and the relations (Barone and Eisner, 2012). According to Irwin (2013), ABER is a living inquiry based on inventive methodology. In this sense, ABER allows both researchers and participants to experience education in an embodied and relational way through the arts (Hernández-Hernández and Onsès-Segarra, 2023).
Like ABER, the use of participatory research methods (PR) encourages the active involvement of a wide range of stakeholders, including students, teachers, educators, social workers and community members. This approach also challenges the traditional researcher-subject dynamic by transforming participation into a collaborative process that values multiple perspectives and co-creates knowledge (Lenette, 2022). Such research requires researchers to practice reflexivity and decentre dominant perspectives, ensuring that marginalised voices and multiliteracies are acknowledged and represented (see, for example, Lenette 2019; Vacchelli 2018; Mata-Codesal et al. 2020; Moralli 2024 for migration studies). Moving beyond traditional research techniques visual, experiential, and collaborative methods are incorporated. This allows participants to express their perspectives and lived experiences in ways that reflect their cultural, social, and economic realities (Vaughn & Jacquez, 2020). Thus, one key aspect of these methodologies is their ability to break down barriers to participation, particularly for groups who may feel alienated by formal, institutional processes. Techniques like Photovoice, Memory Walks, and Collage provide accessible, non-verbal platforms that allow participants to share their experiences and insights in unique ways (Carmona et al., 2022; Wang & Burris, 1997; Butler-Kisber, 2008). In doing so, they can firstly empower marginalised communities by valuing their knowledge and experience, and secondly, foster researchers and practitioners deeper understanding of diverse communities and ensure that solutions are contextually relevant and culturally sensitive (Bergold & Thomas, 2012).
We welcome papers that
- highlight the complexity of multiple perspectives that arts-based data can generate, and how these are captured, produced and analysed.
- consider how the multiliteracies and the multilingualism of research participants were taken into account in the research process
- reflect on co-creation processes and power asymmetries within the research process (in terms of the relationship between researchers and children, young people, and community members as co-researchers), including possibly contradictory perspectives and frictions that create insights
- explore the potential of the arts to respect and acknowledge community experiences
- emphasize the role of participation in producing innovative research and socially just research
- focus on research ethics, as arts-based methods require greater sensitivity (including different kinds of risks for different research participants, e.g. the ones being represented, but also the ones creating the representations as well as the different audiences etc.)
- show how the researcher's reflexivity about positioning and positionality is carried out during the research process and how this informs the analysis of the data captured and produced
Contact Person(s)
References
Barone, T., and Eisner, E. (2012). Arts-based research. SAGE publications.
Bergold, J., & Thomas, S. (2012). Participatory research methods: A methodological approach in motion. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 13(1), 191-222.
Butler-Kisber, L. (2008). Collage as inquiry. In J. G. Knowles & A. L. Cole (Eds.), Handbook of the arts in qualitative research (pp. 265-276). SAGE Publications.
Carmona, C., Vazirani, S., & Hernaiz, N. (2022). El uso de Fotovoz para analizar la diversidad cultural en Educación Superior. In Educar para transformar: Innovación pedagógica, calidad y TIC en contextos formativos (pp. 2571-2580). Dykinson.
Hernández-Hernández, F., and Onsès-Segarra, J. (2023). La investigacion basada en las artes hacer visibles aspectos de Ia vida del aula y de Ia escuela que de otra forma se mantendrían invisibles. In, Bueno Borges da Silva., J.M. Sancho Gil y F. Hernández-Hernández (coords.) Docentes investigadores. Epistemes y metodologías (pp. 241-257). Editora da Universidade Federal da Bahia
Irwin, R. (2013). Becoming a/r/tography. Studies in Art Education, 54(3), 198–215.
Lenette, C. (2019). Arts-Based Methods in Refugee Research. Creating Sanctuary. Springer Singapore.
Lenette, C. (2022). Cultural Safety in Participatory Arts-Based Research: How Can We Do Better? Journal of Participatory Research Methods 3(1): 1–16.
Mata-Codesal, D., Kloetzer, L., & Maiztegui-Oñate, C. (2020). Special Issue: Participatory Methods in Migration Research. Migration Letters, 17(2).
Moralli, M. (2024). Arts-Based Methods in Migration Research. A Methodological Analysis on Participatory Visual Methods and Their Transformative Potentials and Limits in Studying Human Mobility. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 23, DOI: doi.org/10.1177/16094069241254008
Vacchelli, E. (2018). Embodied research in migration studies: Using creative and participatory approaches. Bristol University Press. DOI: doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv301ddv
Vaughn, L. M., & Jacquez, F. (2020). Participatory research methods–choice points in the research process. Journal of Participatory Research Methods, 1(1).
Wang, C., & Burris, M. A. (1997). Photovoice: Concept, methodology, and use for participatory needs assessment. Health Education & Behavior, 24(3), 369-387.
