Lesley University DigitalCommons@Lesley Educational Studies Dissertations Graduate School of Education (GSOE) 2010 Text and Texture: An Arts-Based Exploration of Transformation in Adult Learning: A Dissertation Enid E. Larsen Lesley University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.edu/education_dissertations Part of the Adult and Continuing Education Commons, and the Art Education Commons Recommended Citation Larsen, Enid E., "Text and Texture: An Arts-Based Exploration of Transformation in Adult Learning: A Dissertation" (2010). Educational Studies Dissertations.edu/education_dissertations/58 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School of Education (GSOE) at DigitalCommons@Lesley. It has been accepted for inclusion in Educational Studies Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Lesley.
For more information, please contact digitalcommons@lesley. Text and Texture: An Arts-based Exploration of Transformation in Adult Learning A Dissertation submitted by Enid E. Larsen In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy LESLEY UNIVERSITY May 2010 1 2 Text and Texture: An Arts-based Exploration of Transformation in Adult Learning 3 Abstract This research explored the transformational and co-transformational potential of collage, assemblage and mixed media in an accelerated undergraduate adult course on imagination and creativity. The methods were qualitative and arts- based artist-teacher inquiry within a constructivist art class for ten, female adult learners.
Informed by the researcher’s living inquiry through visual auto- ethnography, a collagist methodology shaped the research, including syllabus construction, course delivery and data gathering. Process was an emergent and interpretive analytic tool, drawn from multiple perspectives of artwork and reflections by the students, and the multiple identities inherent to the artist- teacher researcher. This research indicates that collage and assemblage were effective methods for artistic expression and exploration of self with these adult learners. Collage and assemblage allowed the learners to explore and express multiple, complex feelings simultaneously in an accelerated experience of perception.
Collagist methodology facilitated transformation of assumptions, perceptions, feelings, and behavior within the students’ and the artist-teacher researcher’s living inquiries. These adult learners required significant amounts of restoration and reparation in their return to education. The collage process increased their sense of agency in dealing with unfamiliarity and identified impediments to transformational learning. As a malleable concept, collage provided a metaphor and analogy for adult learning and modern living while simultaneously providing the students with an opportunity for stimulating discovery, profound pleasure and energized spirit.
As a way of knowing, collage contributed to transformation within the students’ lives. 4 Key words: transformation, transformational learning, adult-learning, arts-based, artist-teacher research, collage, living inquiry, way of knowing. 5 Dedication and Acknowledgements I am deeply grateful to everyone who has shown me what possibilities lay within living inquiry - my students, my committee, my dear husband and children, my sister, and especially my mother. "Thank you, Mom, for the trajectory." Life is constant learning Never the lessons end And the more we learn the further we find the bounds of our lives extend.
Hand-written poetry, a literary ruin, found in my mother's china cupboard among her linens, tablecloths and life ephemera. I remember reading it countless times in my childhood ethnographic hunts. 6 Table of Contents Front Page Dissertation Approval Form Title Page Abstract Acknowledgements Table of Contents Poem: The Way It Is Chapter I Introduction to the Research 9 Chapter II Introduction to Literature Reviews 13 Qualitative Research 16 Arts-based Research 24 Transformational Learning 50 Chapter III Visual Autoethnography: An Artful Encounter with Eros 60 Chapter IV: Research Methods 85 Chapter V: Thematic Analysis 104 (themes on continuums of human experience) Cognitive 105 Affective 129 Sensory 147 Spiritual 164 Relational 177 Chapter VI: Discussion and Implications for Future Study 195 References 219 Appendices 229 Consent Form Sample 229 Course Syllabus 231 Image and Photo Index (located in Supplementary File) 7 The Way It Is There’s a thread you follow. It goes among things that change.
But it doesn’t change. People wonder about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread. But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost. Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; and you suffer and get old. Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding. You don’t ever let go of the thread.
William Stafford 8 Chapter One Introduction to the Research This research is focused on the phenomenon of transformation and exploring the potential for arts and creative processes in transformational and co- transformational learning in adult education. A primary objective is to increase understanding of realities and factors in transformational learning - that is, of perspective change or even deep, paradigmatic change - into clearer understanding and practical usage for adult learners and educators through a deeper understanding of creative art processes in adult learning. At the heart of the research is the challenge of how I can be better equipped to recognize, facilitate and manage learning at the edges of knowing (Eisner, 1997; Berger, 2004; Diaz 2004; ) in constructivist learning environments (Hein, 2002). As a college administrator in a graduate and professional studies school in a Liberal Arts College, as a professor, a Social Work therapist, and a self-taught visual artist, I am deeply appreciative of the many routes that lead to learning and development.
Throughout my interdisciplinary career, which spans over thirty years, I have remained committed to transformational learning within the individual - to the kind of learning that is driven and informed from inside out, and to actualization of the Self - as a means of contributing vibrant, meaningful life back to culture. I want to become more accomplished in facilitating transformational learning because, simply, this is my life’s work, and because individual transformational learning is an important, valuable and threatened component in the education of adult learners. Despite recurring trends towards positivism and pragmatism in educational research and delivery, interest in the phenomenon of transformation continues 9 to grow in post-modern culture, evidenced by socio-cultural and educational disparities, educational debates and reform, spiritual exploration, burgeoning self-help books, a call for ecological renewal, to name a few. When encountering such immediate individual and cultural need, an interest in the phenomenon of transformation can take on idealized, perhaps, even over-whelming forms and scale.
I seek to find my place of contribution in the culture of higher education in realistic and accessible forms to educators of adult learners, and to adult learners, themselves. My research on the phenomena of transformation is a means by which I am making the archetype of transformation more conscious, not only for my own individuation and professional development, but particularly as a contribution to adult learners as a means to increase development of Self (Jung, 1969) in adult learner education. I seek increased perspective and deeper insight about the phenomenon of transformation through creative processes derived from art studio methods - both my own and the work of my adult learning students. To prepare for my research, I began with living inquiry of myself - a self-taught artist, a teaching artist, an artist scholar - each archetype respecting the learning experience and growth of one who learns through experience, and who then shines light on the paths of others coming along on the learning journey.
I identify myself with “life history researchers with deep roots in meaning-making systems that honor the many and diverse ways of knowing - personal, narrative, embodied, artistic, aesthetic - that stand outside sanctioned intellectual frameworks”(Knowles & Cole, 2007, p. I wanted to learn from my most solid point of authority – my own personal experience and the rendering of self – because, in the end, I wanted to be better able to validate and facilitate my 10 students’ knowledge, as it can be gained, from their own rich, personal experiences. Through the genre of artist-teacher research, the following dissertation is an arts-based exploration of transformational learning depicted in two ways: first, through rendering of self in visual autoethnography and second, through living inquiry, arts-based research of ten female adult learners who, upon returning to college to complete their education, completed an art course in imagination and creativity. The studio work and reflections issued from the course provided data for analysis of their processes.
The Chapters Chapter One introduces the research and provides a context and rationale for the exploration of transformational and co-transformational learning in adult learning through creative art processes. Chapter Two provides three literature reviews, beginning with an historical scan of the history of qualitative research, and a second which contextualizes the research in the more recent experimental time frame of arts-based research. A third literature review of transformation explores the phenomena of transformational learning in adult learning, including discussion on attempts to define transformational learning, transformational practices, and the value and challenges of transformational learning. Chapter Three portrays visual autoethnograghy conducted as living inquiry and my initial exploration as a self-taught artist, a teaching artist, and an artist scholar.
The studio experience and the fine arts methods of collage, assemblage 11 and mixed media established the impetus and foundation for the subsequent artist-teacher research in collage and mixed media in an adult learning classroom. The chapter documents the visual autoethnography through photographs of the art work produced and discussion of the work and studio process. Chapter Four depicts research methods used with ten female students in an undergraduate adult learning art class in Art, Collage and Imagination through the question: How can the use of collage, assemblage and mixed media be transformational and co-transformational in an undergraduate adult learning course on imagination and creativity? The methods chapter provides definitions, context, data-gathering activities, assumptions, descriptions of participants, method of analysis, and limitations of the research. Chapter Five is a thematic analysis of the research based on themes on continuums of human experience through ways of knowing that were initially evidenced in the visual auto-ethnography.
Ways of knowing depicted in the research analysis include cognitive, affective, sensory, spiritual, and relational. The analysis is documented through photographs and discussion of the students' art work and studio processes. Chapter Six provides a discussion of transformational and co-transformational learning evidenced in the research through collage and studio experiences in adult learning, both through the research participant and the researcher. The chapter includes photographs of artwork and text that portray and exemplify collagic integration of text and texture.
Implications for future study and the potential of collage as both a method and metaphor in adult learning classrooms are discussed. 12 Chapter Two Introduction to the Literature Reviews My decision to research recursively, along the path of my own experiences, placed me squarely in the stream of educational debate, new ideas and on-going discord regarding validity and credibility in research - not only in the use of art- based methods but particularly on the use of the “I” voice to produce and demonstrate knowledge (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000/2008). What research method will allow me to find my voice, exercise my words and validate myself as an educational researcher and as a visual artist? What is the relationship between researchers and artists? How can I explore my assumptions through the perspective and experience of an artist? My literature reviews were driven not only by my own disenchantment with traditional research methods but also that expressed by my students in both undergraduate adult degree completion programs and master education programs. I learned that, as a program director and educator of adult students, advisement and classroom teaching necessarily includes acknowledgement that research is a frequently maligned requisite in education and an obstacle through which some students require careful guidance and reparative learning experiences.
A practical worry for adult learners is utility - that the investment of time and effort required by a research project will be something apart from their educational and practice goals, and will ultimately compete with the little time they have as adult learners. Worse, is a concern for meaninglessness - that the research process will be an exercise with little connection to their working world and, more so, to their passions and interests.