Creative Advocacy – using arts-based education research to engage new audiences and give voice to participants
This webinar discussed how the arts could be used to communicate powerful ideas in flexible and adaptable ways. The webinar explored how arts-based researchers worked alongside third-sector organizations to generate impact for various causes. This included the use of creative methods to engage new audiences and amplify voices in a wide range of causes.
Case studies drawn from global research contexts explored how arts-based education research helped communities to find and communicate their identities, use arts education for curriculum decolonization, and develop sustainability through arts-based interventions. The arts curriculum connected with culture and knowledge beyond those of Western and colonial origin. Arts-based research acted as a catalyst for wider curriculum decolonization and development in Humanities, Social Sciences, and STEM. The webinar discussed working with research participants using the arts to support a wide range of learners to express and craft their own stories. It reported on ways that individuals and communities had been estranged from arts education, the surrounding socioeconomic and cultural factors, and how engagement in the arts could provide a basis to improve lives and strengthen communities, particularly giving a voice to those who felt underrepresented by formal education.
Creative Advocacy was the second of three webinars that presented how Arts-Based Educational Research offered a deep exploration of how the arts profoundly impacted educational research, influencing personal and societal transformation across global contexts. These webinars were a sharing of academic research and a call to action urging creativity for social change through the arts. They invited the audience into a conversation about the transformative role of the arts in educational research, inspiring action across diverse landscapes. Speakers also presented a practical toolkit of advice for researchers wishing to include ABER in their practice. The webinars drew on material from the forthcoming Handbook of Arts-Based Educational Research (Bloomsbury). The presenters of the webinars (in calendar order: Rebecca Berkley, Adam Hart, and Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan) were part of the editorial team of this handbook.
Draft Programme
04:00pm Welcome & Introduction
04:05pm Presentation 1; Frances Howard & Adrian Schoone
04:20pm Presentation 2; Lucy Panesar & Ekene Okobi
04:35pm Presentation 3; Alan Williams
04:45pm Presentation 4; Florence Halstead & Ria Dunkley
04:55pm Closing Discussion
05:00pm Close of Event
As part of a series, the other two events can be found here:
Associate Professor in Music Education at University of Reading
Rebecca Berkley is an Associate Professor in Music Education at the University of Reading. Her areas of interest are classroom musicianship, choral education, musical leadership and musical cognition. She is the co-director of the Postgraduate...
Professor at University of Nottingham
Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan is Professor of Education at the University of Nottingham. She specialises in professional learning, self-reflexive scholarship and arts-based educational research. Her recent book, Poetic Inquiry for the Social and Human...
Lecturer in Music Technology at University of Salford
Dr Adam Hart is a lecturer in music technology at the University of Salford. He has a background in secondary education and audio programming, and his research interests involve creative advocacy through interactive technology. His PhD project...
Associate Professor in Youth Research at Nottingham Trent University
Dr Frances Howard is an Associate Professor of Youth Research at Nottingham Trent University. Frances’ research focuses on the arts and youth work, and as an ethnographer, she frequently draws upon creative methods in youth settings. She also...
Auckland University of Technology
Adrian Schoone is a research specialist in Alternative Education with a focus on educational opportunity and access for disenfranchised students. His recently completed externally funded research explored the critical moments of Alternative...
Lecturer in Higher Education at University of Kent
I am a UK based educator and educational developer focussed on the development of inclusive and equitable higher education practices. My first teaching role was at the University for the Creative Arts and my first educational development role was...
Post Doctoral Research Associate at Advanced Research Centre
Florence is a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the University of Glasgow, where her research focusses on the intersection between Society, limate Change and Education. Her work utilises Participatory Action Research and Community Collaboration...
Ekene “E” Okobi is an interdisciplinary artist, journalist, playwright and poet from San Francisco. Her pedagogical practice includes developing and facilitating family and community workshops, classroom teaching, undergraduate and graduate...