Category: Research

From Toy Story to Treseder: what are we fighting for? Perspectives on Youth Voice

On Tuesday 3 November at 12.15hrs EEST, I’ll be presenting my paper, From Toy Story to Treseder at the International Research Conference “Impacts of Arts and Cultural Education: arguments and evidence. The conference is being promoted by the Latvian Academy of Culture and will be live streamed from 11.00am EEST online on the Academy’s YouTube Channel and Facebook page.

My presentation explores the phenomenon of ventriloquation, hypnotism and impersonation as channelled through Disney’s Toy Story 4 and identifies the challenges to fighting for the creative voice of children and young people. It asks when it comes to your time to hearing the voices of young people, how do you perform? Are you a hypnotist, ventriloquist. Impersonator or something else?

In case you can’t make it, here is my presentation.

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And if you prefer to read it, here it is.

Introduction

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Unlike Leonard Sachs in the BBC TV series The Good Old Days, I shall try and avoid any sesquipedalianism (The practice of using long, sometimes obscure words), try hard not to asservate (assert over emphatically) but enjoy the myriad multipotency and polyphony of our session together here in Riga, or where-ever you may be based.

“Begin with art, because art tries to take us outside ourselves. It is a matter of trying to create an atmosphere and context so conversation can flow back and forth, and we can be influenced by each other.” (W.E.B. Du Bois)

In accordance with the author and historian, WEB Du Bois, I’d like to start with another piece of art, the film, Toy Story 4. In this clip, Buzz Lightyear is trying to persuade our hero, Woody, to give up his quest to find Bo Peep and go home. Woody refuses so Buzz asks his inner voice what he should do next.

Thanks a lot, inner voice. Something we all might recognise in times of trouble when it comes to listening to what we think our intuition, our gut feeling or what we might think of as our authentic voice is telling us.

Buzz’s awareness that his inner voice has its limits is important in the phenomenon of ‘youth voice’. In this presentation, I’m going to discuss the challenges these limits present, especially in these times when the voices of the people and young people in particular are called upon to inform public cultural policy. I’ll be exploring this by considering the concept of Authentic Voice and how this relates to the concept of Performative Voice; and how voices can inform civic dialogue as part of a wider call for Cultural Democracy.

Youth Voice: the impulse for this paper

You can’t go far these days without hearing about the importance of pupil voice in school improvement, planet climate warnings or, at the older end of the age spectrum, the Brexit referendum, perhaps the biggest pretence at listening to the voices of the British people in recent years.

We’ve learned a lot in the UK from the Brexit referendum about how voices are manipulated, distorted and selectively listened to; and there’s some learning here for when it comes to considering how young people’s voice – or voices – are heard and acted upon. At a macro level, this has been one provoking incident which has led to a consideration of what we mean by public voice and democracy.

 Creative Voices: an organisational perspective – what are we fighting for?

Coming closer to home, as CEO of the charity, The Mighty Creatives, we place great store by our brand strapline, ‘Fighting for the creative voices of children and young people’. It’s an aspiration woven through our organisation since it began and as such it helps mark ourselves out as deserving of special attention in the cultural marketplace: it’s at the heart of our mission statement. My colleague Emily York expresses it thus:

Children and young people are feeling more and more empowered to share their views and to have them valued. It is our duty to listen to them, respond to them and embed their views within our organisation’s practice where appropriate. We cannot authentically provide for children and young people if we do not do so. With this there is an undeniable responsibility, not only to provide children and young people with rich arts and culture opportunities, but to also organically embed youth representation and voice within our infrastructure.

There are several concepts here which I’ll explore through this presentation

Firstly, that of authenticity: the idea that an organisation has to ‘walk the talk’ if it is to be taken seriously by the beneficiaries it claims to be working for. Authenticity suggests a fundamental, state of being which represents the true self of the organisation’s intentions and motivations. Being seen to be authentic can be comforting in that it provides a sense of moral rectitude when the world is replete with fake news, illusion, ambivalence and ambiguity.

Secondly, that of civic duty: by listening to young people and actively taking steps in order to transform organisational policies, practices and structures, we can demonstrate that we are fulfilling a wider civic role, rooted in traditions of participation and democracy.

So the second impulse for this paper has been to stimulate debate with colleagues, both within TMC and externally, about what we really mean by Youth Voice; how and why it should be fought for and what’s at stake for us all: artists, educators and young people themselves.

What we understand by Youth Voice

At its simplest level, youth voice is a term for how children young people are able to express themselves in order to influence the world around them. This is not just about the spoken word but the many different ways we express ourselves: laughing, crying, gazing, pointing and grasping amongst many others.

Youth Voice is central to many engagement and participation strategies and I’m going to reference three of which inform our work at TMC: Hart’s Ladder of Participation, Phil Treseder’s Degrees of Participation model and Lundy’s Model of Child Participation.

Phil Treseder’s Degrees of Participation emphasises that there should be no limit to youth participation, with each degree of participation being equally valuable, dependent on the proposed project and the objectives of the participants. These degrees are:

 Assigned by informed;
Consulted and Informed;
Adult-initiated, shared decisions with children;
Child-initiated, shared decisions with adults and
Child-initiated and directed.

Lundy’s Model of Child Participation provides a sense check of whether we are ensuring that every child and young person we engage with, through any degree of participation, has their voice heard and acted on.

Her model provides a way of conceptualising a child’s right to participation, as laid down in Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is intended to focus decision-makers on the distinct, albeit interrelated, elements of the provision.

The four elements of the model have a natural and rational order of Space, Voice, Audience and Influence. A safe space and open space must be available for young people to share their views, children and young people must be facilitated well enough to express them correctly, these views, ideas and opinions must be actively listened to and acted on if and where appropriate.

In 2012, Andreas Karsten identified 36 different models of youth and citizen participation in which the importance of youth voice plays various degrees of importance. I’m not going to compare and contrast all those models here but suggest that this proliferation of models is perhaps a sign that trying to define youth voice as a singular entity is a lost cause from the outset.

Rather than trying to define a complex phenomenon under one all encompassing model or metaphor, it might make more sense to see it as a polyphonal phenomenon: multi-faceted, multi-structured, multi-purposed and multi-voiced.

 The mirage of the authentic voice

When in times of ambivalence and complexity, it’s time to turn to art again and I’d like to show you this brief clip to give us another perspective on the challenge of youth voice.

Let me introduce you to Kenny Craig, hypnotist from the BBCTV series Little Britain of a few years ago:

Whilst youth voice has been central to much child centred learning pedagogy across the world, there’s a risk that claiming to privilege children’s voice as the central plank of your cultural policy making can become a tokenistic attempt at democratic education, which can, with a hypnotistic Kenny Craig waving away of the hands – Look into my eyes, look into my eyes, the eyes, the eyes, not around the eyes, don’t look around my eyes, look into my eyes, you’re under – mask several other agendas – pupil compliance, customer satisfaction, and the inexorable marketisation of education – in full flow.

The sight of the young woman not remembering agreeing to go on the date with Kenny reminds me of student subject choices being strangely limited at critical times in their education development. When she’s discouraged against her will to choose the set menu over lobster and water instead of champagne, I ask myself whether this tells us something about how often young people in school can be hypnotised into expressing their school’s desires rather than their own.

When we find ourselves asking ourselves, whose voice are we actually listening to? The voice of the young woman or that of Kenny Craig? Then it’s time to resort to art again – this time in the shape of some more old English Music Hall Tradition – to gain some further insights into the ephemeral concept of youth voice.

It’s always interesting to see the ventriloquist dummy fighting against the will of it’s operator; not least because it’s the operator’s own voice is expressing the revolt, through the voice of the dummy.

Ventriloquation – when a speaker speaks through the voice of another for the purpose of social or interactional positioning (Wertsch, 1991, Bakhtin, 1981) – is not just a spooky music hall act but is brilliantly demonstrated in Toy Story 4, when Woody, on his quest to return the trash toy, Forky, to his owner Bonnie, chances upon a doll called Gabby in an antique store and her slavish ventriloquist’s dummies, the Bensons.

The conflict between Woody and Gabby Gabby is at its heart, a fight for the voice of the child. Gabby Gabby’s voice box has been broken and her desire to replace it leads to her capturing Woody and offering a deal – give me your voice box and I’ll give you back your lost toy, Bo – and by implication his long-lost love.

The Bensons are instrumental in her fight to regain her voice box, and Woody, ever the Tom Hanks hero, obliges. He donates his voice box to her through a surgical procedure; which leads to her eventually gaining the attention of a lost child at the end of the film which ensures both the toy’s and child’s happy ever afterness.

Scratch the surface of Toy Story 4 and there are several other delights in store when it comes to understanding the complexities of youth voices.

Heteroglossia (roughly translated as ‘multi-languagedness’) is described by Bakhtin in his work “Discourse in the Novel.” And refers to the idea that there are several distinct languages within any single (apparently unified) language or text: and that different languages each have a different voice which compete with one another for dominance.

This is exemplified in this clip from Toy Story 4: in his search for Woody, Buzz Lightyear, who all through the film has been advised to listen to his inner voice, struggles to listen to the voice he wants to hear from the button-induced phrases from his own voice box:

“It’s an unchartered mission in unchartered space” doesn’t cut it.
“No time to explain!” isn’t what’s needed.
“To infinity and beyond!” is missing the point.

But finally, the inner voice phrase “The slingshot manoeuvre!” does the trick and Buzz is off to save the day again, reminding us in the process that the ‘inner voice’ is also, far more complex, more heteroglossic, than we might imagine.

Toy Story 4 also shows how children’s voices are constructed through acts of impersonation.

In one of the final chase sequences through the carnival at the end of the film, one of the toy gang, Trixie, impersonates the family car’s GPS system and the toys manipulate the controls, so taking control of the car.

Also worth a listen to how Buzz responds to Rex the Dinosaur when asked what he’s doing as he presses his voice box buttons.

So, bearing in mind the hypnotists, ventriloquists and impersonators which construct our inner voices, we can conclude that always in transition, voice is not a fixed entity. We do not speak consistently for long. We are always learning; and always listening to new voices which we try to ignore, assimilate, pass off as our own or wrestle into a completely different form.

Our authentic voice can never be completely pinned down or determined because our lives depend on flux and flow, confluence and influence.

Listen to your inner voice says Buzz Lightyear throughout the film. But which one, we might ask ourselves?

So, is the search for authenticity a false one, given the heteroglossic, provisional and fluid nature of voice? And if so, then what hope is there for organisations like ourselves, and at a macro level, policy makers who great place value on the need to hear the voices of young people and the wider community at large?

The hope lies in the very plurality that the word ’voices’ suggests and the recognition that voice is dynamically constructed and reconstructed, shaped by many different, counter or affirmative voices. To channel the voice of Judith Butler and her work on identity: we do not have a voice, we perform multiple voices. Voice is a performative act, not a state of authentic, inviolable being.

Policy perspectives: How plurality supports cultural democracy

Bearing this in mind, what are the implications for policy makers and practitioners who genuinely want to ensure that the influence and agency of young people can felt in their organisations and practice? How does policy contend with ambiguity, ambivalence and multiplicity of voices and views?

The Mighty Creatives and many other cultural organisations are not alone in wanting to hear from the voices of our beneficiaries. This desire stems from the recognition that arts have a critical role in the civic life of nations: and for this role to play out to its full effect, listening and acting upon the voices of citizens is critical.

The study undertaken by Kings College London for the Gulbenkian Foundation in 2016 makes the case for the civic role of the arts in the following ways:

The inherent argument: Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights establishes ‘a right to participate in the cultural life of the community’ and that it is in the duty of every arts organisation to reach out and be an active part of their communities, especially if they receive public funding or protection.

The social justice argument: We live in unequal and divided societies and arts organisations are well placed to articulate this disparity and (furthermore) enable social action by, with and for the disadvantaged to ameliorate the situation.

The intrinsic argument: Arts organisations are uniquely placed to engage in civic matters since they are seen as neutral or third spaces and that people respond to the material of the arts using different values and faculties from those they apply to explicitly political media.

The dutiful argument: In a society in which trust, engagement and investment in traditional civic organisations (such as churches, political parties, etc.) is seemingly declining, arts and cultural organisations represent a last resort (or perhaps preferred agency) through which to mobilise and animate citizens in democratic processes.

The Kings College study highlights the work of Bacon and Korza (1999) and their argument that it’s the very presence of the multiplicity of voices which leads to civic dialogue and democracy.

Their emphasis on dialogue between multiple voices can direct us to how we might better develop our intentions to listen to and act upon the voices of young people.

They argue, in their publication, Animating Democracy: the Artistic Imagination as a Force in Civic Dialogue, that cultural organisations play a key role as catalysts, conveners, or forums for civic dialogue, beyond their basic role of producer, presenter, or exhibitor.

By offering space, organisational and interpretive capacity, cultural organisations can build local relationships to encourage various publics to engage in civic dialogue and participatory democracy:

“civic dialogue plays an essential role in the workings of democracy, giving voice to multiple perspectives on challenging issues; enabling people to develop more multifaceted, humane, and realistic views of issues and each other; and helping diverse groups find common ground.

Dialogue can help diverse groups find common ground on a particular issue. Face-to- face exchange prompts people to develop a more multifaceted, human, realistic picture of their fellow citizens and of an issue, in the absence of which there is a tendency to stereotype opponents and reduce issues to extremes.”

This leads me to three final questions. If we could recognise our own multiple voices of ourselves, might this lead to the democratisation of ourselves, and an acceptance of our differences to ourselves first of all, from which acceptance of The Other might follow?

Could recognising the hypnotists, ventriloquists in our own lives somehow lead to greater tolerance of the multiplicity of the voices of The Other and lead to societies which are more at ease with themselves?

And finally, when it comes to your time to hearing the voices of young people, how do you perform? Are you a hypnotist, ventriloquist. Impersonator or something else?

I’ve leave this with you for our Q and A session, but in the meantime would like to end with a return to art.

In 2019, The Mighty Creatives promoted a conference entitled Creating the Future: Challenging Perspectives and Broadening Horizons for Children and Young People. Designed, developed and delivered by 5 young people, the conference produced many challenging conversations about how young voices could inform their futures.

We asked the poet, writer and creative producer Charley Genever, to capture the day’s conversations and happenings, of which she crafted into ‘Notes for Change’ which I shall finish my presentation with. The last note provides a partial answer to the question I have just posed.

SLIDE NOTES FOR CHANGE by Charley Genever

1. We all know how the world is, we feel it in our fists, the evidence is there, we’re failing at least two million of our kids and not one of them deserves it.

2. A shut door is a barrier. A bus ticket is a barrier. Education is a barrier. Your 35+ staff team with the same average age is a barrier.

3. The system is an ancient ocean and provision comes in paddling pools. The figures go over our heads to the ebb of rich, white hands. Look at them wave, floating their tick boxes and funding loops to our shoreline for us to ascribe our lives to.

4. This is not how it should be. Kids do not come culture free and every turned cheek becomes a disaffected memory.

5. Imagine how fresh democracy would be if we showed every child, they’re worthy of creativity.

6. There’s so much noise when you’re young. Layers and layers of it. A slow story, a clock for a tongue, all the words come out wrong. Shame slots in-between, breeding on the lack of opportunity.

7. Jargon is only good for lingo bingo. It’s condescending. Get it off your posters.

8. Art is the business of people, the right for everyone to belong, for new minds to find their tribes, to create thriving humans.

9. If you don’t wear this sentiment across your chest, you’re not a youth engagement officer, you’re a security guard.

10. Are you being honest with yourself? Are you riding your high horse to the estates, the academies, the prisons, or are you watching the horizon shrink from your office?

11. LISTEN. The youth will speak. GIVE SPACE. The youth will fill it.

12. In the right light even dust will ignite. Sparks in school visits, in workshops with guest artists, in museum trips and paid internships. Don’t tell me you can’t evaluate a twinkle. You are asking the wrong questions.

13. Remember when you were first gifted the power to make the ground sound magical? Turn tarmac to fairy-tale. Open the curtains and let the whole street in.

14. There is no alternative to hope. It’s all we’ve got.

15. There is no alternative to hope. It’s all we’ve got.

END

The full conference schedule is here Konferences programma_15.10_ENG-2.

Bibliography

Arts Council England (2015) Building a Creative Nation: Putting Skills to Work, Creative & Cultural Skills.

Arts Council England (2018) The Conversation, A report by Britain Thinks.

Bianchi, L.L. (1999). Finding a voice: Poetry and performance with first graders. PhD thesis. Durham, NH: University of New Hampshire.

Bond, K. & Stinson, S. (2007). It‘s work, work, work, work ‘: Young people ‘s experiences of effort and engagement in dance, Research in Dance Education. 8, 2, 155-183.

Butler, J., (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Routledge.

Fishkin, James S. The Voice of the People: Public Opinion and Democracy, New Haven, Conn.:Yale University Press, 1995.

Hart, R., (1992) Children’s Participation: from Tokenism to Citizenship, UNICEF International Child Development Centre.

Ivey, B. (2009) Expressive lives and the public interest, Expressive Lives, Samuel Jones Demos.

Kerbela, L. (2012). Swimming in the shallow end: Opportunities for girls in youth drama, focusing on the quantity and quality of roles available to them. Tonic Theatre: http://www.tonictheatre.co.uk/wp-content/

Lundy, L. (2007) “Voice” is not enough: conceptualising Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child”, British Educational Research Journal, 33:6, 927-942, available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01411920701657033

Mathews, Andrea. (2007). Restoring My Soul: A Workbook for Finding and Living the Authentic Self, Bloomington, IN:Universe.

Schaffer Bacon, B. and Korza, P. (1999) Animating Democracy. The Artistic Imagination as a Force in Civic Dialogue, Washington DC: Americans for the Arts.

Stinson, S.W. (1997). A question of fun: Adolescent engagement in dance education, Dance Research Journal. 29, 2, 49-69.

Stinson, S. W. & Bond, K. E. (2001) I feel like I ‘m going to take off: ‘Young people ‘s experiences of the superordinary in dance, Dance Research Journal. 32, 2, 52-87.

Rhodes, Ni. (1990) 21 Voices:The Art of Presenting the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C.: Association of Performing Arts Presenters.

Treseder, P. and Fajerman, L. (1997) Empowering Children and Young People: Promoting Involvement in Decision- Making, Swansea: Save the Children.

Wilensky, L.M. (2013) The Proof is in the Poetry: Generating student voice in a collaborative writing group approach to teaching and learning in ninth grade English, MA dissertation. San Diego: University of California, San Diego.

Resistance isn’t Futile! Telling our stories of the Labour Movement

The Aspire Trust is one of the first groups in the UK to receive a Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) All Our Stories Grant for its challenging and inspiring new project “Resistance Isn’t Futile: Combination, Mutuality, Solidarity and Aspiration”: an exploration of the history of labour movements and trade union activity in the North West between 1830 and 1950..

The project will access the collection of Keith Hackett, who has amassed a significant archive of labour related artefacts from the region. This currently private collection will be made into a public resource through a process of researching, cataloguing, digitising and a series of community-focused research and story telling events.

All Our Stories – a brand new small grant programme launched earlier this year in support of BBC Two’s The Great British Story – has been designed as an opportunity for everyone to get involved in their heritage. With HLF funding and support, community groups will carry out activities that help people explore, share and celebrate their local heritage.

The popular series presented by historian Michael Wood and supported by a programme of BBC Learning activities and events got thousands of us asking questions about our history and inspired us to look at our history in a different way through the eyes of ordinary people.

The programme and HLF All Our Stories has proved a real hit and Resistance Isn’t Futile is one of hundreds of successful projects around the UK to receive a grant. The project will begin with the digitising and cataloguing of more than 400 items from trade unions, mutual benefit societies, friendly societies etc which will be made available online. 12 key pieces will be identified for further research and each of these will provide the focus for a community-led research project. The Aspire Trust will work alongside each community group to examine the stories and histories related to each artefact.

TV presenter and historian Michael Wood, said: “We British love our history, and no wonder: few nations in the world, if any, have such riches on their doorstep, and so much of it accessible to all of us. It is really tremendous that the people of the North West have been inspired to get involved to tell their own story and to dig deeper into their own past. It’s brilliant that so many people are being given the chance to get involved through the All Our Stories grants. Having travelled the length and breadth of the British Isles this last year filming The Great British Story, I am certain that fascinating and moving stories will be uncovered which will not only bring to life the excitement of local history, but will illuminate and enrich every community’s connection with the national narrative.”

Keith Hackett said: “I have collected and kept these items safe – some for almost forty years – because for me they give testament to the efforts of extraordinary ordinary people to improve their worlds – and make them better for their own generation and for generations to come. Every items has a story to tell, and most name the people whose efforts they valour-ate. Whilst the objects themselves are in their own ways stunning, beautiful and inspiring …. behind each one lies the efforts, beliefs and achievements of real people …. and it is their stories that will truly bring these objects back to life and relevance in today’s world.”

We were delighted to be approached by Keith to play our part in telling the stories of the labour movement’s history in the North West. The notion of public service is taking a hammering in these days of cut backs and recession, and we hope that our “Resistance Isn’t Futile” project will rebalance many of the stories that are being told in Britain right now about the role the labour movement and working people can play in making this a great country to live in.

For further information please visit http://www.aspire-trust.org

Reading the Riots: who’s bringing the media to account?

I’m watching a group of young people perform a play they devised about the summer riots (or disturbances, if the R word causes you some difficulty). Some of the group were ‘involved’ directly; some were not. What does bind them though is they have all been ‘involved’ with the media’s responses to the events: they have all read the headlines, all seen the TV coverage and, to a lesser or greater extent, been witness to the twitter feed which became a twitter storm in those early days of August.

In their play, the cast act out the early hours of the riots against powerpoint slides of press images, underscored by tracks by Marvin Gaye, The Jam and The Who. There are monolithic pictures of riot police and burning cars, under which the unhooded actors slouch, their social anxiety clothing their angular visages. The images show choreographic moves which would be impossible for trained contemporary dancers: high kicks through shattering glass sheets.

There’s no doubting the power of those iconic images the press managed to conjure up during those heady hours – but quite what damage those images then managed to generate is still up for discussion.

The camera can fire up so much mischief. It inflames petroleum feelings and catalyses social itches into anaphylactic shocks. Its iconicity highlights, exaggerates and essentialises in ways that were never intended. And these days, then there’s photoshop which wreaks further havoc.

I’m reminded that you have to use the arts to play back to people other stories, other interpretations which may be messier, more inconvenient and yet which give us importent alternative insights. We need artists views to counteract the juggernaut express power of the million camera gaze. You have to show something back to audiences, somehow, because someone somewhere has to bring the media themselves to account.

Thanks to George Mckane and the young people of Yellowhouse for sharing their insights with me!

For more on Reading the Riots see https://drnicko.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/reading-the-riots-its-time-to-hear-the-real-evidence/

Reading the Riots – hearing the real evidence

I’m working as a researcher for the Guardian LSE Reading the Riots project in which they’re trying to find the background and reasons for the summer disturbances from the point of view of the perpetrators, those who have been charged and locked up, or those who found themselves involved for one reason or another.

The research is completely anonymous and confidential. If you would be interested in being interviewed for the research – or know someone who would be, please get in touch.

It will give you or them a great chance to put their side of the story, but in a way that is not connected at all to the police or government.

Please email me on Nowen.aspire@btconnect.com.

The full research team can be seen here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/reading-the-riots-blog/2011/oct/10/reading-the-riots?newsfeed=true

Lifelines – how to use arts based research to help improve local health services

We’ve all been ill at some point in our lives and many of us may have called on the help of the NHS to help us through those difficult times.  Even if we’ve been lucky enough not to have to needed their help, we’re all too well aware these days of the importance of staying fit, keeping healthy and doing the right thing for our health and wellbeing for ourselves and our families.

But sometimes this is more difficult than it sounds. Sometimes the services  we need are difficult to access; sometimes it seems that health professionals aren’t listening to what we’re saying; sometimes we know more about our health than those professionals do and it can be frustrating for our experiences not to be heard and acted upon.

Lifelines was a  South Liverpool research project has a made a modest contribution to changing all that.  Working with artists from the Aspire Trust and health professionals from Liverpool Primary Care Trust, we ran an arts based research programme across South Liverpool which listened to residents’ experiences of  local health care services: and are now using those experiences to improve the health for future generations in the community.

We generated story telling, poetry and arts techniques  to  understand critical moments in the health experiences of South Liverpool residents. We produced into a book, audio recording and exhibition which toured South Liverpool and went onto the Bluecoat Arts Gallery in Liverpool, as well as a formal research technical report for the policy makers.

As well as some important findings which have been reported back to the PCT, GPs and other health professionals in the region, the project identified some important aspects of why arts based research is useful in health contexts: its non-invasiveness, its ability to generate responses from participants rather than interrogate – and its ability to co-construct data with research participants rather than mine it from their souls.

The Mars Bar model of research: a state of work, rest and play

Conference kicks off this week with a motley gathering of arts based researchers at BERA, the international education conference at the Institute of Education, London. But what’s arts based research? Surely that’s an oxymoron?

ABER: early moments and awakenings

The foundations for arguing that arts practice contributes in new and valuable ways to research methodologies can be traced to Elliot Eisner amongst many significant others. His presence at the first ABER conference in Queens University Belfast in 2005 marked perhaps a ‘Spring Awakening’ moment for many young researchers who had started to  explore this area of research which had challenged and inspired many of their more mature colleagues over recent years.  It led, amongst other intended and unintended consequences, to the establishment of the BERA ABER SIG in 2010, convened by Dr. Nick Owen of the Aspire Trust, the Merseyside based Arts Education specialists. Lesley Saunders summarised the arguments for Arts based research in 2009 thus:

  • ethics:  the researcher gives up claims to objectivity and the particular kind of expropriation of others’ identity and experiences to which that leads  and lays claim instead to imaginative sensuousness or to passion as more plausible forms of authenticity;
  • life-likeness: narrative, images, evocations, recollected memories, dance, group drama and so forth are much more like the lives people lead than are purely rational prose accounts or numerical data;
  • epistemology: we need representations of knowledge which themselves enact and make manifest – through ‘bricoleurship’ – the provisionality and ‘fuzziness’ of knowledge in the social sciences;  and we also need to recognise that the arts create a different kind of knowledge – ‘not the goal of curiosity but the fruit of experience’[1] perhaps – with which we can enrich social, particularly educational, research;
  • expression: the language of academic research should divest itself of the ‘managerialist’ and ‘performative’ discourse which has infected it, and be more like poetry in its sensuousness and felt emotion;
  • the unconscious: the gifts of the non-rational mind – memories, dreams, reflections – should be welcomed as part of the cognitive project of inquiry for understanding
  • education: these modes of engaging in inquiry are in themselves educative, artistically and socially

The BERA ABER SIG: 3 acronyms upon we rest our work

The BERA ABER SIG (or British Educational Research Association’s Arts Based Educational Research Special Interest Group for the unitiated) aims to provide new opportunities in Arts Based Educational Research  by supporting and advocating rigorous,  and inter-disciplinary arts research practice which connects theory, research, practice and policy on local, regional and international stages.  We aim to provide connections within and across these constituencies in order to:

* Provide expertise and guidance in arts based research, practice and theory for universities, teacher training and arts organisations;

* Develop, lobby and advocate for practice which is built on principles of social justice, innovation, challenge, collaboration, rigour, scholarship, excellence and purpose;

* Encourage new conversations and dialogues between diverse agencies and organisations.

* Provide a platform for  theoreticians and practitioners working in arts, education and other fields to discuss, share and reflect on research practice and outcomes, both illuminating and problematical.

Whilst these aims are necessarily aspirational in nature, they are also presented within an overall spirit of ongoing challenge and enquiry:  ‘inclusiveness’, ‘rigour’ and ‘social justice’ are all terms for example which the field constantly contests and this dialogue will be encouraged and stimulated through the activities of the SIG.

THE ABER BERA SIG: playing for influence, change and recognition

Whilst the work of ABER is variously playful, challenging and sometimes bewildering, we are highly serious in our intent.  We have been working together to

* Explore, support develop and critique  arts-based educational research theory and practice across differing educational contexts through a series of annual seminars which are held inbetween annual BERA conference;

* Co-ordinating and lobbying for publication in significant educational journals, presentation at international conferences;

* Advising on training and developmental opportunities for artists, researchers and other practitioners who wish to extend their expertise in the field.

For further information on arts based research and how it relates to other research disciplines please have a look here: http://content.yudu.com/Library/A1szjh/BERASummer2011/resources/index.htm?referrerUrl=http%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.yudu.com%25252Fitem%25252Fdetails%25252F364631%25252FBERA-Summer-2011

Watch out for those shaking research foundations!

(Adapted from Research Intelligence, Summer 2011)

Reasons to be pedagogical part 2: We’re going to make a slave ship out of pipe cleaners and mudroc

I’m watching a visiting artist, Lisa,  in a Year 6 class  with the teacher, Sally.  Lisa has started a project on Wilberforce, making a model slave ship, an African village and percussion project. She kicks off asking who Wilberforce is and what slavery is. She introduces the task of making a slave ship which she’s going to show – at the end of the week they will have an impressive piece of work which ‘we can display’.

“We’re going to make a slave ship out of pipe cleaners and mudroc” she announces.  Is there something a little inappropriate here?  Would we hear a session in which we would hear about making concentration camps and gas chambers out of ‘pipe cleaners and mudroc’?  Here’s  a Blue Peter version I made earlier….

Lisa demos  how to make a figure out of mudroc and pipe cleaners and takes questions as she goes.   Little slave figures made out of pipe cleaners.  “we don’t want arms sticking out, they should be down at the side”.  She sets up a little production line by asking them to make 2 or 3 figures each.  The class is set on a task of making about 50 – 75 different slave figures between them. “Mould the pipe cleaner, cut up mudroc, soak it, wrap it, repeat”.  I wonder whether someone will point out that they could develop the production line and have one child specialising in moulding, another in cutting, another in soaking.

As pipe cleaner figures start emerging, a few laughs are generated by children – feet are either too bog or heads too small. “He’s hop-along… what’s happened to his arms… mine’s called Gordon, mine’s Edmund… this one’s paraplegic”.  Groups work semi-independently, teacher is engaged in co-delivery of the session, moving from one table to another as Lisa does. “wrap the mudroc tightly around the skeleton otherwise it will fall off”.  Perhaps it would have been better to make people figures who had homes first and who were then enforced into slavery – using the kids enthusiasm for the figures to its advantage rather than opt for making slaves from the beginning.  The production line aspect of this approach ironically endorse the values which make the slave trade possible.  We’re not making  a character which has a personal connection to its sculptor.  There’s one black lad in the class who is joining in with all the activities; a small crowd of white mud roc figures starts being assembled;  some of which are splendid creations, others of which are not so splendid….

The project continues through the afternoon, with no time for play time which means for some kids that making slaves out of pipe cleaners is  becoming a bit of drudgery. The figures are now to be painted black, to represent the figures seen in the picture at the start of the session.  Blackened mudroc figures start to appear on table tops and are taken to the window ledge to dry; of course, they’re various in shape, size and coverage of black paint – but they are still faceless and the products of several cheerful production lines.  No shades of black, brown or tone… End of class, and Lisa moves the furniture back to where it started before I entered the classroom.  The figures are to be placed in the slave boat which is to be built tomorrow.  So what do we know about slavery after all this?

The Research Interview as Performance

The research interview can be viewed in dramaturgical terms and the concept of performing in interview contexts is explored albeit somewhat superficially by Pam Shakespeare in her work on the subject of the confused talk of people with dementia (Shakespeare, 1993: 95).  She uses the metaphor of theatrical imagery to understand the processes behind her interviews and uses the metaphors of ‘overture and beginners’, ‘researcher as actor’, ‘scene stealing’, ‘improvising’, ‘researcher as director’, ‘dying on stage’, ‘out of the spotlight’, ‘asides’ and ‘the final curtain’.   Whilst she readily admits that this is not a disciplined dramaturgical interpretation qua Goffman (Shakespeare, 1993: 97),  Goffman on the other hand proposes a number of concepts which have a significant resonance in the processes of the research interview: these include The Drama, Front, Credibility, Signs and Signifiers, Appearance and Manner, Risk Taking, Front Stage, Back Stage and Off Stage amongst others (Goffman, 1959).

In performance terms, the interview  can also be conceived of as a combination of varying degrees of structure, flow, and rapport which the interviewer needs to control by the judicious use of structured moments, improvised moments and free form. As such, the interview resembles  a  jazz composition more than a pop song or symphony, both of which are highly structured events, albeit spread over significantly different periods of time.

The challenge for the semi-structured research interview is to find the balance between structure and improvisation, itself a common issue in the performing arts; too much structure can make a piece predictable and boring; too little can produce chaos, confusion and end up leaving the listener disconnected from the performance experience.  A similar heuristic applies to the performance of the interview too; a balance of structure and improvisation is important for both participants’ continued interest and engagement in the process although what cannot be forgotten in that balance is the question of who initiated the interview and for what purpose. Paynter (200:8)  offers another interpretation from the practice of musical composition: On the subject of children’s poem David Holbrook (1967:8) says, ‘the least piece of writing, if the teacher has established the context for proper ‘giving’, will be a ‘meant gift’’.  We can apply that to school pupils’ composing.  The music they make is ‘offered’ to us and should be received in that same spirit.  In my experience there is always something of genuine musical worth to be discussed as seriously as we would with recognised master-works.

Paynter’s view of composition as a gift of improvisation, redolent of the structure of a piece of jazz music suggests that the interview process can be viewed in a similar light: a form of expression,  a gift,  which speaks of that artist’s (or interviewee’s) hopes, fears and emotions albeit  in a response to questions by the viewer (or inter-viewer).  In this interpretation, the interview process is potentially a constructive process as a  synthesis of new ideas and knowledge arises as a result of the interactions between interviewer and interviewee.

Placing Students at the Heart of Creative Learning

Placing Students at the Heart of Creative Learning shows teachers of key stages 2 and 3 how to introduce creativity into what is often seen as a prescriptive and stifling curriculum, and addresses the tensions that can exist between the requirement to follow the curriculum and the desire to employ innovative pedagogies. It offers readers a range of practical and realistic ways that curriculum changing ideas can be applied to individual projects, classrooms and even entire schools.

This book tracks the imaginative initiatives undertaken by six schools as they have worked to change their curriculum and teaching in order to put student experiences at the core of the learning process. Stating its observations and suggestions in a refreshingly straightforward and practicable manner, this book explores:

  • Why a new creative curriculum is needed for the 21st century
  • How to encourage teachers and pupils to ‘own’ the curriculum
  • The role that pupil voice plays in a creative curriculum
  • The environment needed to creatively manipulate the curriculum
  • How to introduce innovation to teaching practice
  • What actually works – considering the limits and possibilities of creative pedagogy

Providing case studies and examples of the ways in which teachers have delivered the curriculum in a creative way, Placing Students at the Heart of Creative Learning is an invaluably beneficial guide for all those involved in engaging and teaching young people in key stages 2 and 3.