Description
Arts-based educational research (ABER) has been proposed to be a new paradigm in teacher education; it can foster becoming a teacher and learning to teach (Ewing & Hughes, 2008). The use of ABER in theses and dissertations has increased (Sinner et al., 2006), but research about ABER supervision remains scarce. There is little to nonexistent research-based knowledge of supervising ABER master’s theses in teacher education. Knowledge about this phenomenon is needed to supervise and support students’ thesis processes that use ABER and for the master’s thesis to eventually be relevant for future teaching practices.This study originated through a student–supervisor relationship at the class teacher education at Åbo Akademi University (ÅAU) in Finland and focused on the supervision and thesis writing process between supervisor Sofia (author 1) and a student teacher, who used ABER to analyze the planning and implementation of digital dance-integrated teaching in a grade-3 classroom. This study uses a new materialist approach (Barad, 2007) because an underlying assumption is that supervising and writing an ABER master’s thesis are entangled—with both processes influencing each other—and can therefore not be understood as separate phenomena. The student–supervisor relationship can be understood as a becoming that is relationally produced by a multiplicity of humans (e.g., student and supervisor) and non-humans (e.g., theories, texts, investigated practice; Fullagar et al., 2017; Grant, 2018). Supervising ABER needs to consider a multiplicity of humans and non-humans to guide students’ master’s thesis processes. Thus, a new materialist approach can provide valuable insight into how supervising an ABER master’s thesis can be understood.
The current study explored the student–supervisor relationship to produce an understanding of supervision of ABER in teacher education. This study problematized doing master’s thesis research in education differently, the supervision of doing ABER positioned within a relational ontology, and the knowledge generated through the supervision and thesis processes. The analytical question was: How can supervision of ABER be understood through a new materialist approach? A diffractive analysis indicated that supervising ABER encompasses different doings, such as thinking-together-with-theory, grasping theory through doing arts-based educational practice, and be(com)ing-with-the-thesis. The presentation will present the results from the study and address the opportunities and challenges with supervising ABER master’s thesis in teacher education.
Period | 1 Jun 2022 |
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Event title | NERA: Nordic Educational Research Association : Education and involvement in precarious times |
Event type | Conference |
Location | Reykjavik, IcelandShow on map |
Degree of Recognition | International |
Related content
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Publications
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Doing arts-based master’s thesis supervision/writing in teacher education: A new materialist approach to supervision
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Scientific › peer-review