Fold, staple, rebel: Navigating arts based methodologies in the professional doctorate in education
Year: 2025
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Despite growing interest in the potential value of arts-based research for educational inquiry, there has been limited consideration of its application in practice-based research on the professional doctorate in education (EdD) pathway. This is significant, because professional doctorates exist within a complex ecology, with students and supervisors tasked with navigating an entanglement of expectations at both the macro (disciplinary, institutional, organisational) and micro (stakeholders, communities of practice) levels, potentially creating significant methodological tensions. Focusing on an EdD study titled ‘All bugs are insects but not all insects are bugs’, which employs zines as a tool to explore the motivations and experiences of artist-teachers in Further Education colleges, through dialogue and zines we explore our experiences, positioning the EdD researcher and supervisory team as co-learners navigating the complex eco-system through the course of the project. We seek to outline the importance of protecting creativity in practice-based doctoral research in education, highlighting the affordances of arts-based methods to enhance reflexivity, relationality and accessibility. Alongside this we offer caution on the importance of prioritising a focus on coherence and authenticity by embracing the professional and disciplinary expertise of the researcher, whilst fostering capacity to articulate and justify decision-making in relation to potentially competing expectations.
Authors: Clark, Tim, Houselander, Ronnie, Andrews, Jane
Language: English
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7204385862