PRISM :: Browsing by Author "Burwell, Catherine"

Browsing by Author "Burwell, Catherine"

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Open Access
A Hermeneutic Inquiry into Grade Eleven Students’ Experiences of Classroom Talk in Language Arts
(2017) Blackman, Galicia; Field, James Colin; Lenters, Kimberly Ann; Burwell, Catherine
The goal of this hermeneutic inquiry was to interpret and understand how some students experience classroom talk, which is centered on a particular theme or topic, in English Language Arts. I came to understand that this kind of talk, or discussion, is akin to the idea of play, a way of being whereby students come with their opinions, and then they engage with the multiciplicity of perspectives in the learning arena. This can be a pleasurable encounter for students, but the conditions for this “play” to occur include respectful relationships with peers, and an open atmosphere ushered by the teacher. This open, unpredictable kind of discussion is not a step-by-step classroom encounter, but there are ways that students, classmates, and teachers can foster the pedagogical conditions for meaningful discussions about their literary texts to occur.
Open Access
A Narrative Inquiry Into the Experiences of University Students with Visual Impairments: The Effects of People, Institutions, and Technology in Supporting Learning
(2016) Ostrowski, Christopher; Kowch, Eugene; Kim, Beaumie; Kenny, Natasha; Burwell, Catherine
University students with visual impairments rely on accommodations and technology to succeed, but students’ perspectives about these supports are not well known. Using a narrative inquiry, I engaged six Canadian university students with visual impairments about their experiences with accommodations and technology to support learning. The participants’ experiences were shaped by three primary themes: social interactions, instructors and institutions, and technology. Friends, family, and peers provided the participants with social and pragmatic support. The participants were challenged by people’s assumptions and stigma about vision loss. Instructors’ and institutions’ attitudes toward vision loss determined the level of support the participants received. The effectiveness of technology to support the participants’ needs depended course material and website accessibility. Meaningful dialogue between the participants, instructors, and university staff was critical for developing common understanding and student success. Future research should focus on collaboratively meeting students’ needs and creating robust accessible learning experiences.
Open Access
Blogging in a Participatory Culture: The Pedagogical Potential of Blogs in a High School English Classroom
(2016) Simon, Stacy; Field, James; Burwell, Catherine; Dressler, Roswita
This study is a qualitative, interpretive exploration of how students experience blogging in a high school English course. To understand how participants use technology to communicate, their out-of-school digital practices are first briefly considered. The study then follows participants’ experiences on the blogosphere and in the classroom, and explores any pedagogical potential of blogging. Technology’s ubiquitous presence increasingly affects communication, making it simpler for one’s voice to be heard, and to connect with others. As blogging enables this type of participation, it is explored in relation to the notion of participatory culture. Qualitative, interpretive methods were used to understand participants’ experiences. Findings suggest common themes that resonated throughout their experiences. Blogging created a heightened awareness of audience, enabled participants to find and use their voices, and fostered peer-based learning. It also developed new, personal understandings for participants as they recalled seeing both their peers and themselves differently.
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Bottlenecks and Breakthroughs: A Narrative Inquiry into the Storied Experiences of how School Administrators Understand their Efforts Towards Decolonization
(2023-02) Sarson, Andrea; Friesen, Sharon; Burwell, Catherine; Markides, Jennifer
This research study was undertaken to offer a space to engage in conversation and to make sense of how school administrators understand their efforts toward decolonization. It evolved out of curiosity in how narratives have shaped and continue to reshape our current context of the curriculum, and how to best (re)consider the current knowledge structures that are present in schools. The purpose of this study is to come to a better understanding of how school administrators understand their role towards decolonizing education. The guiding question for this research was, what does it mean to live together well in this world, and what is the role of curriculum in it? Narrative inquiry as a methodology, offered, by way of interviews and written narratives, an opportunity to attend to the stories using the commonplaces of temporality, sociality and place. The field texts included research conversations transcripts, field notes, and journals. Three narrative accounts were co-composed, one for each participant. The use of narratives allowed participants to express their views and articulate their own interpretation of their lives and stories. After looking across the narrative accounts, three resonant threads were identified that highlighted the importance of understanding a Settler1 identity, of unlearning colonialism, engaging in sustained professional learning, and of embracing ambiguity. One conclusion arising from this study is that unlearning colonialism is an ongoing process.
Open Access
Building Collaborative Capacity: A Case Study
(2016-01-08) Mulholland, Barbara Jean; Burwell, Catherine; Brandon, Jim; Spencer, Brenda
The purpose of this descriptive, single case study was to examine the collaborative processes used in one Alberta school jurisdiction’s C2 committee, a provincially mandated committee tasked with finding ways to reduce teacher workload. A critical literature review examined several key areas, including collaborative processes in organizations, school districts and educational change, and teacher workload and teacher efficacy. Data collection included semi-structured participant interviews, document analysis, and field observation. This data, along with the literature, was used to answer the primary research question: “How might the collaborative processes used in a C2 committee be a prototype for the building of system capacity leading to systemic change?” The data were analyzed iteratively in relation to the conceptual framework, and resulted in five main findings. The findings of the study highlight the importance of the local nature of the process, the impact of leadership, the impact of culture, an enhanced understanding of teacher workload and teacher efficacy, and the connection between the collaborative process and organizational learning. These findings were analyzed and interpreted with the literature, resulting in a conceptualization of the collaborative process as integral to the development of social capital in a complex, networked system. Collaborative processes characterized by trust, communication, relationships, and influenced by leadership strengthen the network structure of the school district and build social capital for individuals and for the system. The knowledge gained from this study will help inform the processes and the leadership capacity required as school jurisdictions are expected to conduct their work in increasingly collaborative contexts.
Open Access
Christian Privilege and Oppression in Canadian Public Schools
(2017) Knowler, Stephanie; Lund, Darren; Burwell, Catherine; Roy, Sylvie
There is evidence that the Christian religion has privilege in Canadian public schools. This is problematic in a multicultural country where people of various faiths reside. This research ex-plores the manner in which Christian privilege exists and promotes a certain message in public schools. Thirty-two individuals were interviewed, including students, parents, educators and administrators in an effort to access many experiences. Using thematic analysis, specific themes emerged and were examined and categorized. Findings support that there is a place for religion in public schools, but not when it marginalizes or inflicts specific beliefs onto anyone, particularly students. Instead, teaching about religion from a non-biased perspective should be included as meaningful and purposeful instruction. A multicultural model of education is pro-posed in order to create safe schools grounded on inclusion, and offer meaningful instruction where many world views are embraced, challenged and celebrated in order to create informed global citizens.
Open Access
Consensus on Campus? Tension and Multiplicity in Student Mental Health
(2019-12) Ross, Karen H.; Strong, Tom; Burwell, Catherine; Wada, Kaori; Barker, Susan; Morrow, Marina
In Canada (as elsewhere), postsecondary student mental health is increasingly positioned as an urgent social problem, even a crisis. Scholarly, professional, and popular publications detail the escalating prevalence, complexity, and costliness of student mental health problems; myriad campus initiatives and services have arisen to enhance, maintain, or restore mental health. Despite the considerable power of psychiatric and psychotherapeutic discourses, heterogeneous meanings of mental health persist—often implicit in the logics of varying campus activities and messages. At sites where incommensurable logics intersect, tensions may arise that must be actively navigated or managed, whether by institutions or by students themselves. In this dissertation, I investigate tensions of postsecondary student mental health using situational analysis (SA), an interpretive qualitative method that seeks to make visible relations of difference, axes of discursive variation, and sites of silence in a multiply co-constituted material-discursive situation of interest. I apply SA to scholarly mental health literature, texts produced by campus stakeholders, and interviews with university students who self-identify as having experienced mental health problems, mapping heterogeneous constructions of mental health and lingering analytically in sites of potential tension. Students’ meaning-making around mental health is rich, diverse, complex, and situated, and may not fit easily into prevailing institutional logics of efficiency, rationalization, and risk management. My aim with this study was to generatively complicate the student mental health conversation, working against premature discursive closure. I offer an unconventional account of student mental health, one in which meanings remain unsettled, contested, and political. Such analysis is difficult to distil into best practices, but supports a posture of flexible, pluralistic, and situated responding to the remarkably diverse concerns that have come to be classified as “mental health problems.”
Open Access
Considering the Implications and Mechanisms of Scale within Open Education
(2022-07) Elias, Tanya; Burwell, Catherine; Alonso Yanez, Gabriela; Eaton, Sarah; Friesen, Sharon; Kanuka, Heather
My dissertation is the culmination of a five-year critical investigation of the implications of scale within contemporary open education. My qualitative, critical, and tentative study is guided by the question: How do open educators perceive the mechanisms and implications of scale? It uses situational analysis theory-method package and a three-phase research process, including a qualitative online survey, collaborative map annotation, and focus groups. My study presents a multi-dimensional representation of open education’s complicated relationship with scale, both big and small. At a massive scale, open online course providers are increasingly delivering standardized content on data-gathering platforms built to control the learning experience to generate profit that bear no resemblance to these connectivist-inspired MOOCs imagined by open educators just over a decade ago. At the same time, open educators working at a much smaller scale are increasingly turning their attention towards emerging areas, including open educational practices and open policy. Using situational analysis social worlds/arena, relational, and positional mapmaking techniques, this study exposes the silences surrounding these apparently contradictory approaches to open education and elucidates a different approach to scale adopted by many open educators. It further finds that because open educators are often motivated by an intention to improve education, due to co-option, the games of scientific language and overwork, they are at risk of falling into the prescriptive patterns that they seek to transform. My study concludes that mitigating that risk will require open educators to articulate their tacit awareness of the holistic growth and prescriptive production mechanisms of scale and to clearly articulate their scale-related intentions. Moreover, it suggests that open educators seeking to re-pattern prescriptive production within educational systems must learn to embrace unpredictability and uncertainty as a means of minimizing educational disasters.
Open Access
Digital Literacy Development in Teacher Education: A Case Study
(2021-12-14) Fedorko-Bartos, Kristi-Mari; Lock, Jennifer; Friesen, Sharon; Burwell, Catherine
With increasing technological advancement, developing citizens’ digital literacy is more crucial than ever before in supporting Canada’s societal and economic future. Teachers hold a critical role in fostering their students’ digital literacy development. Using case study methodology, the objective of this research was to gain a deeper understanding from the perspectives of an administrator and five instructors on how pre-service teachers understand and develop digital literacy with the central research question of: How is digital literacy developed within a Design-based Thinking course in a teacher education program? The research question was investigated through collecting data on opportunities in one teacher education program for pre-service teachers in developing digital literacy in a Design-based Thinking course. Data were collected using individual interviews, focus group interviews, and document analysis. The collected data were analyzed through thematic analysis and two cycles of coding to identify emergent themes of participants’ understanding and perceptions of digital literacy development within the context of the Design-based Thinking course within the teacher education program. Four key findings emerged from this research study. First, instructors’ openness (or risk-taking) and modeling the usage of digital technologies in courses within the teacher education program encourage pre-service teachers to use digital technologies. Second, opportunities for feedback in support of pre-service teachers’ digital literacy development can be provided through learning tasks and assessments. Third, teacher education programs need to consider establishing program goals focused on developing digital literacy and provide professional development opportunities to support instructors’ in designing and facilitating pre-service teachers’ digital literacy development. Fourth, instructors need to have an understanding of digital literacy to design authentic and embedded learning tasks for pre-service teachers focused on supporting digital literacy development.
Open Access
Educating for Care: A Case Study on Care in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme Global Politics Course
(2023-01-16) Hull, Brian; Scott, David; Burwell, Catherine; Chua, Catherine; Kawalilak, Colleen; Tarc, Paul
With a climate crisis at hand, intense political polarization, and cases of genocide occurring, critical consideration of how best to care for others and the environment could play an important role in curriculum design and implementation. Employing Noddings’ (2013) notion of an ethic of care, this case study investigates the role care could play in the formal and enacted curriculum in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme (DP). In order to effectively bind the investigation, the two-year IB Global Politics course was chosen to investigate these phenomena. The IB’s mission is to develop caring young people (IB, 2019). However, given the standardized assessments employed by the IB, there is a tension between enacting care and the organization’s focus on rigorous assessment (van Oord, 2013). Considering the formative role education plays in the lives of students and the many environmental and humanitarian injustices that need to be addressed, a reparative approach to curriculum development is not a question of preference but rather raises real moral dilemmas in how to best teach students to care for others. In order to address this moral dilemma, a normative case study approach (Levinson, 2015) has been adopted to consider these issues in the context of the Global Politics course. This research explores first how care is conceptualized and enacted by Global Politics teachers and then suggests various ways in which Global Politics educators and curriculum developers can design the course with care at the forefront of curricular considerations. To accomplish this, a survey was completed by 129 IB Global Politics teachers. From the teachers who completed the survey, a diverse set of 10 teachers were interviewed. Drawing on insights from research data and several care ethicists, several possibilities exist for how educators could place care at the forefront of curricular considerations. These possibilities include modification to current IB assessments, prioritizing the use of story, working with universities to reconsider the current meritocratic model for entrance to their institutions, and, based on the work of Tronto (2013), a care-based analytical framework that teachers and students could employ as they inquire into political issues.
Open Access
First Language as a Resource in Additive Bilingual Education
(2018-01-16) Schmidt, Elaine Gail; Naqvi (Zaidi), Rahat; Burwell, Catherine; Lock, Jennifer
Bi-multilingual language and literacy research over the past three decades demonstrates the positive benefits of integrated language learning pedagogic approaches. In the Alberta Kindergarten to grade 12 bilingual program construct, where second language (L2) learning and biliteracy are the goals, pedagogic practice has not capitalized on these findings. Instead, there continues to be a parallel monolingual orientation to instruction, resulting in the complete separation of languages in learning. As programs have expanded, pedagogy for middle-years and secondary level learners who have attained intermediate level competencies in the second language has become a challenge in that learners frequently interact in their first language (L1) instead of the second language. Practitioners have begun to question existing instructional practice, and research is needed to explore next pedagogic approaches suited to adolescent learners at intermediate and advanced L2 levels. Educational researchers have reported that for pedagogic practice to evolve, practitioner participation in research is critical. To that end, a participatory action (PAR) research study was conducted. Classroom teachers explored English-Spanish dual language (DL) processes with middle-years learners, and specifically observed the role of the first language (English) as a resource for intermediate level second language instruction. DL approaches such as integration of learning and bridging of knowledge were investigated. Data was gathered chiefly from the perspective of the bilingual program teachers informed by classroom experiences with students, as well as through researcher observations and student feedback. Results demonstrated ways in which L1 was a resource for cognitive mediation, L2 development, biliteracy growth, and adolescent bilingual identity formation.
Open Access
Imagining and Moving Towards Nurturing Queer Identities in Alberta Schools: A Narrative Inquiry
(2020-04-15) Maine, Emilie; McDermott, Mairi; Burwell, Catherine; Sumara, Dennis J.
Alberta Education states that they operate within a way of thinking and acting that demonstrates universal acceptance of, and belonging for, all children and students. Despite this statement, recent evidence shows that within Alberta schools, queer identities are excluded, homogenized, or simply tolerated within educational institutions. The discrepancy across the province of treatment and commitment to queer education impacts if and how topics surrounding queer identities are taught. Given that Albertan educational institutions are not equally committed to teaching queerness, the present study asks the question: how can schools move towards nurturance of queer identities? Using the language in the Riddle Scale (1994), this study employs narrative inquiry and queer theory to interrogate, trouble, and queer educational institutions to ask how various educational actors can embody the core of nurturance, where queer people are seen as indispensable in society. Data collected from two primary data sets—publicly sourced information on queer educational programming, and semi-structured interviews with queer educational specialists—revealed various dynamics that contribute to lack of nurturing queer educational programs in Alberta schools. From data analysis, two resonant threads (themes) emerged: (1) the unique context of queer identities in Alberta; and, (2) misconceptions surrounding age, sex, and the subsequent complications of teaching queerness. While nurturance cannot be defined in one particular way, this thesis seeks to queer what education could be, and with the narratives of queer educational providers, imagines a future in which queer identities are nurtured across the province.
Open Access
Imprinted Beneath Our Skin: An Arts-based Murmuration Inquiry into the Somatic Lessons of the Hidden Curriculum
(2018-12-19) Duchscher, Towani Mahalia; Seidel, Jackie; Burwell, Catherine; Binder, Marni J.; Groen, Janet Elizabeth; Field, James C.
This study is about students, curriculum, schooling and the hidden curriculum. Students carry powerful lessons away from school. They carry these lessons out into the world, shaping our shared world. To attend to the power of these lessons and the impact schooling has on students and society, I explored the somatic lessons that students learn from the hidden curriculum of schooling. I came to this research as an artist, researcher, and teacher. Using a murmuration of Arts-based inquiry methods, I opened a space for student somatic knowledge to emerge, using dance as interview, documentation as listening, and poetry as translation. I asked students to represent their understandings of schooling, teaching, and learning through movement. Together, the students and I reflected on their movement expressions through Reggio-Emilia inspired documentation. I then supported the students in creating found poetry from their documented notes and comments; translating their embodied knowledge into written language. I embodied the concepts that emerged by dancing them with a small group of adult dancers and reflected on the lessons I learned about school through poetry. The dance, photographs, videos, and poetry are gathered together in an arts murmuration that paints a picture of school and the lessons that students learn from the hidden curriculum. This arts-based inquiry murmuration hopes to create a pause, a disruption, in the rhythm of taken for granted school rituals. I hope to encourage educators to question and reflect on the decisions made on behalf of students and consider the lessons that schools teach. This research is an act of love–caring for and valuing the lessons that students embody. Through listening to the body, I attend to the impact of schooling on student minds, student bodies, and subsequently society. Keywords: hidden curriculum, somatic knowledge, arts-based inquiry, dance, poetry
Open Access
An Investigation into Teacher Conceptualizations of Food and Food Literacy: Pre and Post Teaching a Media Literacy & Food Marketing Lesson Plan
(2019-01-23) Bischoff, Madison; Elliott, Charlene; Burwell, Catherine; Stowe, Lisa
This study investigated how a Media Literacy & Food Marketing lesson plan, targeted at children, influenced teacher understandings of food and food literacy. Semi-structured interviews were conducted at three time points with ten elementary or junior high teachers, the transcripts of which were approached using five core elements of food literacy: knowledge, skills and abilities, attitudes and confidence, culture and environment, and food decisions. Results indicate that participants expanded their understanding of food literacy definitions, and five themes were identified within participant discussions of food literacy: understanding food and food information, application of abilities relating to food, food as fuel, the role of moderation, and the complexity of food literacy as a topic. Findings suggest that teachers can advance their knowledge and attitudes towards food marketing as well as expand food literacy conceptualizations, demonstrating the importance of providing continuing education for teachers in order to improve not only their own health but that of their students.
Open Access
Is this a good place to live? A queer narrative hermeneutics of geographies, homes, and bodies
(2023-07) Maine, Emilie Mariah; Sumara, Dennis; Burwell, Catherine; Lowan-Trudeau, Gregory
This dissertation asks a phenomenological question about the experiences of queer-identifying people, applying a narrative hermeneutic approach to interpret those experiences. This dissertation asks: How do queer people experience what it is like to live in Fort McMurray, Alberta in their homes and in their bodies? Through an embodied epistemology, narrative hermeneutic methodology, and queer theory, this dissertation queries into if Fort McMurray is a good place to live for queer people. Data collected from three collective interviews, and one final individual interview with three participants, provided new knowledge and understandings into how queer people in the northern Canadian urban service area of Fort McMurray learn to work and live in and across three nested systems – geography, home, and body.
Open Access
Learning to Dance Well Together: Shared/Team Teaching in Higher Education
(2013-05-15) Lock, Jennifer; Lenters, Kim; Burwell, Catherine; Clancy, Tracey; Lisella, Rita
Open Access
Literacy in-the-round: Examining the roles of dramatic embodiment and relationality in secondary English Language Arts classrooms
(2024-08-09) Campbell, Harrison; Burwell, Catherine; Aukerman, Maren Songmy; Lenters, Kimberly Ann; Spring, Erin; Honeyford, Michelle A.
The impetus for my doctoral research came from my desire to explore the possible applications of drama-based pedagogies within the English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum. To do this, I examined how drama-based work, inspired by posthumanist concepts, could be applied to create additional opportunities for embodiment and relationality within secondary ELA classrooms. Within this study, literacy was a central focus and was defined as practices related to multiple forms of meaning making that included embodiment and relationality. Case study methodology informed by posthumanist concepts drove the data collection and analysis. Data was collected in a Grade 12 ELA classroom through observations, conversations, classroom artifacts, and student performances, and analyzed through both coding and iterative cycles of writing. The data was then used to explore the roles of affect, embodiment, and relationality in secondary ELA classrooms and to see how drama-based work could encourage more multimodal explorations of text. This study found that drama-based work encouraged pedagogical reflection and inspired ways through which to approach literacy teaching. My research contributes a picture of how drama-based work in one secondary ELA classroom enhanced meaning making around texts by drawing on drama’s embodied and relational learning opportunities. It demonstrates how drama can be used to introduce new avenues to help students find “what is real by making believe” (Campbell, 2021).
Open Access
Literacy Through The Arts: A Phenomenological Inquiry into What it is Like to Experience Literacy within a Theatrical Space
(2019-07-05) Campbell, Harrison Michael; Towers, Jo; Alonso-Yañez, Gabriela; Burwell, Catherine; Lenters, Kimberly A.
Literacy, according to Lindquist and Seitz (2009), “is one of those words, like love, that people use commonly and confidently, as if its meaning were transparent and stable” (p. 8). Literacy in classrooms, however, is inherently complex and the experiences that surround it, especially from the student’s perspective, are often lost. This thesis examines how literacy came to be defined within a specialized arts immersion junior high school in Western Canada and how the unique approach to curriculum was better able to encourage student agency, authorship, and identity within literacy's definition. This research is inspired by the work of the New London Group, which spoke to expanding the scope of literacy pedagogy through a proposed framework of multiliteracies embracing multimodality and contextual responsiveness to the learning environment. (New London Group, 1994). In response to this it was seen that students needed to have spaces in which they can play the role of code breakers, text users and text analysts. Artistic inquiry is a means to create such a space which in addition to teaching applied roles, also allow students to strengthen their social and cultural wellbeing (Wells & Sandretto, 2017). Over the course of a semester eight students created a theatrical space in which they communicated their experiences of literacy with data being collected through interviewing, journaling, monologue writing, and performance. Through the use of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis students, who were recruited using homogeneous sampling, had their data coded in a way that created a double hermeneutic around literacy as the researcher and students engaged in dialogue and performance as a means of making meaning. This phenomenological process allowed for the development of a flexible open-ended inquiry. The study's findings showed that students within this unique learning environment connected their literacy experiences directly into the fine and performing arts. Students experienced literacy both in a traditional sense and a performative sense, citing that their work within school productions was a way of building upon their literacy skills. For these students, literacy was not a single experience but an interconnected web of experiences that enriched their learning and increased their engagement.
Open Access
Makerspaces in Higher Education: Student Engagement
(2020-12-19) Pendergast, Shawn Christopher; Lock, Jennifer V.; Friesen, Sharon; Redmond, Petrea; Lock, Jennifer V.; Friesen, Sharon; Redmond, Petrea; Burwell, Catherine; Hughes, Janette Michelle
The makerspace movement is gaining prominence within higher education. With the promise of improving the student learning experience, institutions invest space and resources to support making and the maker movement. The focus of my study was how postsecondary students engage in learning through makerspace in non-STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) courses in an eastern Canadian university. The qualitative case study investigated the implications maker activities have on learning in three non-STEM (Education and Geography) courses. The following questions guided the inquiry: How do postsecondary students engage in learning through makerspace activities in non-STEM courses? What is the nature of academic, social and intellectual student engagement when learning through making in non-STEM course environments? Furthermore, what factors influence or hinder the usage of makerspaces in non-STEM postsecondary course contexts? Data were collected using interviews, observations, and questionnaires with three different classes with subsequent thematic analysis. Three common themes emerged: how students perceived engagement, the impact of an experienced instructor, and the challenges associated with makerspace in a classroom environment. What differed between the three classes was the level of expertise between instructors, the maker activities' format, and the technology used. This study's significant contribution is that it reveals the importance of engagement for both instructor and student. Using makerspaces is one tool that could be considered in non-STEM courses in a university to enhance learning through engagement. For instructors and students to use makerspaces successfully, they must help solve an authentic problem, have experienced staff, have adequate infrastructure, and allow students to reflect on their problems. Implications for practicing makerspaces can be considered at various university leadership levels, from instructor to educational development.
Open Access
The Musical Identities of Piano Students: A Phenomenological Case Study
(2022-09) Gerelus, Karen; Burwell, Catherine; Gereluk, Dianne; Groen, Janet; Seidel, Jackie; Bell, Adam; Burland, Karen; Creech, Andrea
It might be said that everyone has a musical identity. Whether you casually sing in the shower or seriously study Classical piano, music holds a role in everyone’s daily life. But what does it mean to incorporate the term musician into your identity? How does being a musician hold a place for who you are and how you describe yourself to others? This research investigated the musical identities of adolescent students in private piano lessons, with supporting evidence from their parents and piano teachers. It was formed around two research questions: How do piano students construct their musical identities and understand themselves as musicians? What kinds of experiences contribute to the formation of a salient musical identity? Drawing from a phenomenological approach, semi-structured interviews, photovoice, demographic surveys, and lesson observations brought forward the experiences which shaped students’ identities. Results suggested that the social environment, possible selves, and motivation were important themes in the formation of a musical identity because they provided experiences which shaped how students understood themselves as musicians. Beyond these three main themes, ability, choice, and relationships arose as their own emerging areas of consideration. Implications for teachers, parents, and students are provided, such as gaining a better understanding of student-centered learning to improve students’ experiences with piano lessons and harness more salient musical identities. This study offers an unprecedented use of photovoice methodology in music education research, and is unique in its focus on the musical identities of adolescent piano students. Further, this study offered a concurrent conceptualization of social environment, possible selves, and motivation. It connected the topics of musical identities and student-centered learning, providing new contributions and challenges to traditional piano pedagogy.