A Poem Is Never Finished: Exploring Critical Methods With Spoken Word Poetry

• In Event: 61.071 - Sheraton Roundtable Session 10 - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 61.071-8 - Entanglement of Poetics, Visual, and Auto-Ethnography: Transformative Possibilities of Arts-Based Educational Research

Abstract

Perspective: Arts-based educational research has the potential to radically reform our thinking about research in schools, but only if we adopt the tenets of decolonial scholarship to ensure our work is not exploitative.
Objectives: By critically reflecting on an arts-based educational research project, we lay bare the power that exists even in seemingly democratizing projects to offer ways forward for arts-based scholarship in schools.
Methods: Researchers conducted a mixed-methods evaluation of a spoken word poetry program and then critically reflected on their work to better understand power dynamics at work in the research.
Results: Researchers identified several areas of potential growth in terms of project design, data collection, and analysis.
Implications: Several recommendations for best-practices in arts-based research are advanced.

Author

• Robert Marx, Vanderbilt Peabody College