Overcoming the "Relevance Problem" by Attuning to Aesthetics (Poster 4)

• In Event: Rising Education Scholars Interrogating Research-Practice Partnerships in Pursuit of Truth and Justice

Abstract

Education research is struggling with “a relevance problem,” in which meaningful social transformation is often substituted for the “rather empty notion” of “impact” based on researchers’ preconceived understanding of what matters. (Akkerman, Bakker & Penuel, 2021, p. 416). Yet, as AERA President Dr. Milner notes, education research is essential to confronting the major social issues of our era, and should be at the front and center of discussions around truth, history, and schooling (AERA, 2022).
Megan Bang and her colleagues (Bang et al., 2016) offer a path forward, describing how researchers may innovate “the theories, practices, and structures of values, ethics, and aesthetics” (p. 28) by “cultivat(ing) axiological heteroglossia toward decolonial, just, and sustainable futures” (p. 29). Though values and ethics have begun to receive more attention as our field recognizes the need for critical perspectives (e.g. Esmonde & Booker, 2016; Philip, Bang & Jackson, 2018), there has been considerably less focus on the aesthetic dimension of axiological heteroglossia. We can overcome the “relevance problem” by cultivating axiological heteroglossia at every step of the research process, with particular attention to the aesthetics of knowledge generation and sharing. For example, publishing in peer-reviewed journal articles is one important theory-building activity, but researchers who seek to disrupt inequities through spreading and adapting best practices (Taylor et al., 2019) should consider more accessible and resonant pathways for developing and communicating relevant knowledge. This may include using non-traditional modalities and engaging in broader dialogue through strategic partnerships with media companies and artists.
The author illustrates what this may look like by focusing on a critical place inquiry (Tuck & McKenzie, 2014) which convened residents of a Seattle neighborhood through a collaborative filmmaking project to create a new forum for neighborhood learning and civic deliberation around local land use issues. The film consisted of footage from a variety of guided mobile tours, which focused on themes ranging from mosaic art to public waterways. Over the course of the project, participants were invited to draw, photograph, voice memo, film, edit, play instruments, appear on camera, and write about their experiences for local media outlets. In this way, the project brought people with a variety of sociopolitical views into dialogue, based on skills and shared interests.
Moreover, the resulting film builds a story-as-theory in which the “phenomenological aspects of learning… become partially perceptible through an aesthetic, not an analytic lens” (Silvis, 2019, p. 18). Over the course of this research, the theory-building work becomes a creative, affective practice which the participant-researchers become attuned to the poetics and pleasures of the filmmaking process (Tobin & Hsueh, 2014). By coordinating attention around narratives, characters, and emotional connection, the project attracted a wide range of people to get involved, to consider their community as a learning ecology, and to make personal and institutional changes that would better align their ideals related to social and ecological justice with their actions as denizens and historical actors (Gutiérrez et al., 2019).

Author

• Ari Hock, University of Washington
  Presenting Author