Qingchun Wang is a PhD student affiliated to the Faculty of Social Sciences (social research methodology group) of KU Leuven. Her research interest is in the development of qualitative research methods, mainly in the area of visual research methods. She currently plugs her methodological experiments into a series of studies on acculturation processes of international students.Sara Coemans is a PhD student affiliated to the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences (laboratory for education and society) of KU Leuven. She explores the potential of arts-based and multi-sensory methods for community-based research projects. Her focus is on the relationship between people and their environment. Arts-based Methods in Socially Engaged Research Practice 5

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The first purpose of Art Education in public schools, articulated in the eighteenth century, was the ability to shape an imaginatively responsible, empathetic, democratic citizenry; this remains an aim for today, which is hard to achieve. This article explores the continuing tension between this original goal and other versions of Art Education, particularly Artistic Education, focusing on professional skills and techniques, and Aesthetic Education that focuses on appreciation of objects. After reviewing Friedrich Schiller's historic contribution to theorising aesthetics as empathy and as experienced through play, and Johan Pestalozzi's practical application in a first curriculum, the article demonstrates Schiller's influence on contemporary theorists Jacques Rancière and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak who also insist that art must remain unproductive in order to defy cultural commodification. In their view, Art Education must be deviant to utility and retain an essential uselessness. A current case study demonstrates the difficulties in facilitating authentic democratic action within the utilitarian demands on today's schools. By developing wide‐awakeness in students, spaces develop where silenced individuals might be heard. Art Education curricula should form the mindful habit of an informed citizenry that fashions an art of living by constructively re‐imagining new possibilities of democratic community and empathetic understanding.

Arts-based research has recently gained an increasing popularity within qualitative inquiry. It is applied in various disciplines, including health, psychology, education, and anthropology. Arts-based research uses artistic forms and expressions to explore, understand, represent, and even challenge human experiences. In this paper we aim to create order in the messy field of artistically inspired methods of socially engaged research. We review literature to establish study and distinguished three major categories for classifying arts-based research: research about art, art as research, and art in research. We further identify five main forms of arts-based research: visual art, sound art, literary art, performing art, and new media. Relevant examples of socially engaged research are provided to illustrate how different artistic methods are used within the forms identified. This classification framework provides artists and researchers a general introduction to arts-based research and helps them to better position themselves and their projects in a field in full development.

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