‘Art, its creation and leadership [can be] revealing and frightening’: how school leaders learn to frame and solve problems through the arts

Abstract

Despite the current press to improve school leadership, little scholarly attention focuses on building problem-solving skills in university leadership preparation programmes. This paper reports on two qualitative case studies that examined educational leadership students' probing of school problems through the arts. Fieldwork was used to derive inductive explanations of minimally documented leadership experience (grounded theory) and understanding human development through producing and/or participating in works of art (arts-based inquiry). Data sources included videos and participant observations of improvisational theatre role-plays; observations of making pottery, drawing and three-dimensional metaphors; interviews; and extant documents including student journals, web-based discussions and course evaluations. Study #1 found that educational leadership students reflected on personal and professional fears, engaged in creative risks and returned to creative roots. In study #2, six phases of problem-solving through improvisational theatre role-playing emerged: selecting, projecting, amplifying the problem, deriving tentative solutions, objectifying the problem and selecting a better solution to the problem. Comparison of these findings suggests two distinct approaches to solving problems: 'problem framing' (study #1) versus 'problem solving' (study #2). This distinction lends insight into the cognitive and affective aspects of learning through the arts for educational leadership students, and how faculty can help these students to navigate and facilitate this learning process.Despite the current press to improve school leadership, little scholarly attention focuses on how university educational leadership preparation programmes can build leaders' problem-solving abilities. This paper reports on findings from two independently conducted studies of US educational leadership courses and institutes that focused on developing problem-solving skills in practicing administrators who were enrolled in university graduate programmes through arts-based approaches such as improvisational theatre, art exploration and journaling. The overarching research question was, 'How do educational leadership students develop their problem-framing and Jen Katz-Buonincontro is an assistant professor of Educational Leadership, . Her research and teaching interests include developing creative thinking and problem solving in leaders, learning through the arts, qualitative methodology and arts-based inquiry. Joy C. Phillips is an associate professor in the Educational Leadership

Diversifying Approaches to Educational Leadership: The Impact of Tradition in a Changing Educational Landscape

“…Arts-based studies have also been included as biographical methods. Several scholars have used theoretical and empirical foundations to support their various ethnographic narratives of minoritized experience (Barone, 2008;Barone & Eisner, 2012;Katz-Buonincontro & Phillips, 2011;Witherspoon, 2012). All phases of social science researchfrom deciding what constitutes data to approaches to analysis and forms of representation-can benefit from the artistic sensibilities.…”

Forskning og utvikling i kulturskolefeltet: IRIS - den doble regnbuen

“…Kunst er i flere teoretiske sammenhenger blitt aktualisert og eksemplifisert som en bredspektret metodologisk tilnaerming, og som del av ulike forskningsdesign, gjerne benevnt som art-based methods (ABM) eller art-based research-design (Barone og Eisner, 2012;Jagodzinski og Wallin, 2013). ABM omfatter også kunst som intervensjonsstrategi i eksempelvis teamutvikling eller utviklingsarbeid (Darsø, 2004;Katz-Buonincontro og Phillips, 2011;Mack, 2013;Sutherland, 2013). I tillegg finnes en tredje retning hvor kunst trekkes inn som undersøkende perspektiv eller teori når konteksten er ledelse.…”

Developing School Leaders through the Arts

“…Nevertheless, some educational leadership program faculty have deviated from the norm by using arts-based activities (Katz-Buonincontro & Phillips, 2011) to engage developing school leaders in reflection about what they value and believe, how they address organizational problems, and how they define their leadership identity and vision. While uncommon, this expanded approach to leadership development suggests that it may be necessary to go beyond the national leadership standards to construct a framework for promoting a professional leadership identity that includes creative thinking and social justice awareness.…”