Science, Art, and the Predispositions of Educational Researchers

The use of poetry in a spiral-patterned methodology for research about love in early childhood

“…Individual stories were at the heart of this research process. The process also contained elements of arts-based inquiry (Barone, 2001, Lapum et al, 2011, Bagley and Castro-Salazar, 2012 with the poems themselves serving to convey the messages of the research in a different way, thereby adding a further mode of communication. This approach has synergies too with ethnomethodology in that it shares an emphasis on deep study of a profession or activity, and there is a conscious avoidance of any rigid methods that may "impose a priori or extrinsic definitions of pattern and order" (Pollner and Emerson, 2001, p.119).…”

Arts‐based research in design education

“…The project described in this paper incorporates both giving primacy however to the image and its role in 'heightening ambiguity' (Barone 2001) and 'lay[ing] bare questions that have been hidden by the answers' (Baldwin 1962in Barone 2001. At a broad level it is artsbased research; at a closer level it is art informed inquiry or what some describe as imagebased research.…”

“…As recent as 2000, it was under attack interestingly in the area of educational research which as highlighted has behind it about three decades of consistent development, application and evaluation. Responding to the attack by Mayer (2000), Barone (2001) explains this in terms of a persisting predisposition toward certainty arguing that while this will always remain a fundamental human predisposition (perhaps even more so if we accept Barnett's prophesy of a future characterised by a more ontologically destabilising form of uncertainty), there is another fundamental human predisposition often overlooked, that is the predisposition toward inquiry (p. 24). In other words, Barone is not denying a role for traditional science-type research, but rather advocating for the acceptance of an additional form of inquiry that has as its purpose '...the uncovering and expressing of alternate interpretations of the phenomena under scrutiny' (p. 24).…”

“…Of particular note is the integration of research and the arts in education emerging from the early work of Eisner (1975Eisner ( , 1977 and developed subsequently through his continuing work (more recent works include: Eisner, 1991Eisner, , 1997 at various stages incorporating collaborations with other researchers (for example, Barone & Eisner, 1997). Barone, a former student of Eisner, has also been central to the ongoing development and promotion of arts-informed inquiry (see Barone, 1978Barone, , 1990Barone, , 2000Barone, , 2001Blumenfeld-Jones & Barone, 1997) as well as Knowles (2000, 2001).…”

“…In other words, Barone is not denying a role for traditional science-type research, but rather advocating for the acceptance of an additional form of inquiry that has as its purpose '...the uncovering and expressing of alternate interpretations of the phenomena under scrutiny' (p. 24). According to Barone (2001) and other arts-based researchers, this purpose is best served by activities and forms of representation that are aesthetic in nature; forms that are an integral part of various areas of the arts such as the performing arts, the visual arts and so on.…”