Artful transformation? Considering Maxine Greene's arts encounters as examples of transformative learning [microform]
- Bib ID:
- 4225135
- Format:
- Book and Microform
- Author:
- Stepniak, Michael
- Online Version:
- http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3244757
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- Description:
- 357 p.
- Summary:
-
How might we understand claims that art-centered experiences can change people in profound ways? The writings of eminent art and education philosopher Maxine Greene appear to offer a unique entryway. Greene has long posited that certain art-centered experiences---what she calls "arts encounters"---can enable individuals to experience profound personal change. Interestingly, the change Greene describes appears to align closely with what psychologist Jack Mezirow and others have described as Transformative Learning; a phenomenon that has received broad scrutiny from researchers in the field. In this dissertation, I investigate the extent to which Greene's "arts encounters" might viably be considered examples of transformative learning, and consider the usefulness of my findings to educators interested in employing the arts to sustain that type of learning. Specifically, I pursue three interrelated studies.
The first study reviews Greene's extensive body of work in order to explicate her conception of arts encounters (a concept that is central in her body of work and has received little critical examination). The second study examines how Greene's conception is in line with and/or different from the claims and findings from theory and empirical research regarding transformative experiences in adults (as shaped and defined by Jack Mezirow). The third study focuses around interviews with individuals who closely resemble the percipients Greene describes as being well positioned for her arts encounter. That study considers how individuals, self-identified as having undergone changes as a result of art-based experiences, understand those changes and art's role therein.
As my concluding chapter illuminates, my findings point to an alignment between Greene's model of arts-encounters and the profound change illuminated through both transformative learning theory and research, and the self-described experience of individuals resembling Greene's ideal percipient. But those findings also further illuminate the extraordinary variability and complexity of the transformative learning process that an art-centered curriculum might evoke, making the promising task of building curriculum on Greene's model far from simple. Arts educators hoping to employ the arts for transformative learning, I conclude, can take specific and useful steps in that direction, but would do well to balance their hopefulness with caution.
- Notes:
-
- (UMI)AAI3244757
- Adviser: Jessica Hoffmann Davis.
- Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-12, Section: A, page: 4417.
- Thesis (Ed.D.)--Harvard University, 2006.
- Reproduction:
- Microfiche. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International
- Subject:
- Other authors/contributors:
- Harvard University
- Copyright:
-
In Copyright
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Copyright status was determined using the following information:
- Material type:
- Literary Dramatic Musical
- Published status:
- Unpublished
- Creation date:
- 2006
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