THE CASE: The arts excite, illuminate and enrich our lives: deepening our understanding of who we... more THE CASE: The arts excite, illuminate and enrich our lives: deepening our understanding of who we are and how we make sense of the world. Posthuman knowledges, diverse creativities, and transdisciplinary practices such as STEAM build upon the economic drivers which characterise STEM; an alignment of the disciplinary areas that allegedly have the greatest impact on a developed country’s gross domestic product. The addition of the arts - as handmaiden to STEM - is often seen to further diminish and marginalise arts in the curriculum. In a world fractured by the COVID-19 global pandemic, precarity of employment and shifting problematics of our collective and sustainable futures, there is a pressing need to think difference positively, which means rethinking, re-viewing, deterritorialising and decolonising music institutions, curricula and pedagogy. We will theorise a posthuman view of transdisciplinarity for letting arts and science teach together. THE EVIDENCE: We conceive of knowledge as rhizomatic. Using posthumanist theorist and quantum physicist Karen Barad’s diffractive analysis ((Barad, 2014 p. 168), we are invited to ask different sets of questions, organising laterally without hierarchies, and constantly being open to de- and re-territorialisation of notions, norms and processes that narrowly define disciplines, phenomena, and activities. These (re)configurings advance alternative ways of ‘seeing’, ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’ music education and research. We present two separate research projects whose findings show that transdisciplinarity can de-couple the specific language of a discipline from its original context, opening up new possibilities for viewing and experiencing the same phenomenon and the materiality of difference (Braidotti, 2019). We will discuss the implications for us as change agents co-creating a new posthuman transdisciplinary turn in music education to: (a) transgress and transcend disciplinary boundaries, and (b)reposition music education where arts and sciences are not separate or even separable endeavours, but rather combine as transdisciplinary configurations
This paper suggests that transforming current educational practices and learning cultures could v... more This paper suggests that transforming current educational practices and learning cultures could very well depend on merging individual potential and competencies with collaborative arts practices in non-formal contexts as important sites for creativity. Arts partnership practices in secondary and higher education, located outside formal curricula, are presented as case studies that highlight the benefit for students of arts-based knowledge creation and 'situated' forms of creativity. Case study findings are grouped into three dimensions: (1) learning relationships; (2) learning engagement; and (3) 'real' spaces for learning. This paper calls for more in-depth exploration of the ways in which student engagement in artistic processes leads to new forms of knowledge and experiences.
Reviewing the Potential and Challenges of Developing STEAM Education through Creative Pedagogies ... more Reviewing the Potential and Challenges of Developing STEAM Education through Creative Pedagogies for 21st Century Learning: how can school curricula be broadened towards a more responsive, dynamic and inclusive form of education? Globally, the term STEAM is used to indicate ways in which the Arts or art-practices (and sometimes more broadly the Humanities and Social sciences) engage with the STEM subjects of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The number of students choosing post-compulsory study of STEM subjects is seen as being critical to a country’s economic success, yet concerns have been expressed about the way those subjects are currently taught, specifically: a lack of creativity; a need to focus on inter- and multidisciplinary work; a need for a broader conception of science, and STEM’s marginalisation of concerns for society and the environment. Populist accounts may argue for having more creatively-minded scientists, and a more scientifically literate wider ...
This paper pursues new understandings of the ways that 'child' and music/soundsensing/sou... more This paper pursues new understandings of the ways that 'child' and music/soundsensing/soundmaking come to matter in the cultural institutions we recognise as Museums. We compost (Haraway, 2016) data generated from a recent qualitative pilot study which asked whether normative Museum practices offer possibilities for very young children to encounter space, place and sound in generative ways. We reported an assemblage of findings that illustrate the ordinary, yet always political, entanglements of bodies and matter (Elwick et al, 2019; Burnard et al, 2019; Osgood & Burnard, 2019). Theoretically framing our investigation by feminist new materialism and deploying Barad's (2007) concept of 'spacetimemattering' creates possibilities to think differently about the nature of agency, relationality, and change without taking these distinctions to be foundational or holding them in place. This prompts a speculative reading of multi-sensory, corporeal, affective encounters w...
Graduates need to develop multiple human capital career creativities if they are to create and su... more Graduates need to develop multiple human capital career creativities if they are to create and sustain careers in the creative industries. This is because creative work is characterised by multiple concurrent roles within portfolio careers that are commonly protean and boundaries. This chapter describes, interprets and theories multiple human capital career creativities that are crucial to higher education graduate learning.
The study recognizes that museums represent a potentially rich space for families with young chil... more The study recognizes that museums represent a potentially rich space for families with young children in disadvantaged communities to access, and hence enjoy multiple benefits. Specifically, museums hold the potential to engage such families in Early Years music making programmes, which have been shown to offer myriad cognitive, social, emotional, and educational advantages (Pitt & Hargreaves, 2017; Pitt & Hargreaves, 2016; Osgood et al., 20132). However, despite the recent and dramatic increase in museum education, disadvantaged communities neither regularly access museums nor do museums offer inclusive music programmes for Early Years. The literature shows overwhelming gaps in Early Years music making programmes, provision and practice in museums. This pilot study (2017-2018) will inform the development of a large grant application to the AHRC.
This workshop will build upon a process developed by some of the authors for interpreting the mat... more This workshop will build upon a process developed by some of the authors for interpreting the mathematical and artistic knowledge demonstrated in MathArt-works created by children and youth. The participants will be separated into small groups and be given a MathArt-work to interpret. Each group will develop their own “Rhizomatic” representation of their interpretation which will be shared with the whole group during a “Gallery Walk” exhibition. Finally, all participants will discuss the creation of a network of practitioners interested in organizing children and youth mathematical art exhibits.
Making sense of musicians’ professional learning pathways is of crucial importance to understandi... more Making sense of musicians’ professional learning pathways is of crucial importance to understanding their career progressions, their routes into creative employment, and the relevance of various policies to their professional lives. However, this is a far cry from understanding how critical reflection catalyzes diverse learning routes, especially when considering evidence originating from postgraduate musicians’ own accounts of their journeys into job creation. In this study, we invited five postgraduate classical musicians who were invested in professional learning through performance programs in higher education to contribute these types of personal perspectives. The article explores the value of postgraduate musicians’ own accounts of their journeys and illustrates how a more nuanced understanding of them can be arrived at through the use of visual-based tools, for example, Rivers of Musical Experience and Dixit Cards. This constructivist intervention prompted both group and indi...
Bourdieu’s rich conceptual tools of habitus, capital, and field continue to be useful in multiple... more Bourdieu’s rich conceptual tools of habitus, capital, and field continue to be useful in multiple areas of sociological research; however, his tools take many shapes within his own writing and different disciplines. In this article, we reflect on our use of Bourdieu’s tools in order to enhance our understanding of how Bourdieu’s notion of ‘practice’ can be applied to practices of learning in sociological studies on music. Through comparisons of three separate studies (a secondary school, a conservatoire, and an industry), we employ a comparative method of analytic induction where we think critically about how we used Bourdieu’s tools in overlapping but analytically distinct ways. After exploring the extent to which Bourdieu’s tools proved productive, or not, to think with, we end with a concluding synthesis, which highlights the challenges associated with representing forms of Bourdieu’s ‘practice’ as they relate to and inhere in practices of learning.
Creative Learning has been, in recent years, explored by researchers (Jeffrey, 2005) across Europ... more Creative Learning has been, in recent years, explored by researchers (Jeffrey, 2005) across Europe. Analysis emerging from empirical work suggests that the creative in 'creative learning' signals involvement of pupils in 'being innovative, experimental and inventive' (ibid), and the learning signifies that pupils 'engage in aspects of …intellectual enquiry'. The team suggest that within this process of intellectual enquiry, a significant dimension is around 'possibility thinking and engagement with problems' (ibid). In England, the early 21 st century saw energy invested in conceptualising and developing both learning and pedagogy, in schools and elsewhere, through a range of organisations including Creative Partnerships (Creative Partnerships/DEMOS, 2003, Creative Partnerships, 2007), National College for School Leadership (NCSL, 2004) and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA 2005a, 2005b), funded through a variety of government departments. Much of this work has been influenced by the statement proposed by the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education, that creativity is 'imaginative activity fashioned so as to produce outcomes that are original and of value' (NACCCE, 1999, p29). It led to the development of a policy framework for creativity by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (2005a, 2005b), one aspect of which focused on a conceptualisation of 'imaginative activity'-what NACCCE saw as being at the heart of creativity-which is where this study begins.
Connecting to current work in the area of creative pedagogies, this paper reports findings of an ... more Connecting to current work in the area of creative pedagogies, this paper reports findings of an exploratory study that sought to identify what characterises possibility thinking in young children's learning experiences and how teachers' pedagogical practice fosters this critical aspect of creativity. It focuses in particular on pedagogy, seeking to demonstrate how the approaches adopted nurtured the development of children's possibility thinking. Possibility thinking has been conceptualised as being central to creative learning although its role, as manifest in the learning engagement of children and the pedagogical strategies of practitioners has not been fully illuminated. The co-participative research team involved in this study comprised staff in an early childhood centre, in an infant and a primary school, working collaboratively with three university-based researchers. This twelve month long segment of a longer study employed various data collection methods including videostimulated review to facilitate reflection, critical conversations, classroom observation, interviews and examination of planning documents. The paper illuminates the perspectives and embedded values that the teachers expressed whilst reflecting upon their practice, and highlights common pedagogical themes, including the practice of standing back, profiling learner agency and creating time and space. In addition, the paper presents a model for conceptualising a pedagogy of possibility thinking.
International Journal of Early Years Education, 2006
Drawing on existing work in the area of creativity and early year's education, this paper maps th... more Drawing on existing work in the area of creativity and early year's education, this paper maps the process of an exploratory study which sought to identify what characterizes 'possibility thinking' as an aspect of creativity in young children's learning. With the aim of developing a framework for identifying 'possibility thinking' in the contexts of three early years settings, the authors explore key tenets of a model for conceptualizing (and rethinking) 'possibility thinking' and attempt to reconcile some of the methodological challenges inherent in documenting this aspect of creativity in early years contexts. With the co-participation of five early years teachers as researchers, three university based researchers worked collaboratively over the three phase development of the project. With the emphasis on mapping the developing conceptualizations of 'possibility thinking' and the appropriateness of multimodal methods in naturalistic inquiry, the research team, explicate, and argue the need for sharing methodological approaches in researching young children's thinking. The data arising from this research provides powerful insights into the characteristics of 'possibility thinking' which most successfully promote creativity and the authors conclude with a consideration of the implications for future research, practice and practitioner research in early years contexts.
The team extends thanks to all of the children and teachers participating in the Possibility Thin... more The team extends thanks to all of the children and teachers participating in the Possibility Thinking study. In addition, we wish to acknowledge the contribution made by Susanne Jasilek and Anne Meredith, Consultant Researchers in earlier phases of the PT research, and the funders: Cambridge, Exeter and Open Universities.
... In: Craft, Anna; Cremin, Teresa and Burnard, Pamela eds. ... It will be an essential reader o... more ... In: Craft, Anna; Cremin, Teresa and Burnard, Pamela eds. ... It will be an essential reader on teacher education courses at all levels and will provide critical support material for schools seeking to understand creative learning and to develop more creative ways of teaching. ...
ABSTRACT This edited collection focuses on the what, how and why of creative learning . It seeks ... more ABSTRACT This edited collection focuses on the what, how and why of creative learning . It seeks to explore new theoretical , practical and methodological directions in this field. It offers evidence based research from the UK, USA, China, SE Asia, India and Europe and case study accounts of practitioner work as well as theoretical chapters reviewing research methods and theorising about these processes, synthesising findings and insights.
THE CASE: The arts excite, illuminate and enrich our lives: deepening our understanding of who we... more THE CASE: The arts excite, illuminate and enrich our lives: deepening our understanding of who we are and how we make sense of the world. Posthuman knowledges, diverse creativities, and transdisciplinary practices such as STEAM build upon the economic drivers which characterise STEM; an alignment of the disciplinary areas that allegedly have the greatest impact on a developed country’s gross domestic product. The addition of the arts - as handmaiden to STEM - is often seen to further diminish and marginalise arts in the curriculum. In a world fractured by the COVID-19 global pandemic, precarity of employment and shifting problematics of our collective and sustainable futures, there is a pressing need to think difference positively, which means rethinking, re-viewing, deterritorialising and decolonising music institutions, curricula and pedagogy. We will theorise a posthuman view of transdisciplinarity for letting arts and science teach together. THE EVIDENCE: We conceive of knowledge as rhizomatic. Using posthumanist theorist and quantum physicist Karen Barad’s diffractive analysis ((Barad, 2014 p. 168), we are invited to ask different sets of questions, organising laterally without hierarchies, and constantly being open to de- and re-territorialisation of notions, norms and processes that narrowly define disciplines, phenomena, and activities. These (re)configurings advance alternative ways of ‘seeing’, ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’ music education and research. We present two separate research projects whose findings show that transdisciplinarity can de-couple the specific language of a discipline from its original context, opening up new possibilities for viewing and experiencing the same phenomenon and the materiality of difference (Braidotti, 2019). We will discuss the implications for us as change agents co-creating a new posthuman transdisciplinary turn in music education to: (a) transgress and transcend disciplinary boundaries, and (b)reposition music education where arts and sciences are not separate or even separable endeavours, but rather combine as transdisciplinary configurations
This paper suggests that transforming current educational practices and learning cultures could v... more This paper suggests that transforming current educational practices and learning cultures could very well depend on merging individual potential and competencies with collaborative arts practices in non-formal contexts as important sites for creativity. Arts partnership practices in secondary and higher education, located outside formal curricula, are presented as case studies that highlight the benefit for students of arts-based knowledge creation and 'situated' forms of creativity. Case study findings are grouped into three dimensions: (1) learning relationships; (2) learning engagement; and (3) 'real' spaces for learning. This paper calls for more in-depth exploration of the ways in which student engagement in artistic processes leads to new forms of knowledge and experiences.
Reviewing the Potential and Challenges of Developing STEAM Education through Creative Pedagogies ... more Reviewing the Potential and Challenges of Developing STEAM Education through Creative Pedagogies for 21st Century Learning: how can school curricula be broadened towards a more responsive, dynamic and inclusive form of education? Globally, the term STEAM is used to indicate ways in which the Arts or art-practices (and sometimes more broadly the Humanities and Social sciences) engage with the STEM subjects of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The number of students choosing post-compulsory study of STEM subjects is seen as being critical to a country’s economic success, yet concerns have been expressed about the way those subjects are currently taught, specifically: a lack of creativity; a need to focus on inter- and multidisciplinary work; a need for a broader conception of science, and STEM’s marginalisation of concerns for society and the environment. Populist accounts may argue for having more creatively-minded scientists, and a more scientifically literate wider ...
This paper pursues new understandings of the ways that 'child' and music/soundsensing/sou... more This paper pursues new understandings of the ways that 'child' and music/soundsensing/soundmaking come to matter in the cultural institutions we recognise as Museums. We compost (Haraway, 2016) data generated from a recent qualitative pilot study which asked whether normative Museum practices offer possibilities for very young children to encounter space, place and sound in generative ways. We reported an assemblage of findings that illustrate the ordinary, yet always political, entanglements of bodies and matter (Elwick et al, 2019; Burnard et al, 2019; Osgood & Burnard, 2019). Theoretically framing our investigation by feminist new materialism and deploying Barad's (2007) concept of 'spacetimemattering' creates possibilities to think differently about the nature of agency, relationality, and change without taking these distinctions to be foundational or holding them in place. This prompts a speculative reading of multi-sensory, corporeal, affective encounters w...
Graduates need to develop multiple human capital career creativities if they are to create and su... more Graduates need to develop multiple human capital career creativities if they are to create and sustain careers in the creative industries. This is because creative work is characterised by multiple concurrent roles within portfolio careers that are commonly protean and boundaries. This chapter describes, interprets and theories multiple human capital career creativities that are crucial to higher education graduate learning.
The study recognizes that museums represent a potentially rich space for families with young chil... more The study recognizes that museums represent a potentially rich space for families with young children in disadvantaged communities to access, and hence enjoy multiple benefits. Specifically, museums hold the potential to engage such families in Early Years music making programmes, which have been shown to offer myriad cognitive, social, emotional, and educational advantages (Pitt & Hargreaves, 2017; Pitt & Hargreaves, 2016; Osgood et al., 20132). However, despite the recent and dramatic increase in museum education, disadvantaged communities neither regularly access museums nor do museums offer inclusive music programmes for Early Years. The literature shows overwhelming gaps in Early Years music making programmes, provision and practice in museums. This pilot study (2017-2018) will inform the development of a large grant application to the AHRC.
This workshop will build upon a process developed by some of the authors for interpreting the mat... more This workshop will build upon a process developed by some of the authors for interpreting the mathematical and artistic knowledge demonstrated in MathArt-works created by children and youth. The participants will be separated into small groups and be given a MathArt-work to interpret. Each group will develop their own “Rhizomatic” representation of their interpretation which will be shared with the whole group during a “Gallery Walk” exhibition. Finally, all participants will discuss the creation of a network of practitioners interested in organizing children and youth mathematical art exhibits.
Making sense of musicians’ professional learning pathways is of crucial importance to understandi... more Making sense of musicians’ professional learning pathways is of crucial importance to understanding their career progressions, their routes into creative employment, and the relevance of various policies to their professional lives. However, this is a far cry from understanding how critical reflection catalyzes diverse learning routes, especially when considering evidence originating from postgraduate musicians’ own accounts of their journeys into job creation. In this study, we invited five postgraduate classical musicians who were invested in professional learning through performance programs in higher education to contribute these types of personal perspectives. The article explores the value of postgraduate musicians’ own accounts of their journeys and illustrates how a more nuanced understanding of them can be arrived at through the use of visual-based tools, for example, Rivers of Musical Experience and Dixit Cards. This constructivist intervention prompted both group and indi...
Bourdieu’s rich conceptual tools of habitus, capital, and field continue to be useful in multiple... more Bourdieu’s rich conceptual tools of habitus, capital, and field continue to be useful in multiple areas of sociological research; however, his tools take many shapes within his own writing and different disciplines. In this article, we reflect on our use of Bourdieu’s tools in order to enhance our understanding of how Bourdieu’s notion of ‘practice’ can be applied to practices of learning in sociological studies on music. Through comparisons of three separate studies (a secondary school, a conservatoire, and an industry), we employ a comparative method of analytic induction where we think critically about how we used Bourdieu’s tools in overlapping but analytically distinct ways. After exploring the extent to which Bourdieu’s tools proved productive, or not, to think with, we end with a concluding synthesis, which highlights the challenges associated with representing forms of Bourdieu’s ‘practice’ as they relate to and inhere in practices of learning.
Creative Learning has been, in recent years, explored by researchers (Jeffrey, 2005) across Europ... more Creative Learning has been, in recent years, explored by researchers (Jeffrey, 2005) across Europe. Analysis emerging from empirical work suggests that the creative in 'creative learning' signals involvement of pupils in 'being innovative, experimental and inventive' (ibid), and the learning signifies that pupils 'engage in aspects of …intellectual enquiry'. The team suggest that within this process of intellectual enquiry, a significant dimension is around 'possibility thinking and engagement with problems' (ibid). In England, the early 21 st century saw energy invested in conceptualising and developing both learning and pedagogy, in schools and elsewhere, through a range of organisations including Creative Partnerships (Creative Partnerships/DEMOS, 2003, Creative Partnerships, 2007), National College for School Leadership (NCSL, 2004) and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA 2005a, 2005b), funded through a variety of government departments. Much of this work has been influenced by the statement proposed by the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education, that creativity is 'imaginative activity fashioned so as to produce outcomes that are original and of value' (NACCCE, 1999, p29). It led to the development of a policy framework for creativity by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (2005a, 2005b), one aspect of which focused on a conceptualisation of 'imaginative activity'-what NACCCE saw as being at the heart of creativity-which is where this study begins.
Connecting to current work in the area of creative pedagogies, this paper reports findings of an ... more Connecting to current work in the area of creative pedagogies, this paper reports findings of an exploratory study that sought to identify what characterises possibility thinking in young children's learning experiences and how teachers' pedagogical practice fosters this critical aspect of creativity. It focuses in particular on pedagogy, seeking to demonstrate how the approaches adopted nurtured the development of children's possibility thinking. Possibility thinking has been conceptualised as being central to creative learning although its role, as manifest in the learning engagement of children and the pedagogical strategies of practitioners has not been fully illuminated. The co-participative research team involved in this study comprised staff in an early childhood centre, in an infant and a primary school, working collaboratively with three university-based researchers. This twelve month long segment of a longer study employed various data collection methods including videostimulated review to facilitate reflection, critical conversations, classroom observation, interviews and examination of planning documents. The paper illuminates the perspectives and embedded values that the teachers expressed whilst reflecting upon their practice, and highlights common pedagogical themes, including the practice of standing back, profiling learner agency and creating time and space. In addition, the paper presents a model for conceptualising a pedagogy of possibility thinking.
International Journal of Early Years Education, 2006
Drawing on existing work in the area of creativity and early year's education, this paper maps th... more Drawing on existing work in the area of creativity and early year's education, this paper maps the process of an exploratory study which sought to identify what characterizes 'possibility thinking' as an aspect of creativity in young children's learning. With the aim of developing a framework for identifying 'possibility thinking' in the contexts of three early years settings, the authors explore key tenets of a model for conceptualizing (and rethinking) 'possibility thinking' and attempt to reconcile some of the methodological challenges inherent in documenting this aspect of creativity in early years contexts. With the co-participation of five early years teachers as researchers, three university based researchers worked collaboratively over the three phase development of the project. With the emphasis on mapping the developing conceptualizations of 'possibility thinking' and the appropriateness of multimodal methods in naturalistic inquiry, the research team, explicate, and argue the need for sharing methodological approaches in researching young children's thinking. The data arising from this research provides powerful insights into the characteristics of 'possibility thinking' which most successfully promote creativity and the authors conclude with a consideration of the implications for future research, practice and practitioner research in early years contexts.
The team extends thanks to all of the children and teachers participating in the Possibility Thin... more The team extends thanks to all of the children and teachers participating in the Possibility Thinking study. In addition, we wish to acknowledge the contribution made by Susanne Jasilek and Anne Meredith, Consultant Researchers in earlier phases of the PT research, and the funders: Cambridge, Exeter and Open Universities.
... In: Craft, Anna; Cremin, Teresa and Burnard, Pamela eds. ... It will be an essential reader o... more ... In: Craft, Anna; Cremin, Teresa and Burnard, Pamela eds. ... It will be an essential reader on teacher education courses at all levels and will provide critical support material for schools seeking to understand creative learning and to develop more creative ways of teaching. ...
ABSTRACT This edited collection focuses on the what, how and why of creative learning . It seeks ... more ABSTRACT This edited collection focuses on the what, how and why of creative learning . It seeks to explore new theoretical , practical and methodological directions in this field. It offers evidence based research from the UK, USA, China, SE Asia, India and Europe and case study accounts of practitioner work as well as theoretical chapters reviewing research methods and theorising about these processes, synthesising findings and insights.
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Papers by Pam Burnard