Arts-based research in music education – general concepts and potential cases

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, the topic of arts-based research in music education is investigated by presenting different general concepts related to arts in research, and discussing them in relation to the author’s own previous research conducted within music education. The chosen theoretical focus is on Bresler’s aesthetically based research, Knowles and Cole’s arts-informed research, Eisner and colleagues’ arts-based research, Irwin, Springgay and colleagues’ a/r/tography, as well as on the more common term and approach in the Nordic countries: artistic research. Different from the specific artistic research literature, in arts-based research literature there are strikingly few examples from music, especially compared to the visual and literary arts. Does that mean that music education research is hardly ever arts-based, that we do not reveal the arts’ actual place in our research or that the ways we use arts in our research processes are defined by other concepts? By comparing the different processes in research already conducted to the aforementioned theories, some potentials and tendencies related to the use of arts in music education research are exemplified and discussed. The discussion reveals potential arts-based research processes in all the different phases of a research project, including the question development, the data collection and the result development phase. In the concluding discussion, questions related to the many terms, the Nordic countries’ use of the terms, the necessary competencies and qualities in arts-based research, as well as some epistemological questions, are raised. Keywords: music education, qualitative research, research methodology, arts-based research