MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School Certificate for Approving the Dissertation We hereby approve the Dissertation of Katherine K. Smith Candidate for the Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Director Kathleen Knight-Abowitz Reader Thomas Poetter Reader Michael Evans Reader Lisa Weems Graduate School Representative Stephanie Danker
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A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE FOUND IN AN ARTS COUNCIL'S EVENTS AND PROGRAMS
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MIAMI UNIVERSITY
The Graduate School
Certificate for Approving the Dissertation
We hereby approve the Dissertation
of
Katherine K. Smith
Candidate for the Degree:
Doctor of Philosophy
Director
Kathleen Knight-Abowitz
Reader
Thomas Poetter
Reader
Michael Evans
Reader
Lisa Weems
Graduate School Representative
Stephanie Danker
ABSTRACT
A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY OF
AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE WITHIN AN ARTS COUNCIL’S EVENTS AND PROGRAMS:
FINDING JOY, EXPRESSION, CONNECTION, AND PUBLIC GOOD IN THE ARTS
by Katherine K. Smith
City Township made a township-level decision to utilize arts events and programming to
create community formation within its public. A non-profit entity entitled the Arts Planning
Council was established to harness the aesthetic experience within the arts and to address the
deep state cuts to the township budget. My aim was to understand the formation of a community
based arts education program, how it contributes to the meaning and creation of community, how
human connection is created through existential aesthetic experience, and how it can lend a
feeling of communitas (V. Turner, 1969) among township members.
Through the interpretive discourse and the methodology of hermeneutical
phenomenology, I analyzed how the Arts Planning Council made meaning of the aesthetic
experiences that occurred in their arts events and programming that result in community creation.
For two years, I functioned as a participatory observer and conducted formal and informal
interviews with Arts Planning Council board members, township trustees, and township
administrators. I applied horizontalization (Moustakas, 1994) to cluster significant statements
from their accounts into consistent themes of understanding. Using the emerging themes of the
arts as joy, the arts as expression, the arts as connection, and the arts as a public good as
generative guides for writing, I divided the study into sections that elaborate on the phenomenon
of the aesthetic experiences within the arts events and programming and how those experiences
lead to community creation.
I concluded that the members of the Arts Planning Council and township trustees
understand the receptive joy, expression, and connection derived from the liminal experience of
the arts creation and participation. The resulting feeling of spontaneous communitas lends a
desire to continue communitas into a normative state. Ultimately, desire engenders a joint aim to
deliver the arts as an irreducible, social good. This idea interrupts the discourse that arts
education should only occur in schools and makes the responsibility for educating the public one
held by all township members. The result is an ecology of education built within the revitalized
community of City Township.
A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY OF
AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE WITHIN AN ARTS COUNCIL’S EVENTS AND PROGRAMS:
FINDING JOY, EXPRESSION, CONNECTION, AND PUBLIC GOOD IN THE ARTS
Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................................ ix
Chapter I: Introduction to the Study ............................................................................................................ 1
A National Context: The Perception of the Arts in Communities ............................................................. 4
A Local Context: The Creation of the Arts Planning Council ................................................................. 7
My Positionality ...................................................................................................................................... 14
Research Question and Study Rationale ................................................................................................. 15
Research Goals ....................................................................................................................................... 16
Study Design ........................................................................................................................................... 61
Balancing the Research Context by Considering Parts and Whole ........................................................ 83
Chapter 4: The Nature of Arts Events and Programs and Their Contribution to Community Creation .... 85
The Arts as Joy ........................................................................................................................................ 86
Receptive Joy ...................................................................................................................................... 89
Sustained vigor for receptive joy. ....................................................................................................... 92
Having satisfaction in the liminal experience of receptive joy. .......................................................... 93
The Arts as Expression ............................................................................................................................ 95
Expression is an Essential Human Characteristic .............................................................................. 97
The Arts Can Open Windows for People through Expression ............................................................ 99
The Arts as Connection ......................................................................................................................... 100
"It is a Human Need to Feel a Sense of Belonging” ......................................................................... 103
City Township is a Diverse Public .................................................................................................... 104
"An Aim was to Have Events that Would Unify the Township Public” ............................................ 106
The Arts as a Public Good .................................................................................................................... 109
Community of Practice...................................................................................................................... 116
Mutual Engagement of Participants in Communities of Practice: The Arts Planning Council
Consists of Unique Individuals who equally Contribute to its Action. ............................................. 117
v
Mutual Engagement of Participants in Communities of Practice: The Aim of the Arts Planning
Council is to educate the Public on the Value of the Arts. ................................................................ 119
Accountability to a Joint Enterprise of the Community of Practice: A Goal is a Community Hub that
is Full of Activity. .............................................................................................................................. 121
Accountability to a Joint Enterprise of the Community: The Arts Planning Council is Part of the
Township Despite its Existence as an Independent, Non-profit Entity. ............................................ 123
Accountability to a Joint Enterprise of the Community: Financial Stability for the Arts Planning
Council Will Enable More Individuals to be Involved in the Arts. ................................................... 124
Accountability to a Joint Enterprise of the Community: Connecting with Arts Partners will enable
the Arts Planning Council to enhance its Resources. ....................................................................... 126
Negotiability of the Shared Repertoire of the Community of Practice: Vocal Feedback Gives the Arts
Planning Council a Gauge. ............................................................................................................... 128
Chapter 5: The Implications of Arts Events and Programming toward Community Creation ................. 131
The Arts as Joy ...................................................................................................................................... 133
The Arts as Expression .......................................................................................................................... 136
The Arts as Connection ......................................................................................................................... 140
The Arts as Public Good ....................................................................................................................... 144
Chapter 6: A Final Discussion .................................................................................................................. 150
High Points ........................................................................................................................................... 151
The Board.......................................................................................................................................... 153
The Space .......................................................................................................................................... 154
Appendix A ............................................................................................................................................... 165
Appendix B ............................................................................................................................................... 168
Appendix C ............................................................................................................................................... 170
vi
Appendix D ............................................................................................................................................... 171
Appendix E ............................................................................................................................................... 172
Appendix G ............................................................................................................................................... 174
vii
List of Figures
Figure 1: Great Blue Heron, Katherine Coy Smith, soft-ground print. .......................................... ix
Figure 2: The third annual local art show at City Township located at Independence Barn. ......... 1
Figure 3: A gallery of artwork at the local art show. ...................................................................... 2
Figure 4: Age distribution within City Township. .......................................................................... 9
Figure 5: Ethnicity distribution within City Township. ................................................................ 10
Figure 6: Income distribution within City Township. .................................................................. 10
Figure 7: Employment distribution within City Township. .......................................................... 11
Figure 8: Education distribution with City Township. ................................................................. 11
Figure 9: Description of arts events and actors involved in each event........................................ 13
Figure 10: The Arts Planning Council Board, 2012-2016 ............................................................ 68
Figure 11: Teaching artists for the CBAE at City Township........................................................ 70
Figure 12: City Township Administration Hierarchy, 2015-16 .................................................... 72
Figure 13: Example of significant statements and horizontalization. ........................................... 79
Figure 14: Arts activities after an outdoor puppet show for children and their families .............. 86
Figure 15: Drawing class at City Township ................................................................................. 97
Figure 16: Groups of township citizens of all ages enjoying the arts events at Arts Fest. ......... 102
Figure 17: Indian dancers performing at the Banquet Hall…………………………..………... 110
Figure 18: Traditional verses Cultural Education. ...................................................................... 137
viii
This work is dedicated to the memory of my mother, Lucille K. Coy, who inspired me to enjoy the
aesthetic experiences in life.
ix
Acknowledgments
Figure 1: Great Blue Heron, 2002, Katherine Coy Smith, soft-ground print.
The soft-ground print I created of a blue heron at the beginning of flight visually
represents for me the work of a doctoral student. I offer this image as gratitude to my advisors,
mentors, friends, and family members who have worked in concert to make it possible for me to
accomplish that which I did not think I could do. It has certainly been a privilege to study and
write about education and aesthetics from a curricular and leadership point of view. I am
grateful to have that privilege and look forward to sharing the knowledge I have learned with
others in order to enhance our country’s education.
I would like to offer my utmost gratitude to my dissertation advisor, Dr. Kathleen Knight-
Abowitz, for affirming my initial interests into entering the program, for planning my academic
coursework in a timely manner, and for her constant support, time, interest, and guidance during
the dissertation process. Her wisdom and knowledge is deep and very appreciated by me. I
would like to thank my other committee members, Dr. Thomas Poetter, Dr. Lisa Weems, Dr.
Stephanie Danker, and Dr. Michael Evans for their support, patience, information, and guidance.
Each of them holds a body of work that serves as a guide, an inspiration, and a goal for me to
follow. I appreciate all of the individual attention they each gave me in regard to this project.
I am grateful for the support of my colleagues in the Educational Leadership Department.
My cohort members and classmates are so kind and encouraging. Their interest and enthusiasm
sustained me throughout the four years I have been taking classes, teaching, researching, and
writing. I look forward to more collaborative work with them, and I am grateful for the
opportunities we have shared together thus far.
I could not have done this research without the Arts Planning Council board members
and Lisa. Lisa’s first request for advice has led to a much longer work relationship that I cherish
x
and the establishment of a growing arts presence in City Township for which I am grateful. The
board members were both enthusiastic and helpful with the research process. Their eagerness to
talk to me and tell me their stories single-handedly contributed to the creation of this project. I
am very grateful to share their story so that other township publics or cities may benefit from the
knowledge. Thank you to Lisa, Frank, Bob, Elizabeth, Sarah, Mitch, Estelle, John, and Rick.
Finally, I would like to convey my deepest gratitude to my husband, C. Pat Smith, and
my family. I certainly would not have made it through this project without their support,
understanding, encouragement, and love. My husband’s unequivocal support kept me going. He
did not let me look back on my decision to study educational leadership and helped me to
flourish in my attempt. I am grateful for the many loads of laundry, drives to kids’ activities, and
trips to King’s Island that he did in order for me to read, study, and write. I would like to thank
my children, Zack, Noah, and Sophia, who were never sure what I was doing but were always
there to give me a hug and help me around the house. Thank you for our “power hours!” I
would like to thank my dad, Keith D. Coy, for listening to me rattle on about different ideas and
supporting me throughout my total school and work career. His interest and enthusiasm for what
I was learning encouraged me to keep working at it. My in-laws, Dr. Diane V. and Dr. Arthur W.
Thornton were constant cheerleaders to me. I am very grateful for their encouragement, advice,
and many meals they fixed for our family while I went to their basement at the lake to write. My
brother, Christopher D. Coy, has been a terrific mentor and guide for me while completing this
process and networking for a new job. His belief in my abilities has been pivotal. I would also
like to thank my friends, Kathy Peterson and Tami Baxter, who called regularly to see that I was
doing okay and helped take care of my children when I needed help. Finally, I would like to
acknowledge my mother, Lucille K. Coy, who passed away near the beginning of my
coursework. Her support and love was unflappable, and I could not have made it to this point
without her constant reminder that what I knew was not always “testable.” She believed in
“creative loafing” and the aesthetic side of life and for that I am grateful. As an English teacher,
she made sure my brother and I could write, and I think she would have enjoyed proofreading
this big paper.
1
Chapter 1: Introduction to the Study
As I pulled into the parking lot for Independence Barn (pseudonym given), I could see it
glowing with lights and almost shaking with the excitement and energy that seemed to be
spilling from its interior. No parking spaces were available at all in the front. A bit panicked
that I might not find a place to park, I followed another car around the building to an almost
hidden lot behind it. I carefully walked to the front of the building, slowly navigating an
unknown path and several stairs in the dark. As I approached the door, I could hear laughter,
music, and loud conversations. When I walked into the doorway, I could see volunteers passing
out guidebooks, others pouring wine to sample, musicians performing as a quartet, food arranged
for sampling, and beautiful, sophisticated artwork displayed on easels and walls. Two hundred
people were mingling, eating, talking, and looking at artwork. The energy was alive and
contagious. As a visitor, I could not help but smile and sense the excitement myself. Lisa
(pseudonym), the Arts1 Planning Council’s (pseudonym) chairperson, was making
announcements in between the music changes.
Figure 2: The third annual local art show at City Township located at Independence Barn.
Elizabeth (pseudonym), a community board member of the Arts Planning Council,
approached me with a radiating smile. Together, she and I admired the photography displayed
on the wall next to where we were standing. I met her granddaughter and her son, conversed,
1 In this study, the term, arts, refers to the arts in a general sense, meaning music, dance, drama, creative writing,
and visual art. Art in a singular form refers to visual art.
2
and moved on to see the other spaces. I traversed through the silent auction to get a feel for the
diversity of the artwork, and I observed more small groups of people talking and laughing among
each other. The artwork donated for the silent auction seemed of high quality with selections
such as hand blown glass created at the local glass workshop, fiber work, photography, sculpture,
drawings, and paintings. The revenue from the sale of these items would go back into the Arts
Planning Council’s budget for future events.
Figure 1: A gallery of artwork at the local art show.
The barn had a wonderful, open feel that only a barn can give, but it also allowed for
small spaces of displays that the council had used to better organize the artwork. I started up the
main staircase that snaked around the quartet and the wine samplers and came to rest at the main
display rooms upstairs. I could not help but snap some photographs of what I saw along the way.
I saw Estelle (pseudonym) and congratulated her on her recent election win. She is one of three
Township Trustees for City Township (pseudonym) and the strongest supporter for the arts on
the Trustee Board. She was just up for reelection and told me that she was trying to “recover”
from the hard campaign.
I roamed into the main gallery space that had glass vessels punctuating the middle of the
room with intense colors and framed artwork that bordered the outside of the room by hanging
on portable grids. Several artists stood by to talk to the visitors about their artwork. I talked to a
few artists, heard their stories, and took notes on others who could possibly teach for the
community based art education program the Arts Planning Council was trying to develop. I took
thorough notes about all of the artists and their mediums. The variety of media was exciting to
see and impressive. Works created in pastel, oil, watercolor, acrylic, wood, glass, mixed media,
Van Manen, 1990). Both of these theories frame a pragmatic creation of community (Dewey,
1927; Greene, 2001). The aesthetic experience within a group serves as a “liminal” space that
3 The goal of existentialism is to make every human aware of what he or she is and to grant each human the full
responsibility of his or her existence and his or her acts in which each is involved (Bedford, 1972, p. 8).
16
breaks down social structure and results in a feeling of communitas (Greene, 2001; E. Turner,
2012; V. Turner, 1969). Based on my analysis of relevant studies utilizing arts experiences to
create meaning of community within classrooms, neighborhoods, and institutions, and through
hermeneutical phenomenological analysis of the board members’ and township trustees formal
and informal interviews, I attempt to understand how the Arts Planning Council views those
theoretical concepts. The township hopes to create connections among township members
through the arts. The results should stimulate the local economy, create a city-center, and
support the seven school districts within the township. I find the study of City Township
valuable to other communities who desire to position the arts as central to their public life but
may also hold atypical demographics for such decisions. City Township is a contemporary
context and a real-life, bounded system creating more than just a case study. It creates a context
in which I and the Arts Planning Council can reflectively understand the meaning of community
formation from aesthetic experiences.
Research Goals
My goal through this study was to utilize hermeneutical phenomenology to understand
how the Arts Planning Council makes meaning of the aesthetic experiences created through their
arts events and programming that lead toward community creation. Aesthetic experiences give
way to existential connections among and between individuals, creating a deeply active feeling
of communitas. I am interested in understanding how this response is passed on to others
through the typifications and actions of the Arts Planning Council board, the audience members,
the actors, the artists, the art teachers, the musicians, the stage crews, and the many volunteers.
The subjective reality created by these actors and their actions and reactions to the phenomena of
art is maintained through their rituals of performance, advertisement, fundraising, education, and
conversation of shared responses. In these ways, the phenomena of meaning making of a
community through the aesthetic experience of the arts events and programming creates actions,
17
both typified4 and habitualized5, and rituals, both rational and nonrational,6 that supersede
fragmented geography and socio-economic income. An understanding of connection within City
Township is created. It is an understanding of the arts as joyful, expressive, connecting, and a
social-public good.
Hermeneutical Phenomenology
The study at City Township began as a pilot study with an interpretive case study design.
It worked as a case study because City Township was and still is a bounded, real-life case in
which I investigated the meaning making of Arts Planning Council members. I understood how
they viewed the aesthetic experiences they created from the arts events and programming. A
case study is conducted to develop an in-depth understanding of a single case in order to explore
an issue or problem using the case as a specific illustration (Creswell, 2013; Glesne, 2011; Stake,
1995; Yin, 2003). As an intrinsic pilot case study, this case arose from a distinctive need to
understand complex social phenomena of aesthetic experience and its ability to create
community. The pilot case study allowed me, as the investigator, to retain the holistic
characteristics of real-life arts events and arts classes (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2003).
However, as I spent time as a participant observer in City Township while conducting the
pilot case study, in particular with the Arts Planning Council, the approach of interpreting the
understanding the Arts Planning Council members make of the aesthetic experiences and their
contribution to community formation required a methodology that would “raise questions, gather
data, describe phenomenon, and construct textual interpretations” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 1).
Thus, the approach of this study is phenomenological and hermeneutic. It is language-oriented
because the aesthetic experience of community formation requires a phenomenological
sensitivity to the lived experience of the Arts Planning Council members and their work in
particular. The meaning of community formation from aesthetic experience requires “a
hermeneutic ability to make interpretive sense of the phenomenon of the lifeworld” to see the
4 Typification is a term created by Alfred Schutz (1967) to describe typical or recurrent elements from the stream of
experiences of individuals. Humans identify elements which are similar perhaps because they share the same color,
shape, texture, or quality of movement. Berger & Luckman (1966) refer to all of the English attributes of their
friend from England as a typification. 5Habitualized actions are those that are repeated on a regular basis but without any consciousness behind the action. 6 Rational rituals are the intended, rehearsed rituals done by a group to negotiate change together. Nonrational
rituals are the unintended rituals that are done daily but not often noticed within a group setting.
18
aesthetic significance of situations and relations within the community formation of City
Township (Van Manen, 1990, p. 2).
The foundation of this approach is “textual reflection on the lived experiences and
practical actions of everyday life with the intent to increase one’s thoughtfulness and practical
resources of tact” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 4). Phenomenology describes how the Arts Planning
Council orients to the lived aesthetic experiences and the resulting community formation.
Hermeneutics describes how the Arts Planning Council and I interpret the “texts” of life.
“Semiotics is used to develop a practical linguistic approach to the method of phenomenology
and hermeneutics” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 4) so that research and writing in this study are
inseparable activities.
Limitations
Phenomenological research is not analytic science. It does not describe “actual states of
affairs” or make “scientific generalizations” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 22). Phenomenology is
empirical in that it deals with experience but not “inductively empirically derived” (Van Manen,
1990, p. 22). Van Manen (1990) stated it goes beyond an “interest in ‘mere’ particularities” (p.
22). Case studies and ethnographies focus on a particular situation, group, culture, or
institutional location to study what goes on there, how individuals of the group perceive events,
and how they might differ from other such groups or situations (Van Manen, 1990, p. 22). While
there may be a phenomenological quality to such studies since the participants are asked about
their experiences, the aim of the case study or ethnography is to accurately describe “an existing
state of affairs or a certain present or past culture which could drastically change from place to
place or over time” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 22).
A pilot case study of City Township’s Arts Planning Council could fill a gap in the
literature for townships who wish to establish their own Arts Councils and who may consider the
arts as a public good. Missing from the literature are descriptions and details of how an Arts
Council plans events and programming utilizing the aesthetic experience to connect citizens. As
a pilot case study, it was particular to City Township and carried the limitation that it may not be
like other cases (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2003). As a phenomenological study, the meanings the Arts
Planning Council make of the aesthetic experiences created through arts events and
19
programming that lead toward community formation can be understood by others as meaning
derived from the lived experiences of the Arts Planning Council.
City Township is a large and encompassing township, which covers many smaller
neighborhoods, seven school districts, and contains islands of township entities encased by other
townships. It is not a small, homogenous township that includes one school district or a few
neighborhoods only. It is not homogenous in the level of education or income that members
attain either. It is a suburb, but it is a first ring suburb that borders and, in some cases, even
contains the city proper. Most Arts Councils function within a city or a suburb but not within
both. As Stake (1995) claimed, this case cannot be generalized, but what is within the case can
be. On the other hand, as a phenomenological study, the analysis of the meanings of the actions
of the Arts Planning Council and their understanding of how the aesthetic experience moves
township members toward individual connections and communitas can be generalized. Petite
generalizations as such are helpful, but the grand generalization of one case to another will be
limited. Yin (2003) stated that case study generalizations can only be toward theoretical
propositions and not toward populations or universes. The groundwork of a case is the
particularization of it.
I have taken the pilot case study at City Township and have “learned it well” through
observations and interviews with the Arts Planning Council, township members, and township
trustees (Stake, 1995). As I emphasized, it is more important to understand the function of the
aesthetic experience of the arts events and programming at City Township in detail rather than
how this case generalizes to other townships. It is a misnomer to speak of the phenomenology of
City Township or the Arts Planning Council as a particular case. Phenomenology cannot prove
one event over another and does not make “law-like statements, or the establishment of
functional relationships” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 22). The tendency, however, to generalize with
phenomenology runs the risk of focusing on the larger picture rather than the uniqueness of the
Arts Planning Counci, which could be a limitation (Van Manen, 1990, p. 22).
Van Manen (1990) differentiated phenomenology as neither “mere particularity nor sheer
universality” (p. 23). Instead, it consists in mediating between what is unique and what is
essential to make that difference. Phenomenology does not problem solve by “asking
questions,” seeking solutions of “correct knowledge,” discovering “effective procedures and
winning strategies, calculative techniques, and methods” which derive results (Van Manen,
20
1990, p. 23). Instead, phenomenological questions are meaning questions that beg the
significance and meaning structures of certain phenomenon. “Meaning questions cannot be
solved and done away with” (Marcel, 1949, as cited by Van Manen, 1990, p. 23). They can be
better understood when realizing that thought and tact can be employed in certain situations but
one can never shut off understandings. Meaning questions remain the topic of conversations of
lived life and “appropriated” by those who desire such insight (Van Manen, 1990, pp. 23-24).
Conclusion
This hermeneutical phenomenological study of the aesthetic experience and its
contribution toward community formation could reflect a connection of township members
through the existential, aesthetic experiences the Arts Planning Council creates with arts events
and programming. Individuals might discover what they recognize together, and might attain
mutuality and active reciprocity within the community based programming (Dewey, 1927;
Green, 1995; Wenger, 2004). Hopefully, as many people as possible engage in open-ended
dialogues about arts, events, and programs. The arts might provide the opportunity for communal
decisions resulting in a relational community in public spaces. Phenomenology differs in
methodology from content analysis or case study whose methodologies specify beforehand what
they want to know from the text. Phenomenology is discovery oriented because there are no
predetermined objectives to compare or discover. Instead, it seeks to find out what certain
phenomena mean after they have occurred and how the phenomena is experienced by others
through their reflections of that lived experience (Van Manen, 1990, 37). Therefore, this
research is a journey of finding meaning in aesthetic experiences and how community is created
from those aesthetic experiences. Most particularly, it might be a unique experience to document
the communitas created from the liminal experiences of arts events. E. Turner (2012) maintained
one must keep in mind “researchers of communitas can only understand communitas when they
are right inside of it” (p. 8). My objective is to be there.
21
Chapter 2: Literature Review
The goal of this study is to understand how the members of Arts Planning Committee make
meaning of the aesthetic experiences created through arts events and programming that lead toward
community creation. In this chapter, the conceptual literature of aesthetic experience, existential
connection, pragmatic community theory, communities of practice, and communitas creates a
foundation for understanding the empirical literature of community formation through the arts.
The conceptual and empirical literature contributes to the understanding of the aesthetic
experiences and their contribution toward community formation in City Township. The literature
reviewed in this chapter situates this study as an empirical example of the phenomenon of the
existential aesthetic experience and its ability to connect humans to humans (Buber, 1958, 1975;
Greene, 1995; E. Turner, 2012; V. Turner, 1972).
The Definition of Aesthetic
“Aesthetic” as a noun is used to question and ponder those qualities in a work of art that
make it worthy of defining what art is. Arguments center on relationships of art and beauty, art
and knowledge, and art and nature. The established theories of art production called aesthetic
stances—mimesis, expressionism, and formalism—also attempt to define the quality of art
objects within those frameworks (Day & Hurwitz, 2001; Weitz, 1956). The primary task of
aesthetics, according to Weitz (1965), is to elucidate the concept of art, specifically, the
conditions under which individuals employ the concept of art correctly (Weitz, 1956, p. 5). It is,
therefore, also important to look at aesthetic as an adjective.
As an adjective, “aesthetic” refers to the quality of something such as an aesthetic
response or as aesthetic inquiry, which centers on the type of questioning that delves below the
surface of long-held assumptions. The focus of aesthetic inquiry is a “process of probing for
answers to everyday questions” that relate to “urgent and controversial issues” (Day & Hurwitz,
2001, p. 273). In this way, aesthetics is a term used to single out “a particular field in philosophy
concerned with perception, sensation, and imagination and how those qualities relate to knowing,
understanding, and feeling about the world” (Greene, 2001, p. 5).
22
A binary is created when discussing the focus of aesthetics in education. The divide falls
between those who want to emphasize that aesthetics, especially in education, has to do with the
encounters viewers have with artistic objects as the catalyst of a personal experience and analysis
(existential) and those who believe that the meaning one receives from an experience contributes
to the creation of the artistic object (phenomenological). Eisner (1998) referred to this binary as
two kinds of aesthetic knowledge. One is the “knowledge of the world toward which the
qualities of an artistic form point” (Eisner, 1998, p. 37). When viewing artwork, aesthetics
focuses on the ways of apprehending or perceiving an artistic object. The existential hope is that
people will find themselves “reading the artistic objects” in such a way that “some windows
open in their own experience and in their own imaginations” (Greene in Uhrmacher & Matthews,
2005, p. 222). It is an “existential belief that individuals are not yet complete;” therefore this
view allows for a freedom to become possible when “options for life and being” (Bedford, 1972,
p. 8) are opened through awareness of other’s experiences objectified into works of art.
The second type of aesthetic knowledge is knowledge of the qualities of form in objects
derived from a phenomenological event. We become increasingly able to “know qualities called
aesthetic by developing abilities to experience the subtleties of form, such as knowing aspects of
music, literature, art, and science” (Eisner, 1998, p. 37). Dance educator Susan Stinson (2002)
reminds us to look beyond superficial similarities of aesthetic forms to discern the art object as a
whole, as compared to the components. For example, we can discern that which “distinguishes
dance from movement” (Stinson, 2002, p. 154). Stinson (2002) identified “experience and
engagement” (p. 154), combined with a sense of form, as central to meaning of the artistic
object. The aesthetic object, whether found in nature and the environment or created by the
artist, “reveals the force of feeling through itself” (Broudy, 1977, p. 36).
Both types of aesthetic experience, whether from the art object or from the experience
contributing to the craft of the object, catalyze the individual to “reflect on a part of his or her life
not initially seen” (Greene in Uhrmacher & Matthews, 2005, p. 220). These aesthetic
experiences give meaning to everyday occurrences.
Making Meaning of an Experience
Etienne Wenger (2004) suggested that a focus on meaningfulness helps us better
experience our world and our engagement with it as meaningful. We must be alive in a world in
23
which we can act and interact, in essence participate. For example, Wenger (2004) explained
that the creation of a painting is a mechanical production utilizing canvas, wood, saws, brushes,
pigments, oils, and techniques. “But for the painter and for the viewer, the painting is an
experience of meaning” (Wenger, 2004, pp. 51-52) exchanged between them through the object
of the painting.
Experience.
Dewey (1934/2005) explained that “every experience begins with an impulsion” which is
“a movement outward and forward” (Dewey, 1934/2005, p. 60) of the whole person. Proceeding
from need, the impulsion begins the experience. Eisner (1998) claimed that experience is the
product of both the “features of the world” and the “biography of the individual” (p. 34). The
experience evokes a qualitative transformation of energy into thoughtful action through the
“assimilation of meanings” of past experiences (Dewey, 1934/2005, p. 62). An individual’s past
influences the experience when it interacts with the individual’s present (Eisner, 1998, p. 34).
The function of the “old and new” is a “re-creation in which the present impulsion gets form and
solidity while the old, ‘stored,’ material is literally revived, given new life” (Dewey, 1934/2005,
p. 63) through a new situation. Dewey (1934/2005) called this conversion of activity an “act of
expression” (p. 63).
To express means to keep the emotion and move it forward toward a completion (Dewey,
1934/2005, pp, 64-69). The function of art is not, according to Langer (1953), for the
“stimulation of feeling” but for the “expression of feeling through symbolic expression of forms
of sentience as the artist understands them” (p. 80). The expression becomes a “clarification of
turbid emotion” (Langer, 1953, p. 81), rather than a simple discharge of emotion. In this way,
the emotion is distinctly aesthetic because it is “induced by expressive material” and “consists of
the transformative” (Langer, 1953, pp. 80-82).
Symbols.
Any device used by an individual to make an abstraction of an idea or feeling from an
experience, such as an image, representation, or an impression, is considered a symbol (Langer,
1953). Symbols illustrate the artist’s imagination of feelings rather than the artist’s own
emotional state and express what the artist knows about the inner life (Langer, 1953, p. 22).
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Langer (1953) explained the relation between symbol and what it means can be found in music.
Tonal structures create music and “bear a close similarity to forms of human feeling such as
forms of growth, attenuation, flowing, conflict or resolution, speed, arrest, and calm or
excitement” (Langer, 1953, pp. 22-28). Learning how to represent what one has experienced is
“a primary means of expanding the consciousness of others” (Eisner, 2005, p. 297).
The “common function of the aesthetic is to modulate form so it can, in turn, modulate
our experience” (Eisner, 1998, p. 34). In a phenomenological way, the form of the work or
symbol itself informs us and shapes our internal life. Consequently, “individuals need to know
how to read aesthetic forms” (Eisner, 1998, p. 34). Information about the form or symbol is
gathered through the senses and secured, making sense of what is collected such as the prose, the
melody, or the texture of a sculpture. To do this is an “act of discrimination” and a selective
process requiring a “fully engaged mind” yielding “insight and emotion” (Intrator, 2005, p. 178).
Intrator (2005) believed individuals can become “practiced in reading a broad array of forms” (p.
180): poetry, film, novel, expository text, art, sculpture, and the natural world. Cognitive
capacity expands as humans intelligently “‘read’ multiple forms of ‘text’ humans use to express
what they know” (Intrator, 2005, p. 180) or their understanding about an experience. The
experience, therefore, is a product of continuous interaction of the individual with the world and
is the basis of the phenomenological definition of aesthetic as an adjective. “In the end, works of
art are the only media of complete and unhindered communication between [human] and
[human] …” (Dewey, 1934/2005, p. 109).
Imagination within the Aesthetic Response
At the root of every experience lies the interaction of an individual and his or her
environment (Dewey, 1934/2005). The experience becomes a conscious perception when its
meaning is concluded from former experiences. Past experiences, however, can only find their
way into the present through imagination, which is a “conscious adjustment of old and new
meanings” (Dewey, 1934/2005, p. 283). Intrator (2005) argued: “To be imaginative means to
fashion thoughts and feeling in our minds” (p. 179). He explained that we utilize imagination by
taking reality and inventing concepts of what could be. Literal understanding becomes the
launching pad for considering what should be or what will be in an individual’s life. Imagination
in the curriculum is an educator’s tool to stimulate students to see new perspectives, open new
25
avenues of reality, and ponder alternative ways of being (Greene, 1995, p. 18). Aesthetic
education empowers viewers by allowing them to do what Greene (1995) called “releasing
imagination” or opening doors to different realities (as cited in Intrator, 2005, p. 179).
Perceptive Imagination.
Harry Broudy (1977) explained that “perception is the receiving and the interpreting of
information as a guide to action” (p. 7). The “products of perceptive imagination” are images
that convey our feelings, make them perceivable to the senses, and create an objective form for
our experiences (Broudy, 1977, pp. 7-8). Intrator (2005) enhanced this idea when he stated that
events or phenomenon can move individuals in such a way that traditional approaches to
representation are not sufficient to convey the felt experience (p. 181). In these cases, the
imaginative quality that dominates the aesthetic experience lends deeper and wider meanings and
values that can be even more moving than the experience itself. Dewey (1934/2005) concluded
that with the use of imagination, the expression, more than the object itself, expands the
immediate experience. In turn, the viewer of the art object attempts to interpret the experience
with his or her own imaginative perception further compounding the effect of the perceived
experience (Dewey, 1934/2005).
Imaginative release.
Imagination is the heart of the aesthetic process and can disclose provinces of
“possibilities that are personal, social, and aesthetic” and are entered in through “the lenses of
various ways of knowing, seeing, and feeling” (Greene, 2001, p. 65). Greene (1988) espoused:
“Experience becomes fully conscious only when meanings from earlier experiences enter in
through the exercises of the imaginative capacity” (p. 125). Those who can notice and become
part of a work of art through new visions and experiential possibilities are more likely to connect
their own experiences than those who cannot become absorbed in a work of art (Greene, 1978, p.
186).
Greene (1978) explained individuals can release others for this kind of aesthetic “seeing”
by explaining how the arts involve imagination to create products such as paintings, poetry,
sculpture, theater, and film (p. 186). It is the imagination that allows humans to rise beyond the
everyday routine, and it is the artistic-aesthetic that allows them to knit together a new
26
reality. These realities, Greene (1978) explained, are uniquely brought together when humans
explore media in order to both learn to work with it and to try to express something seen, felt, or
heard. Imagination is the essential element that gives the capacity to posit alternative realities
creating “as-if” perspectives. Without the release of imagination, human beings would become
trapped in literalism and would not be able to imagine what could be (Greene, 2001, p. 65).
Emancipatory Value within the Aesthetic Response
Existentialism in the Aesthetic.
Viktor Lowenfeld (1982) stated in his lecture to future art educators that “the most
important thing which art education should do for humans is to make them sensitive to
themselves—to their own problems and to their own environment. Aesthetic experiences
emphasize the values that are important in life” (p. 333). In this way, the aesthetic experience
moves away from a phenomenological act to an existential one. The literature on existential
aesthetic experiences specifically addresses the curriculum in education. In particular, the
educator’s role in creating aesthetic experiences for learners is important, whether they are
experiences that lead to the creation of an aesthetic object or an encounter with an aesthetic
object.
According to Mitchell Bedford (1972), the first principle of existentialism is that
“humans are nothing but what they make of themselves” (p. 219). The goal of existentialism is
to create human awareness of what the individual could become. It grants each human the full
responsibility for his or her existence (Bedford, 1972, p. 8). Following this goal, Martin Buber
(1958), an existential philosopher, believed humans have a “twofold attitude” toward
connections and relations that primary words can define (p. 3). One is called an “I-It attitude,”
and the other is an “I-Thou attitude” (Buber, 1958, p. 4). The “It” refers to an object or being that
can be manipulated by a person. The “Thou,” however, is the highest object that one can find.
The Thou has no bounds and establishes a world of relation (Buber, 1958, pp. 3-6).
Using his theory of a twofold attitude, Buber (1958) explained the aesthetic experience of
art creation and art appreciation as an existential phenomenon:
This is the eternal source of art: a [human] is faced by a form which desires to be
made through [him or her] into [his or her] work. This form is no offspring of
[her or his] soul, but is an appearance which steps up to it and demands of it the
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effective power. The [human] is concerned with an act of [her or his] being…
[He or she] can neither experience nor describe the form which meets [him or
her], but only body it forth. (pp. 9-10)
Yet, the human can behold the splendor of the confronting form which remains clearer
to the human than anything else in the world, at that moment. To produce the art from such an
encounter is to draw the experience and feelings forth and simultaneously invent it and discover
it. “The work produced is a thing among things, able to be experienced and described as the sum
of qualities. But from time to time it can face the receptive beholder in its whole embodied
form” (Buber, 1958, p. 10).
Sensitivity to the self and one’s own needs is an important part of an existential aesthetic
education. Lowenfeld (1982) explained that most people bury this sensitivity by “surrounding
themselves with meaningless other things” in order to escape the subjective present (p. 335).
Individuals do not want to be stifled by problems so they invent things to distract themselves
such as parties, habits, or work. Bedford (1972) stated it is an existential belief that humans
avoid responsibility for their actions through marginal living that does not fulfill their full
potential. Existentialism, however, is a philosophy designed to encourage humans to consider
and to “actualize their full potential” (Bedford, 1972, p. 8). Likewise, Lowenfeld (1982) believed
that individuals should have time to think about themselves and their problems. With time,
humans could learn to confront their “selves” and to consider and to resolve the injustices that
a partnership model was created with the community arts group called Youth for Change (YFC)
and the Lewis Middle School (LMS) in Minersville, Colorado. Eight speakers from YFC came
to LMS once a week for 10 weeks and led sessions for the students to develop skills such as
leadership, consensus building, community organizing, oral and written communication, and art
skills (Krensky, 2001). Norman’s case study (2009) involved a partnership model with art
teachers and artists. Teachers had a choice to work with an in-house, certified art teacher or to
collaborate with an artist in residence program for a minimum of ten weeks. In Ekhoff’s (2011)
study, transformative partnerships were created through collaboration between school art
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educators, local artists, and the university art museum to give elementary and secondary students
the opportunity to view original works of art created by the collaborating local artists.
A third format of arts collaboration can occur between multiple community institutions.
The term for this is a community partnership where an organization or individuals share needed
resources, ideas, connections, and expertise (Serig & Hinojosa, 2010). From the literature
reviewed, this is a partnership typically established by an arts institution with other social
community groups such as Second Chance in Salinas, California, a group intervention program
targeting young adults involved in gangs (Bains & Mesa-Bains, 2002). Two of the studies
(Bains & Mesa-Bains, 2002; Serig & Hinojosa, 2010) focused on the university institution and
its collaboration with local community groups. In her part of the review, Hinojosa (Serig &
Hinojosa, 2010) explained that the contemporary practices in higher education institutions are
slowly adapting a greater priority for community arts activities, which can be traced to
inspiration from Paulo Freire’s (1990) writing combined with contemporary culture work. These
activities are created in direct response to society in its present state (Goldbard as cited in Serig
& Hinojosa, 2010, p. 251). The result is contemporary artwork focusing more on the practice of
art making through collaboration. Such artwork responds to a universal theme rather than a
reaction to a specific issue. Methods and practices in community arts are realized through
determined planning with collaborative partners (Serig & Hinojosa, 2010).
It must be noted that the main goal of these foundational programs has been to strengthen
the community building from within the communities themselves. Community created from an
outside entity is not a sustainable relationship (Chappell, 2006). Chappell (2006) analyzed the
federal policy entitled the 21st Century Learning Centers Grant (21st CCLC) that targeted high-
poverty, low-performing schools. Chappell (2006) concluded that the policy constructed
children of these communities as deficient and determined that their free time would be better
controlled by adult narratives. The people of the community became “projects” of the state and
the state’s visions. The community could not sustain the reforms without the continuous flow of
state monies. Program creation that is needs-based creates a deficit model that the community
cannot provide for its own people and contributes to a community’s feelings of powerlessness
(Hutzel, 2007, p. 306). In the literature reviewed in this section, the partnerships and
collaborations were created from curricula that were conjoint between educator, learners, and
community.
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Discussion
Historically, the arts have been considered a solitary act and the epitome of
individualism. Art creation is often seen as neutral and content-driven due to meditation and
contemplation. This research indicates there is a movement toward roles that aesthetic
experiences play in community building, cultural affirmation, the articulation of a need for
change, and ultimately, a sense of communitas among participants. Arts education is not just a
discourse of schools alone. The literature reviewed reveals that community is the primary
association in which the integration of arts activities and democratic goals should be organized,
and the results are a sense of caring communities in classrooms and neighborhoods that reflect
the 20th and 21st century definitions of community defined through pragmatism, existentialism,
and communitas laid out in this review (Campana, 2011; Darts, 2006; Dewhurst, 2011; Green,
2010; Longo, 2007).
Recommendations for future research
This review of literature has focused on the arts’ ability to connect populations where
diverse groups can “share common experiences” and understand each other better as individuals
with one another as “a multitude moving toward one goal” (Buber, 1975, p. 30). The many
studies reviewed indicated that connections, awareness, empathy, and various skills through
aesthetic experiences can serve to create a regard for and an understanding of each other in group
situations (Buber, 1958; Greene, 2001; Dewey, 1927; Knight-Abowitz, 2000). Many of the
studies were qualitative case studies that reviewed the effect of the teaching or making of
aesthetic objects. Several studies concerned the role of the classroom in community creation or
the role of the classroom in larger, regional community creation. Some studies concentrated on
partnerships, while others focused on the efficacy of an aesthetic program toward community
creation with a population. Others analyzed the function and value given to community arts
centers that had survived longer than 10 years.
Only one study serves as an example of how a regional, community Arts Planning
Council begins to establish arts programming for its community. Paul Manley (2009) writes
about how Portland, Oregon’s Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) was formed in 1995 as
a nonprofit sector of the city-county bureau that established Portland’s public art program in
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1980. The group has a broad mission to “integrate arts and culture in all aspects of community
life” (Manley, 2009). RACC has stewarded the creation and maintenance of a public art
ecosystem in collaboration with partners in three counties. In 2008, RACC created a program
series called in situ PORTLAND, which placed challenging work in public spaces to serve as the
catalyst for dialogue about art and/or community issues.
Despite the description of the rich, democratic role that the arts play in the Portland
community life, there is little detail as to how this arts program created a connected community,
one that illustrates a pragmatic definition of community. There are no studies that analyze how
aesthetic experiences can create a connected community in a socioeconomically and
geographically fragmented public. The question is raised, “How do members of an Arts
Planning Council make meaning of aesthetic experiences through arts events and programming
toward community creation?” The understandings that members of some regional arts councils
may have of how aesthetic experiences contribute to community formation could aid other
regional Arts Councils. Such understandings would contribute to each council’s knowledge of
how best to structure, value, and assess their community based art education programs as they
grow and expand around the cultural place making of aesthetic experiences.
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Chapter 3: Methodology
The process of doing this research is approached by me, as the researcher, with certain
philosophical assumptions and beliefs (Cresswell, 2013). These assumptions engage various
theoretical and interpretive frameworks that allow me to enact those beliefs. Consistent with
Quantz (2014a), methodology should “reference the discursive practices” that explain and gird
the researcher’s choice of beliefs, theories, and research methods that are used (p. 1). Van
Manen (1990) explained that “methodology refers to philosophic frameworks” or the
“fundamental assumptions and characteristics of a human science perspective” (p. 27). Unlike
the objective processes of conducting research in the natural sciences, the process of conducting
research in the social sciences involves “the study of humans as self-conscious objects capable of
reflecting on themselves, their situations, and their relationships” (Benton & Craib, 2011;
Quantz, 2014b, p. 1).
Interpretive discourses, such as those used in this research, are used to make claims about
how people make meaning of the world together. Max Weber (as cited by Quantz, 2014b)
conceived of social science as a “world concerned with meaning and the ways shared cultural
meanings affect the actions of individuals” (p. 2). Interpretive research becomes a “shared goal
of understanding of the complex world of lived experience from the point of view of those who
live” in that reality (Schwandt, 1994, p. 118). “Particular actors in particular places at particular
times fashion meaning out of events and phenomena through prolonged, complex processes of
social interaction involving history, language, and action” (Schwandt, 1994, p. 118). Merleau
Ponty (as cited in Van Manen, 1990) claimed that phenomenology is “human science research
that must seize this life and give reflective expression to it” (p. 38). The main thrust of this shift
in epistemologies is the realization that lived experience is “soaked through with language” (Van
Manen, 1990, p. 38). We can recall and reflect on experiences thanks to language.
In order to understand this world of meaning in City Township, I, as the researcher, must
interpret it. Van Manen (1990) purported: “From a phenomenological point of view, to do
research is to always question the way we experience the world” (p. 5); to want to know the
world is to profoundly be in the world in a certain way. Therefore, through the interpretive
discourse, in this phenomenological study, I am tasked with using research to understand how
56
others make meaning of the world and assume that others will “construct their worlds
accordingly” (Quantz, 2014b, p. 3).
The hermeneutical phenomenological study of the meaning of the aesthetic experiences
and their contribution to community creation in City Township is situated as an interpretivist,
qualitative inquiry. To better explain the process that will be pursued in this study, I will narrate
these philosophical assumptions, the ontological and epistemological, and the theories and
methods through which this research practice will be enacted.
Ontology: The Object of Study
The ontological assumptions in a study relate to the nature of the reality of the issue, its
form, and its characteristics (Cresswell, 2013). As stated by Ted Benton and Ian Craib (2011)
social science has a specific ontology which involves meaningful social action. Within the
interpretive discourse, the ontological beliefs are that there are multiple realities constructed
through lived experiences and interactions with others (Schwandt, 1994). Lived experience has a
temporal structure that can never be grasped in its immediate manifestation, but only reflectively
as past presence. Lived experience implicates the totality of life, relating the particular to the
universal. Merleau Ponty (as quoted in Van Manen, 1990) gave ontological expression to the
notion of lived experience by defining it as “immediate awareness, which he called
‘sensibilities’” (p. 36).
Phenomenology in the social sciences is considered the study of appearances and the
description of those objects of experience which were considered “essences” intuited by the
mind, also known as eidetic analysis (Martin, 2000). “The aim of phenomenology is to
transform lived experience into a textual expression of its essence in such a way that the effect of
the text is at once a reflexive re-living of something meaningful” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 36). Van
Manen (1990) defined “essences” as linguistic constructions that describe phenomena. A good
description illustrates the linguistic construction of something. It is so construed that the
structure of the lived experience is revealed in an understandable way not known to us before
such a description (Van Manen, 1990, p. 39). Van Manen (1990) compared it to an artistic
endeavor in which the linguistic construction is a “creative attempt to capture a certain
phenomenon of life in a linguistic description that is holistic and analytical, evocative and
57
precise, unique and universal, powerful and sensitive” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 39). He asserted it
is “a certain way of being in the world” that is questioned (Van Manen, 1990, p. 39).
I, as the interpretive researcher, am focused on understanding those multiple realities to
the point of a deeper understanding that social scientists refer to as verstehen. Verstehen is a
German term for understanding that encompasses an emotional identification with actors to
comprehend an actor’s thinking and the logical, symbolic systems of the actor’s culture (Benton
& Craib, 2011). Alfred Schutz (1967) acknowledged verstehen as the result of learning
processes derived from experiences of “commonplace learning.” Verstehen, therefore, is a
private matter of the observer which cannot be controlled by the experience of other observers
(Martin, 2000). For me, as the social science researcher, the question lies in the possibility of
knowing the actor’s intersubjective experiences. Thought objects are created by the
commonsense thinking of humans in their daily lives. These are known as first and second
degree constructs. The researcher can observe those constructs to understand the meaning the
actor has placed on them according to who the actor is, his or her social status, and his or her
expression of experiences. The result is that I, as the researcher, learn in a fragmented way “the
subjective meaning of others” (Martin, 2000).
Humans, according to Berger and Luckmann (1966), externalize their “selves” in activity.
The actions of the Arts Planning Council fall into “typified” roles as responses to these lived-
through arts experiences become habitualized. Typification in social science phenomenology
describes how language can generalize experience by differentiating reality through degrees of
familiarity. Berger and Luckmann (1966) referred to “typical” knowledge as “recipe
knowledge” that is dominated by pragmatic motives and is limited to routine performances of
actors’ roles in everyday life (p. 41). Distance of knowledge occurs when the acting selves are
understood as “types” not as individuals that are interchangeable.
Experiences become “kernels of current phases of lived experiences” that are often
represented in thematic components (Schutz & Luckmann, 1989, p. 2). They stand out against
the backdrop of individuals’ streams of consciousness due to the attention and meaning imbued
on the experience through a combination of an individual’s present situation and his or her own
subjective reality. When these experiences relate to some other experience for an individual,
especially within a project or plan, they are no longer memories, but become “acts” that can be
read as typifications (Schutz & Luckmann, 1989). The hope of the City Township trustees and
58
the Arts Planning Council is that the arts experiences will relate township members to the project
of community so the members begin to act toward meaning-making of community within that
project. Thus, the world of the Arts Planning Council is created as a reality mastered by action,
by the members acting in it, and by the members changing it with their actions (Schutz &
Luckmann, 1989). Through the act of conversation, individuals purposefully enter into shared
agreements and understandings that constitute their cultural life (Greene, 1978). Together, the
typified and habitualized actions of this Arts Planning Council are passed on to others as an
“institution” of actions and responses toward their meaning of community derived from aesthetic
experiences (Berger & Luckmann, 1966).
To orient oneself to a certain phenomenon implies a particular interest, station, or vantage
point in life (Van Manen, 1990). In this hermeneutical phenomenology utilizing the interpretive
discourse, the ontological goal is to report the meanings of the typified actions of the Arts
Planning Council. Their actions result from each council member’s different perspectives and
understandings of community created from aesthetic experiences. Those typified actions may be
directed through arts events and arts programming in City Township. Ultimately, these actions
might also be directed toward the other community members of City Township. The intent is to
achieve the practical purposes of projecting the council members’ understanding of community
to create connection in the fragmented township. Evidence of these various themes will manifest
in the words and actions of different actors and the institutionalization and reality maintenance of
their actions in the study (Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Creswell, 2013; Martin, 2000).
It will be through an interpretive research approach that the themes of the township
actors’ typifications toward meanings of community will be understood. To orient myself to this
phenomenon implies my particular interest and orientation toward it. My orientation as an artist,
art educator, teacher, and parent allows for my interest in the aesthetic experience of children and
adults and in the question of how community is formed through aesthetic experiences. I orient
myself existentially to humans and the aesthetic experience in a phenomenological
hermeneutical mode. This orientation allows me to understand the essential aspects of the
meaning structures of the experience. By reflecting on the experience, it is brought back and
forth, so that I can recognize the description as a possible experience and as a possible
interpretation of that experience (Van Manen, 1990).
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Epistemology
The epistemological belief of the interpretive discourse is that reality is interpreted by the
researcher and the researched, and is shaped by individual experiences. Together, the researcher
and the researched hold a shared goal of understanding the complex world of lived experience
from the point of view of those who live it. “Particular actors in specific places and exact points
in time fashion the meaning out of events through prolonged, complex processes of social
interaction involving history, language, and action” (Schwandt, 1994, p. 118).
The phenomenology of social science speaks to the Arts Planning Council’s
understanding of the meaning of community among themselves and the way they impose
meaning in the world of City Township (Benton & Craib, 2011; Martin, 2000). From a
phenomenological point of view, to do research is to always question the way we experience the
world. The act of researching, questioning, theorizing, “is the intentional act of attaching
ourselves to the world to become more fully part of it or to become the world” (Van Manen,
1990, p. 5, emphasis in the original). Van Manen (1990) called this the principle of
“intentionality” in phenomenology (p. 5). Only after I, as the researcher, have a firm grasp of the
concept of meaning as a phenomenon will I be able to analyze the meaning-structure of the
social world allowing me to use the interpretivist discourse on a deeper level (Schutz, 1967).
Schutz’s (1967) methodology calls attention to the observed facts and events within the social
reality of City Township and allows me to analyze the context of meaning across the timeframe
of executing acts within the township.
The acts are the presentations of and responses to arts experiences. As the qualitative
researcher, I will illustrate how the members of the Arts Planning Council construct a complex
world of experience of community from their subjective understandings induced by their aim and
practice involved in creating arts experiences for City Township (Schutz, 1967). To do this, I
will ask the questions to find the identity of the phenomenon of aesthetic experiences and their
contribution toward community formation. The township trustees, the Arts Planning Council,
and I must recall the experiences in such a way that the essential aspects and the meaning
structures are recognized as possible experiences and possible interpretations of those
experiences. Such is my task as the phenomenological researcher and as the writer: “to construct
a possible interpretation of the nature of a certain human experience” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 41).
60
To do this phenomenological research, according to Van Manen (1990), is “to question
something phenomenologically” and to be “addressed by the question” of what something is
“really” like (p. 42). I asked, “What is the meaning of being part of creating an arts event or
program and how does that contribute to creating community?” The question was posed in an
existential way to the people who experience it, the members of the Arts Planning Council and
the township trustees. They gave me reason to reflect on the nature of the arts events and
programs. How do they drive community creation? I also questioned what it means to be a board
member who offers arts events and programs. “To truly question something is to interrogate
something from the heart of our existence, from the center of our being” (Van Manen, 1990, p.
43). As the researcher, my goal in this project is to “pull the reader into the question in such a
way the reader cannot help but wonder about the nature” of the arts events and programs and
their contribution to community creation (Van Manen, 1990, p. 43).
In phenomenological research, we must explicate assumptions and pre-understandings.
The problem stated by Van Manen (1990) “is not that we know too little, but that we know too
much” (p. 46) about a phenomenon. Our assumptions and the pre-existing body of scientific
knowledge “predispose us to interpret the nature of the phenomenon before we ever come to
grips with the significance of the phenomenological question” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 46). The
dilemma becomes “how to suspend or bracket those beliefs” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 46). Van
Manen (1990) and Moustakas (1994) suggested we try to come to terms with our assumptions
and to hold them deliberately at bay. Van Manen (1990) proposed we even turn this knowledge
against itself. The project of phenomenology is not to translate or reduce the phenomenon into
clearly defined concepts so as to dispel the mystery. Rather, “the object is to bring the mystery
more fully into our presence” (Marcel, as cited in Van Manen, 1990, p. 50).
Common, habitualized actions often become mundane and self-perpetuating. Aesthetic
responses, however, create situations where the mode of experience is brought into being by
encounters with works of art that enhance the perception, sensation, and imagination (Greene,
2001). Imagination is the heart of the aesthetic process and can disclose “provinces” of
possibilities that are personal, social, and aesthetic (Greene, 2001). To enter these “provinces”
the individual must look through “the lenses of various ways of knowing, seeing, and feeling”
(Greene, 2001). Empathy in the aesthetic realm gives individuals the capacity to see through
another’s eyes to understand how the world looks and sounds and feels from another’s point of
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view (Greene, 2001). In City Township and in other public venues, events brought about by
encounters with art works engage as many people as possible in open ended dialogues (Greene,
2001). There are vast possibilities for interpretation of these art works, giving the experience a
sense of adventure and a sense of community in the response (Greene, 2001). An aspect of
understanding this adventure as a group is a gradual consciousness of selves as members of a
community (Greene, 2001). In this way, an institution of community could be created in City
Township through shared, aesthetic responses to the art objects, events, and programs presented
by and through the Arts Planning Council.
My goal through this study is to utilize the hermeneutical phenomenological approach
within social theory in order to understand the meanings the Arts Planning Council members
make in response to the phenomena of arts events and programs and to understand how they
derive a meaning of community from them.
Study Design
Hermeneutical Phenomenology
“The lifeworld is both the source and the object of phenomenological research” (Van
Manen, 1990, p. 53). Lived experience involves a “pre-reflective consciousness of life” and has
a temporal structure, according to Dilthey (as cited in Van Manen, 1990, p. 35). It can never be
grasped in its immediate manifestation but only reflectively as a past presence (Van Manen,
1990, p. 35). Cresswell (2013) defined “a phenomenological study as the project of the common
meaning for several individuals of their lived experience of a concept or a phenomenon” (p. 76).
Phenomenologists focus on describing what all participants have in common as they experience
the phenomenon. The purpose, according to Cresswell (2013), is “to reduce individual
experiences with a phenomenon to a description of the ‘universal essence’” (p. 76). The
researcher identifies a phenomenon, collects data or information from individuals who have
experienced the same phenomenon, and presents a composite description of the essence of the
experience for all the individuals (Cresswell, 2013). The foundation of phenomenology is
philosophy and draws heavily from the writing of the German mathematician, Edmund Husserl
(1859-1938) and others such as Schutz, Berger, Luckmann, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-
Ponty (Benton & Craib, 2011; Cresswell, 2013).
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The word methodology refers to the “pursuit of knowledge” and implies a certain mode
of inquiry that contains reality assumptions to guide the procedures and techniques used to
“gather” the knowledge (Van Manen, 1990, p. 28). Procedures are the various rules and routines
associated with the practice of research. They allow the researcher to proceed forward. The
technique refers to the variety of theoretical and practical procedures one can invent to work out
a certain research method (Van Manen, 1990, p. 27). Hermeneutical phenomenological research
instead uses methodological themes “that enable the researcher to invent appropriate research
methods, techniques, and procedures for a particular situation” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 30).
Phenomenology “posits an approach that dissuades a predetermined set of fixed procedures,
techniques, and concepts that would control and govern the research project” (Van Manen, 1990,
p. 29). Instead, the method of procedure rests on the scholarship of the researcher who must be a
“sensitive observer of the subtleties of everyday life” and an “avid reader of texts” (p. 29) found
within the subjects to be studied. There is not, according to Van Manen (1990), a “method”
understood as a set of investigative procedures that one can master. He presents, however, six
methodological themes that seen as a dynamic interplay among six research activities. They are:
1. Turning to phenomena that interest us.
2. Investigating experiences as we live them.
3. Reflecting on the essential themes that characterize the phenomenon.
4. Describing the phenomenon through the art of writing.
5. Maintaining a strong and oriented pedagogical relation to the phenomenon.
6. Balancing the research context by considering parts and whole.
In this section, I will explain the approaches I took to gathering lived-experience material
in different forms that follow Van Manen’s (1990) six methodological themes.
Turning to the phenomena of aesthetic experiences and their contribution to community
creation.
Phenomenological research is a “turning to a task,” a deep questioning or concern that is
a project of some real person who sets out to make sense of a “certain aspect of human existence
within the context of a particular individual, social, and historical life circumstance” (Van
Manen, 1990, p. 31). The study at City Township began as an intrinsic, exploratory pilot case
study in which I was involved for two years. It began because my acquaintance, Lisa, had a
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concern about the direction in which she needed to take her position as Projects, Events, &
Communications Coordinator at City Township where she had worked for the past year. The
Township Trustees and the Administration, along with her, had decided to use the arts and arts
programming to “connect” the geographically fragmented township. They had observed that the
events related to art and aesthetics brought more people together, seemed most successful, and
made everyone happy (Interview with Lisa, 6/2013; 4/6/2016). She did not have a background in
the arts but knew that I did. Thus, she asked me to help her with her task.
The relationship and the research interest began in June 2013 when I visited the Senior
and Community Art Center. Lisa explained to me what she was hoping to do with the arts and
the school districts. She felt their current after school programming was successful, but the
township wanted to increase the support of the arts in the schools. She had planned a few events
such as artwork displayed in the lobbies of some of the local stores and vendors but did not know
what more to do. She had also considered a mentor program for students in the schools who may
struggle with proficiency tests. She thought these students could benefit from being paired with
professional artists. Within the next month, Lisa was planning to meet with the superintendents
from three of the seven schools that the City Township encompassed. She wanted information to
share with them and possibly a plan to support the art in the schools.
I was able to come up with a plan for the City Township that would have three parts to it
(see appendix A). The first part was to create and support a local arts community. The second
part was to utilize the local artists in the community to support different classes and curriculum
in the schools. The third and final part was to support the local teachers in the schools with
programming and professional development to teach them how to integrate the arts into their
curricula. These workshops could involve local artists, and they could become even bigger by
using more state and nationally acclaimed artists. My other suggestions for Lisa were to use
Aesthetics in Action (pseudonym given), an arts based group in the city 40 minutes north of City
Township that regularly hosts teacher workshops in the arts and aesthetic-based curricula. By
contacting these groups, she could partner with them to bring in programming for the schools
and community.
I knew when I met with Lisa in the summer of 2013 that what she was trying to do at City
Township was not easy but was very important for the community, for the school districts, and
ultimately for the teachers. What she was doing was, in fact, monumental. It interested me that
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City Township chose the arts as a means to bring the community together. I still am very
interested in how the arts serve as a means toward community and collaboration. I do not see
science used in that way, but instead the arts are used, which is a very interesting phenomenon to
me.
The following fall, in 2014, I needed to begin my research with a pilot study. I was still
very interested in what Lisa was continuing to do in City Township. I wanted to extend what we
started in June of 2013 and see it through for a longer period. What Lisa was attempting to do
needed to be done in parts and would take several years. It was a relationship that I wanted to
keep and watch flourish through the arts. The situation at City Township was a real-life situation
and would involve participant observation, collaborative research, in-depth interviewing,
document collection, and analysis.
For two years (2014-2016), I observed and participated in the activities, meetings, arts
events, classes, and retreats that were planned by the Arts Planning Council and Board members
of City Township. Subjective meanings were developed through arts experience, which further
developed meanings that individuals held regarding community. Through my observations and
participation, I better understood what the process was and what the roadblocks and the
successes were for making the arts a public good. I understood and learned what the meanings
were of various actors involved in the conversations and policy making that was integral to a
community prioritizing the arts. These meanings, however, were varied and multiple and led my
research to look for complexity of views rather than narrow categories of writing (Creswell,
2013; Glesne, 2011; Stake, 1995; Yin, 2003).
The meaning making activities themselves were central because it was the meaning
making activities that shaped action or inaction. These meaning-making activities were in the
forms of events, performances, education, and series planning, as well as informal interactions
with the Arts Planning Council in City Township. My role was to understand the effect these
arts activities had on the Township members’ meaning of community (Lincoln, Lynham, &
Guba, 1994, p. 116). As I studied the effects, I realized this was a human experience or a
phenomenon that was more encompassing than just a case study. I needed to question the nature
of this lived experience. What is the meaning of the arts events and programs and how do they
contribute to community creation? I needed to ask the members of the Arts Planning Council
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who experienced this phenomenon: What does it mean to be a board member who offers arts
events and programs?
Investigating experiences as we live them.
To make a study of the lived experience of community creation through aesthetic
experiences, I needed to orient myself in a strong way to the question of the meaning of the
aesthetic experiences and community creation. When investigating experience as we live it, the
notion of data or datum becomes ambiguous. Van Manen (1990) defined datum as something
given or granted. Such a definition gives the sense our experience is “given” to us in everyday
life. Phenomenologists believe the meaning, in this case the meaning of arts events and
programs contributing toward community creation, is found within the experience. The goal of
the study design, then, is “to search everywhere in the lifeworld for lived-experience material
that, upon reflective examination, might yield something of its fundamental nature” (Van Manen,
1990, p. 53).
My analysis of the meanings of arts events and programs and their contribution toward
community creation begins with my own life experiences, which are immediately accessible to
me in a way that no one else’s experiences could be. But, my experiences might also mirror the
experiences of others and offer an awareness of the structure of the phenomenon and clues for
reorienting myself to the other stages of the experience (Van Manen, 1990, p. 57). The aim is to
describe my own experiences with the Arts Planning Council and their arts events and
programming as much as possible so that I can focus on a specific situation or event. Using my
perspective will give an evocative value of a truth experience. The goal is to give a direct
“description of my experience without offering causal explanations” or “interpretive
generalizations” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 54).
In phenomenological research, the emphasis is always on the meaning of the lived
experience. Just as my experience is important, the point of this research is to also “borrow”
other people’s knowledge and their reflections on their experiences to better understand the
context of the whole human encounter (Van Manen, 1990, p. 62). The deeper goal was asking,
how is this experience aesthetic? How does this create community? Is this what it means to
create community from an aesthetic experience? Is this what the aesthetic community
experience is like? I gathered the data of the experiences of the township trustees, the Arts
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Planning Council, the teaching artists, and various attendees at arts events and programs. The
experiences were recorded in my field journal and consisted of email conversations, casual and
formal interviews, event participation, comparative case analysis, document review, and surveys.
The oral or written accounts of experiences in the lifeworld used in this study are transformations
of the original experience. Even video and audio recordings are transformed at the moment they
are captured. Phenomenology helps us to access life’s living dimensions while realizing that
these meanings have already lost their authenticity (Van Manen, 1990, p. 54).
In order to understand the whole context of the phenomenon of arts events and programs
and their contribution toward community creation, it was best to learn about the actors that
created the actions of the various meanings of arts events and programs and their contribution
toward community creation.
Participants
The main focus of my study was on the Arts Planning Council and its board members, so
I conducted the main interviews and observations with these members. The township trustees
created the Arts Planning Council. Therefore, they became a main part of the study. Secondary
to the board and the trustees, however, was my interest in the artists who created and produced
the arts experiences and those township members who participated, taught, and experienced the
arts. Within the data observations of these experiences, I have included both formal and
informal interviews and conversations with the artists, volunteers, and attendees.
The Arts Planning Council
The Arts Planning Council, a non-profit, 501(c)(3) group, was formed as a solution to
keeping the arts and event programming in the township without drawing on more property tax
revenue for capital. The state budget allocation for townships was cut in 2013 by the state
governor in order to balance the state budget. Many small communities lost programming that
was present for enriching community life. As a non-profit entity, the Arts Planning Council in
City Township is able to still function under the umbrella of the township but raise its own funds
through its non-profit status. To remain under the auspices of the township, Lisa, Bob, and Sarah
(pseudonyms given) are all board members employed in other roles by the township. Two other
Arts Planning Council members are selected from a pool of township volunteers. Lisa and the
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board of trustees interviewed volunteers who chose to be considered as potential board members.
The board members selected, Frank and Elizabeth (pseudonyms given), operate as
representatives of different parts of the community.
Lisa is the Arts Planning Council’s chairperson. She was hired by the township
administrator to function as an events and communications director. When the Arts Planning
Council was created, she was the most connected person to the events within the township
administration. Thus, it made sense to have the Arts Planning Council fall under her jurisdiction.
Bob works for the Township administration by overseeing both the Banquet Hall and the
Senior and Community Arts Center that currently exist on the Township property. He maintains
both buildings, arranges all rental of the Banquet Hall and the Senior and Community Arts
Center, supervises workers and volunteers within both buildings, as well as supervises the senior
group and its activities. He is a Township administrator on the Arts Planning Council board and
functions as business partner to Lisa. The two of them work closely for any arts event or
township event that occurs.
Sarah is the treasurer for City Township. As an employee of the township, she offers her
accounting services for any entity within the Township. Therefore, she functions as the treasurer
for the Arts Planning Council. She does not help with the actual events or programs that occur,
nor does she attend many of the events. She is seen at all officer meetings and Arts Planning
Council Board meetings.
Frank is a volunteer board member who interviewed for a position on the Arts Planning
Council Board of trustees. At the time of this study, he was the communications director for the
local school district, a former theatre director for the school, as well as a former television
producer and a current local actor in the community. He brings his expertise of arts
programming, sound and stage direction, and general experience with arts events. He is the main
volunteer for the sound crew at all events. He also participates as an actor with the semi-
professional acting groups that entertain the public during dinner theaters. Frank is seen at most
Board meetings but not the officers’ meetings due to the time constraints placed on him with his
job.
Elizabeth is also a volunteer board member who interviewed for a position on the Arts
Planning Council Board of Trustees. She is a realtor in City Township, and her husband is a
local builder. She brings the perspective of the local township citizen to the board meetings.
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Her enthusiasm carries her through all events and programs. As a volunteer actress in the
community, she is very happy to be part of the arts experiences happening in the township and
feels very strongly about the meaning of community and connection that these experiences will
place on the attendees. She is present at all events that take place through the Arts Planning
Council and volunteers to help with little things such as signing children in and out for classes
during the day.
Figure 10: The Arts Planning Council Board, 2012-2016
Local Teaching Artists
Lisa has tried to recruit and typically use artists and educators from City Township. Her
initial educator, Erin, was a formal art educator whose contract was not renewed with the local
school district because of budget cuts. Since Erin’s initial hire, Lisa has had other artists
approach her about teaching. Lisa has developed an application and, with me, questions to use to
screen applicants for hire. Following is a list of her current educators for her CBAE program.
Erin (taught 2012-2014) is a former art educator in the local school district. She has
created the curriculum and taught the past summer art camps, art and wine workshops, mother-
daughter workshops, and various craft workshops. Erin has a master’s degree in art education
from a mid-level university located 40 minutes north of City Township. She has been the
Lisa
Director of Communications & Events
Chairperson of the Arts Planning Council
Bob
Director of the Senior & Community Arts Center and
the Banquet Hall
Vice Chair & Secretary of the Arts Planning Council
Elizabeth
Community Board Member
At-Large
Sarah
Finance Director for City Township
Treasurer of the Arts Planning Council
Frank
Community Board Member
At-Large
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backbone of the CBAE until 2014 when she had to stop teaching due to the birth of her second
child and her desire to take more classes to retain and renew her teaching license.
William (taught from 2014-2016) is a self-taught watercolor artist who has been involved
in the local art show. He had been teaching and taking watercolor classes in other CBAE
programs in the larger city area for the past 18 years. He won a township contest to have his art
printed on street banners two years ago. He approached Lisa about teaching a watercolor class
for the township. William has a following of 5-8 older women who consistently take his classes
on Wednesday afternoons. William has been teaching the watercolor class at City Township for
two years.
Tanya (began in 2016), a local artist and art educator who had worked at a local glass
blowing studio, is the director for the art program at a local community college, and works full
time at a local nature center. She has a degree in art education, a master’s degree in art
education, a Master’s of Fine Arts degree, and is currently pursuing her doctoral degree in
CBAE. Lisa has asked her to teach a drawing class for the new CBAE program, as well as the
art and wine workshops. Tanya has taught one session of drawing in the CBAE program and has
conducted a successful stained glass workshop. She is scheduled to teach the first Art and Wine
class that Lisa is starting again.
Ethan (began in 2016) is a recent graduate of a well-acclaimed art and design school
within the central region of the state. As an accomplished illustrator of “monsters” and a self-
published comic book artist, Ethan hopes to touch the lives of junior high and senior high
students who want to create fantastical creatures, too, but may not be receiving that kind of
support at the public schools. Lisa agreed to allow him to teach a drawing class beginning with
the first rotation of classes. Having never taught before, Ethan has taken up my offer to observe
his class and mentor him as he progresses through his first class series. The subject matter of his
artwork will attract students who are interested in the darker side of fantasy creation. After the
first session, Ethan had only two students. He and Lisa decided to advertise a human life
drawing class for the second session, but it did not receive the interest they hoped. He will not
be teaching for the second session.
Wayne (taught 2012-2015) is a local artist who is accomplished at drawing. He created
his drawings on black scratch boards that give his work a sense of light and mystery as the
scratches evolve into the illusion of a three-dimensional object. During the local art shows, he
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sits and creates a scratch board drawing. Lisa posts a sign-up sheet next to him that visitors can
fill in to take his workshop the following day. He always has several participants join his
workshop every year. Wayne does not offer his workshop more than the one time affiliated with
the art show.
Figure 11: Teaching artists for the CBAE at City Township
Township Trustees and Administration
The story of City Township must begin with the trustees who are elected by township
members, appoint a chief administrator, and agree to certain decisions for running the township.
Lisa was hired by Mitch, the chief administrator, as the Director of Projects, Events, and
Communications. Lisa is considered a township administrator and her position as the Arts
Planning Council’s chairperson keeps the nonprofit arts group under the umbrella of the
township. City Township has three township trustees. All three are very supportive of the Arts
Planning Council and the arts in general. I conducted formal interviews with each one of the
Erin
Former art educator in the public school. Original teacher for CBAE. No longer teaching. She taught 2012-2014.
William
Local watercolor artist who teaches a watercolor class on Wednesdays to older students. He has been teaching for two years, 2014-16.
Tanya
Local artist and formal art educator. She worked at the local glass blowing studio and teaches at a community college. She will be teaching drawing, art and wine, and stained glass workshops. She begins 2016.
Ethan
Local illustrator of monsters and comics. Ethan is looking forward to teaching teenagers how to create fantastical characters. He begins 2016.
Wayne
Local artist who is accomplished at drawing. He demonstrates scratch board art at the local art shows and offers workshops in it. He only teaches in relation to the Local Arts Show.
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trustees to learn the full story of the arts in the township and to understand the meaning they
make of the aesthetic experiences and their contribution toward community creation.
Estelle has been a township trustee for several terms over the past 20 years. She is an
energetic and vibrant woman who strongly supports the arts in City Township. As the only
woman on the board, and a woman of color, she serves as an appropriate representative of the
community. As a personable member of the trustees, the Arts Planning Council members who
work with her like how she supports City Township.
John is a local attorney and has also served for several terms over the course of 20 years.
John sees the potential value of the arts in attracting people to the township to live and to visit
there. He understands how the CBAE programming and building rentals can generate income,
interest, and community connection that enable the programs to happen on a shoestring budget.
John is familiar with the history and the inception of the Arts Planning Council and the initial
hiring of Lisa. She was hired to “connect” the township and create an identity for the township
members.
Rick is the third and newest trustee who has served for one term for two years. He
supports the Arts Planning Council and is part of an impact committee working with Lisa for
sustainability consultation. Their goal is to figure out how the Arts Planning Committee and
City Township can generate income with their current assets that will enable the Arts Planning
Committee to hire an arts education programmer. The long-term goal is to generate a need and
desire for the building of a new Arts and Events Center. Rick is very conscious of the public and
the public’s desire for and satisfaction with certain services provided to them by the township.
Mitch is the Chief Administrator who was appointed by the township trustees. He, in
turn, hires the administrators to run the daily tasks of the township. He also serves as a leader for
the directors of the police, fire, public works, development services, recreation, and
senior/community services. Mitch is the original creator of the Arts Planning Council, along
with Lisa and Bob. He completely supports Lisa in what she does and mentors her on projects
that are new to her. Mitch has encouraged Lisa to promote the idea of an arts and events center,
which may eventually house the arts events and programming in the township.
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Figure 12: City Township Administration Hierarchy, 2015-16
Written Protocol
“Protocol writing is the generating of original texts on which the researcher can work”
(Van Manen, 1990, p. 63). Often, writing for the participants can be difficult and can restrain
their expression when they are asked to reflect on their situations (Van Manen, 1990, p. 63).
Since I had conducted this research as a case study initially, the writing that I asked of
participants was done in surveys and emails. Two smaller surveys (see Appendix G) were
created for Lisa to use at events and at art classes programmed by the Arts Planning Council.
Bias was removed from the questions, and editing was done to clarify the questions (Mertens,
2010). Only descriptive statistics and qualitative accounts were gleaned from these smaller
surveys because correlations did not seem necessary for my research, and they were not
necessary for the information needed by the Arts Planning Council. In the surveys, event
attendees were asked specific questions about the aesthetic experience at the event and their
understandings of community and connections. Many of the answers were qualitative accounts
on which I, as the researcher, and the Arts Planning Council could reflect. The survey results
from the events elaborated on the value township members saw in attending the arts events, their
enjoyment of the arts in their own neighborhood, the amount of money they spent before and
after events, and whether they felt connected to other township members through these events.
The same questions were asked for the art education classes. The education surveys also
garnered evidence of educator quality, effectiveness at creating classroom community, and
Township Trustees
Elected by members of the township
Township Administrator
Appointed by the trustees as CEO of township
Administrator gives direct supervision to: Fire, Police,
Public Works
Administrator gives direct supervision to: Recreation, Development Services,
Senior/Community Services
Township Administration
Hired by the Administrator to work on all sectors of daily township functions.
Finance, Human Resources, Economic development, Events, Zoning,
Property, Parks
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interest levels of learners. Follow up emails were sent to the Arts Planning Council regarding
the written descriptions on the surveys, and the information was used to make actions and
inactions about the meanings derived from the attendees’ experiences.
Comments from event surveys
This was our first show and due to experience, we will be more apt to attend
more.
Events at the (Banquet Hall) are convenient, nearby, family oriented, and
reasonably priced.
We love events here. The improv and the Greek Theater were my favorite (a few
years ago).
Lots of work went into this event. It was a nice, affordable evening out.
Enjoyable concerts.
Meet old friends and make new ones by sitting with someone I don’t know.
Everyone is sociable.
A good way to feel part of the community.
Satisfactory! “Different types” of diverse entertainment is good. Change the
types of entertainment.
Great time. Thanks! (6 attendees made this comment.)
Many forms of documentation were an explicit part of the collection phase of City
Township data during the pilot case study. I consider them, in the phenomenological study, as
written protocol. In the case study, they were useful, but they could also “appear with bias and
inaccuracy” since some items might have been deliberately edited before being printed (Yin,
2003, p. 87). From the phenomenological point of view, I was primarily interested in the
subjective experiences of the subjects for the sake of being able to report on how something is
seen from a specific view, perspective, or vantage point (Van Manen, 1990). Many interviews
and news articles about the Arts Planning Council and the arts events and programming have
been published in the larger, city newspaper, as well as online. Art work by artists and educators,
syllabi and course descriptions for classes, as well as brochures, flyers, and other published event
announcements have been accumulated to get a true feel for when and how many times the
classes and events are offered and the meanings the teachers, artists, or authors have of the
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aesthetic experience. They can also tell me what messages the Arts Planning Council or teachers
are unintentionally or intentionally sending to offer a connection within the township. Meeting
agendas and minutes helped me to understand the process the Arts Planning Council is using to
bring the arts experiences to the community. They explained the actions produced from the
meanings of the aesthetic experiences such as who leads the groups, who the groups are, and
when the groups will conduct their “acts” of business and how. Document review and the
evidence from those items follows the same lines of thinking as observation and interviews
(Stake, 1995, p. 68). Those documents give the timeline and history that is needed for the
foundation of understanding the meaning of aesthetic experiences and its contribution toward
community creation.
Interviewing: Personal Life Story
In hermeneutical phenomenology, “the interview serves very specific purposes” (Van
Manen, 1990, p. 66). It may be used for “exploring experiential narrative material” as a resource
for “developing a richer and deeper understanding of a human phenomenon” (Van Manen, 1990,
p. 66). It may be a “vehicle to develop a conversational relation” with an interviewee “about the
meaning of an experience” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 66). I have conducted several phone, email,
formal, and conversational interviews. The interviews provide the main thread of the story of the
Township as they most directly reflect the experiences of the members. This study is
investigating how the Township members make meaning of community through the aim and
negotiations of presenting arts events and programs that could create community. Most of the
interviews clarified this theme of the study and developed a conceptual and theoretical
understanding of the phenomena investigated or known as the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of the study
(Brinkmann & Kvale, 2015, p. 106). The phenomena of the arts experiences and the
understanding of community were reflected in the interviews as well as the process of who,
what, why, and how the arts were and are brought to the Township.
I allotted one formal interview per board member, township trustee, and individual
teaching artist in the informal CBAE program. My interaction with the board members and
educators on a weekly basis allowed for my informal conversations, interviews, and interactions
to build on the knowledge gleaned from the formal interview. Interviews took place at locations
decided by the informants. A plan of questions was shared with the informants prior to the
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interview (see Appendix F). The formal interviews were recorded with the signed consent of the
interviewees and transcribed into my field journal as well. For the board members, they were
asked questions about themselves and their involvement, goals, and plans for the arts in City
Township. The educators were asked questions in regard to their desire to teach in a community
setting verses a public school setting. What did they hope to accomplish through the teaching of
the class? And, what is the future of their class? How did they view the individuals who
attended their class? The goal was to reveal how the board members and educators decided to
apply for the board and/or teaching and how they, and the township trustees, envision the Arts
Planning Council’s role in creating community for the township members and the future of the
Arts Planning Council. I was able to share the transcripts with each interviewee providing a
reflective platform for us to converse about the meanings in their recorded experiences.
Informal interviews were unplanned but focused with certain questions that revealed the
individual’s experience with the arts in City Township. These interviews were also transcribed
into my field journal for analyzing and coding. Members of the Arts Planning Council
Enrichment Board were interviewed along with the Township Administrator, trustees, and
individuals who attended events and those who taught and attended classes programmed by the
Arts Planning Council.
Observations: The Experiential Anecdote
For the pilot case study and for the phenomenological study at City Township, I operated
as a participant observer in order to better understand the process involved in bringing the arts to
a community. Stake (1995) explained that “qualitative study capitalizes on the ordinary ways of
getting acquainted with things” (p. 51). Van Manen (1990) asserted that close observation
breaks through the distance often created by observational methods. “The researcher tries to
enter the lifeworld of those whose experiences” are relevant study material (p. 68). The best way
to enter a person’s lifeworld is to participate in it. Using that perspective, I watched and took
notes at Arts Planning Council Officer meetings, special programmed events, Arts Planning
Council retreats and workshops, and various classes, but I found it helpful to participate as a
volunteer, audience member, board member, teacher, mentor teacher, or officer depending on
what the event was. Through different events, I could enlarge my sample size to the volunteers,
event attendees, adult students, some teacher leaders, and individuals representing other arts-
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based groups in the community. I became a gatherer of anecdotes and developed a keen sense of
the cogency that anecdotes carry. By participating and not just observing, I was “able to build
rapport and trust” with the members in my sample group (Glesne, 2011; Yin, 2003). This
enabled me to maintain a certain orientation of reflectivity while guarding against the more
artificial attitude a reflective view tends to insert in a social situation. The anecdotes are
“narratives with a point” and as the participant observer, I was given the time and space to hone
those anecdotes (Van Manen, 1990, p. 69). The following is an anecdote taken from my field
journal on February 13, 2016 (pseudonyms given):
I came into the Banquet Hall to see the temporary stage set up at the farthest end
of the hall. In front of the stage, which was set up with instruments for a band,
was Tim (pseudonym given) sitting with his guitar. He is a man in his 40s, salt
and pepper hair, dark brown eyes, fit, a big smile, and wearing a red shirt with the
word “Tim” written on it in white. The kids and parents were sitting all around
him in a half circle. Tim played the acoustic guitar at the front. Brad (pseudonym
given), a man in his 20s, longer black hair, dark eyes, happy countenance, and
wearing a bright blue shirt with the word “Brad” written on it in white, was with
him on his left. Brad is from the locally famous band, Over the Seine. As they
played, Tim and Brad jumped at the front so the kids would jump to the music
too. Tim told a story to the children about how they made up this song at an
elementary school where he played and visited as an artist-in-residence. He told
them about how they created the story for the song and what it meant. He had the
children sing the song with him.
Reflecting on the Essential Themes Which Characterize the Phenomenon
Van Manen (1990) stated “a true reflection on lived experience is a thoughtful, reflective
grasping of what it is that renders this or that particular experience its special significance” (p.
32). Phenomenological research distinguishes between appearance and “a good description of a
phenomenon” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 39). In other words, it elaborates on the difference between
the things of our experience and that which grounds the things of our experience (Van Manen,
1990, p. 32). “Reflecting on lived experience becomes reflectively analyzing the structural or
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thematic aspects of that experience in a process called thematic analysis” (Van Manen, 1990, p.
78).
Moustakas (1994) used a method in his psychological phenomenology of building the
themes by going through the data and highlighting significant statements, sentences, or quotes
that provide an understanding of how the participants experience the phenomenon. He calls this
technique “horizontalization.” The researcher then creates “clusters of meaning” from these
significant statements into themes (Cresswell, 2013). “Themes are applied to some thesis,
doctrines, or message that a creative work has been designed to incorporate” (Van Manen, 1990,
p. 79). Thematic analysis is “the process of recovering the themes” (p. 79) embodied and
dramatized in the evolving meanings and images of the work. Van Manen (1990) claimed it can
be mechanistic with coding, but it is in actuality “a free act of seeing the meaning” (p. 79).
Ultimately, finding the theme becomes secondary and may be considered as a means to dive into
the notion being explored. Theme serves the purpose of “control and order to the writing,” or the
structure of experience (Van Manen, 1990, p. 79). Van Manen (1990) emphasized themes are not
objects or generalizations, however. He claimed “they are knots in the webs of our experiences,
around which certain lived experiences are spun and thus lived through as meaningful wholes”
(Van Manen, 1990, p. 90).
I transcribed my written notes into my field journal on the computer enabling reflexivity
in my work. It is a process that allowed me to reflect, discern, and analyze my research data
during the translation. I also took care to transcribe all of the interviews I held with the Arts
Planning Council, township trustees, teaching artists, and the township director. Participants
shared their lived-experience descriptions of the development of the Arts Planning Council, the
development of arts events and programming, their understandings of the City Township
population, and the contribution toward community creation these events have had. I read and
re-read the transcripts to use the selective approach to find what phrases seemed essential about
the phenomenon being described. As I studied the lived-experience descriptions, I began to
discern the themes emerging and noted certain experiential themes recurred as commonality
(Van Manen, 1990, p. 93). Following is an excerpt of the significant statements and clusters of
meanings leading to the themes of this phenomenon:
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Significant Statement Formulated Meaning
An extraordinary job of engaging the
community. Continuing to engage the
community would be getting support from
within the community. As they become
aware of some of our events, it would
increase their awareness, their motivation, and
their desire to get involved.
The arts are a catalyst toward involvement
with others.
Normally it is a good cross section of cultures
of individuals, different ages, sitting at the
table with some of the individuals.
Aesthetic experiences connect different ages
and cultures together.
They engage in discussion of the Arts
Planning Council and their appreciation of it.
The arts events are a special enriching
opportunity that we do not always get.
They get to learn about each other, who their
friends are.
Aesthetic experiences connect different ages
and cultures.
They learn about and talk to individuals who
are not from here. They come here and think
that it is a wonderful opportunity for their
family to participate in.
Aesthetic experiences connect different ages
and cultures together.
It reaches across all different age spans
beginning from the night that they have the
pajama party up to those individuals who are
aging in place.
Aesthetic experiences connect different ages
and cultures together.
And the laughter that I hear is just
phenomenal.
The arts are enjoyable.
I keep coming back because I love to see how
the Arts Planning Council is working to
revitalize our community and to give new
meaning to our community.
The arts events change the meaning of the
place.
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It is a great way to share. The neighbors are
sharing their thoughts and their feelings and
they are laughing together.
Aesthetic experiences allow others to share
with one another.
…then I look at the aging in place individuals.
They come in wheelchairs and walkers. They
sit and socialize.
Aesthetic experiences allow others to share
with one another.
Figure 13: Example of significant statements and horizontalization.
While Moustakas (1994) emphasized significant statements and clusters of themes, Van
Manen (1990) preferred to address theme analysis in a hermeneutical way as in “a back and forth
conversation the researcher develops with the notion” (p. 97) he or she wishes to explore. “The
conversation is a hermeneutic thrust” oriented to sense-making and interpreting of the notion that
stimulates the conversation. For that reason, conversation lends itself to the “task of reflection
on the themes of the phenomenon under study (Van Manen, 1990, p. 98). Van Manen (1990)
emphasized that the art of the research in the hermeneutic interview is to the keep the question of
the meaning of the phenomenon open. A collaborative hermeneutic conversation allows the
researcher to “enable the participant to reflect on his or her experiences in order to determine the
deeper meaning or themes of those experiences” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 100). Once the transcript
themes have been identified by the researcher, then these themes may become objects of
reflection in follow up conversations between the researcher and the interviewee. The
“conversation aims at producing insights and themes” the researcher may use to create the text of
the phenomenological structure of the experience (Van Manen, 1990, p. 100).
I employed Van Manen’s (1990) idea of the hermeneutic discussion during the interviews
but also engaged a conversation on the reflection of the transcripts with each participant. Once
the transcript was typed, it was sent to the participant to read, reflect, and edit. Several
participants asked to add information to specific topics or questions after reading what they had
stated. These changes led to email conversations regarding the true meaning of each question
and what the true meaning was for the participant. Having the deeper reflection of the
participant helped me as the researcher to not just formulate themes for the significant statements
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but to “also discern between incidental themes and structural themes” (Van Manen, 1990, p.
106).
Describing the Phenomenon through the Art of Writing
To do phenomenological research is a “bringing to speech” of something most commonly
in the form of writing. Phenomenology is the “application of logos, which is both language and
thoughtfulness about a phenomenon or an aspect of lived experience” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 32).
Cresswell (2103) assured that the structural description becomes a composite description that
presents the “essential nature” of the phenomenon or the invariant structure. This passage
focuses on the common experience of the participants and that all experiences have an
underlying structure. The reader should come away from the text with a feeling of deeper
understanding of what it is like for someone to experience that phenomenon (p. 82). This
particular text I am writing is the object of the research process with the Arts Planning Council,
and it serves community creation through aesthetic experience into a symbolic form creating a
conversational relation. This text serves more than mere communication of information. The
textual quality of the writing cannot be separated from the content of the text (Van Manen,
1990).
In research, writing is considered a reporting process and, in the hard sciences, there is no
room for poetic or textual language. However, in the human sciences and phenomenology,
reflective writing is closely fused into the research activity and the reflection itself. The writing
distances us from the lifeworld but also draws us closer. Van Manen (1990) confirmed that the
distance allows us to discover the existential structures of experience.
Writing involves a textual reflection in the sense of separating and confronting
ourselves with what we know, distancing ourselves from the lifeworld,
decontextualizing our thoughtful preoccupations from immediate action,
abstracting and objectifying our lived understanding from our concrete
involvements, and all this for the sake of now reuniting us with what we know,
drawing us more closely to living relations and situations of the lifeworld, turning
thought to a more tactful praxis, and concretizing and subjectifying our deepened
understanding in practical action. (Van Manen, 1990, p. 129)
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To Van Manen (1990) writing is a form of practical action because writing illuminates
what we now see that can no longer be ignored. Our existence is now mediated by our
knowledge of the phenomenon; therefore, the seeing is now a form of praxis. Van Manen (1990)
explained that “seeing the significance of a situation places us within the event,” and “true
writing empowers us with embodied knowledge, which can be realized into action in the
performance of everyday life” (p. 130). The Arts Planning Council members understand their
roles in bringing arts events and programming to City Township. Our hermeneutical
conversations contributing to the formation of themes of understanding of those aesthetic
experiences and their contribution toward community creation will leave an indelible mark on
how the council and I will decide to take up certain actions or inactions within the everyday
context of life in City Township.
Maintaining a Strong and Oriented Relation to the Phenomenon
Van Manen (1990) warned phenomenological researchers to stay strong to the orientation
of the fundamental question or notion. He claimed that “researchers can get side-tracked to
wander aimlessly in speculation or to settle for preconceived opinions and conceptions,
speculations, or theories” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 39). The researcher must “remain oriented to
the object of interest in a full and human sense and should not settle for superficialities or
falsities” (p. 33).
Lincoln (1995) asserted the task for the interpretivist is to “elaborate on what lies beyond
epistemology” (p. 275). He or she needs to elaborate on what lies “beyond the idea that there are
abstract qualities for judgment of the research” (p. 275). My prolonged engagement in the field
enhanced the use of hermeneutic conversations with board members in the Arts Planning
Council, township trustees, and teachers in the classes, which helped me stay oriented toward the
phenomenon of aesthetic experiences and their contribution to community formation.
Ethical Issues
I originally had many questions about how to conduct my research at the Township, such
as, how much should I be involved? Should I participate or just observe? By utilizing the
interpretivist discourse, however, I understood that the researcher-researched interaction is
common and allows the researcher to use inductive methods of emergent ideas obtained through
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methods such as interviewing, observing, and analysis of texts. The positivist discourse demands
objective observation, but in the interpretivist discourse, such an arrangement garners criticism
of objectification (Glesne, 2011, p. 162). The benefits to such a relationship are substantial, but
the caution of involvement in certain roles can be cause for worry or become perplexing. For
example, Glesne (2011) explains that the various roles of the researcher can become “unethical if
the researcher assumes the role of exploiter, reformer, advocate, or friend” (pp. 165-167).
“Relationships develop in qualitative research as the researcher becomes involved as a
participant observer” (Glesne, 2011, p. 171). These relationships, however, are structured as
asymmetrical roles with power located on the side of the researcher. It is imperative that the
researcher understand his or her ethical role to protect the rights of participants in “regard to
privacy, deception, and reciprocity” (Glesne, 2011, p. 172). In this case, the board needed my
expertise in art education, teacher development, and research. After simply observing for the
first year, I chose to reciprocate with the board during my second year by researching other
comparative cases of CBAE programs in the area. I presented information from several cases to
the board during the second annual retreat in November 2015. The board was then able to make
decisions about how they wanted their program to look. Through joint interviews with education
and program directors at other community programs, Lisa could guide her board through the
planning process of their program. Together, she and I listened to the board’s decisions and
created a CBAE program for the township Arts Planning Council board to review and approve. I
could share my expertise with them to benefit, enhance, and build their future programs. I have
also been able to advise Lisa on the best ways to support arts educators in public schools. As a
former art educator in a public school, I could give her insight into how an arts teacher thinks,
positions him or herself within the school and township, and what he or she might view as
beneficial. These choices of reciprocity were ethical ways for me to give back to the Arts
Planning Council for their permission to allow me to conduct research with them for two years.
In the research at City Township, I have heeded the advice to use broad ethical guidelines
along with personal ethical choices. I have completed the Institutional Review Board (IRB)
Training and application (see Appendix B). I have received an exemption from IRB review, but
that does not exempt me from obtaining permissions (see Appendix E) and informed consent
forms (see Appendix D). It is also necessary that I heed the members’ requests for
confidentiality and privacy. Forms for informed consent were signed before formal interviews
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with township members and some requested interviews not be recorded. Based on the
township’s request, pseudonyms have been given and identity has been altered to insure
anonymity. Because this is a government group, all exchanged information and meetings are
public. If I want to communicate with any members of the township, the information (emails
and attachments) is available to the public, and the public is invited to any meetings that the
township holds and that I may attend. For these reasons alone, I had to be very careful about
what I said at meetings and what I sent through email. Not only did I want to keep the research
subjects anonymous in my findings, but I also did not want to set precedence for contributing to
meetings if the rest of the public was allowed to attend but not contribute. Through this work, I
am striving to give voice to the process and efforts that Lisa and her board hope to achieve. The
balance between possible harm and benefits is not an issue that I can foresee.
Balancing the Research Context by Considering Parts and Whole
Van Manen (1990) claimed the researcher must constantly measure the overall design of
the study or text against the significance the parts play in the total textual structure (p. 36). It is
necessary to step back and look at the total contextual givens and how the parts need to
contribute toward the total (pp. 33-34). I, as the researcher, wove the data into a “bricolage of
layers” that enhanced what was observed at the site (Creswell, 2013, pp. 36-37). Using the
emerging themes as “generative guides for writing the research study,” I divided the study into
sections each elaborating on essential aspects of the phenomenon (Van Manen, 1990, p. 168).
The implication is that hermeneutical phenomenology in this study was used as description of the
board members’ understanding of the aesthetic experience and its contribution toward
community creation, but it was also used as a critical philosophy of action. Hermeneutical
phenomenology “deepens thought and, therefore, radicalizes thinking and the acting that flows
from it” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 154). As reflected in the literature reviewed, the ontology, the
epistemology, and the methodology of this hermeneutical phenomenological study, arts
experiences can be viewed as a public good and can engage people in understanding the meaning
of community and in community formation. Such understanding is a “ripple effect” that creates
the institution of community to be maintained and sustained as a public good that is a collective
responsibility.
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This phenomenological study will illuminate that arts education is not a discourse of
schools alone. With the heavy reliance on standardized testing in the public schools, the arts
become limited and sometimes non-existent. Students, who need the outlet of the arts for
connection, support, and the recharge of communitas, will be the children left behind. Schools
cannot address all issues in a community, especially when the state has usurped the attention of
schools toward enhancing scores on a standardized test. The ripple effect of the arts in City
Township and other geographic communities will lead to a connected population where diverse
groups of children and adults will share common experiences, hear new perspectives, and
understand each other better through aesthetic encounters that lead to a positive joy of being
connected. This meaning of community will enable the surrounding township to support and
enhance the school community. In this way, the arts become a social responsibility and a form of
social action itself. Arts educators need to draw on their expertise to ensure they are included in
the meaning making within the public sector that influences educational decision making both in
and out of schools. Arts educators must possess a clear vision of the meaning of community
(Freedman, 2011, p. 41-41).
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Chapter 4: The Nature of Arts Events and Programs and
Their Contribution to Community Creation
Alfred Schutz (1967) linked understanding of the lifeworld with the concept of verstehen.
He stated that verstehen is not a method used by the natural sciences because it is a particular,
experiential form in which common sense thinking takes cognizance of the socio-cultural world
(as cited in Martin, 2000, p. 139). Martin (2000) argued that if social science wants to explain
reality, it must develop devices foreign to the natural sciences to understand common sense
experiences of the social world. The essential difference in structure between the social sciences
and the natural sciences is that thought objects in the social sciences must be created through
thought objects constructed by the common sense thinking of humans living their daily lives
within the social world (Martin, 2000, p. 139).
Thought objects constructed by common sense thinking are second degree constructs
made by the actors, in this case the members of the Arts Planning Council, on the social scene
whose behavior I observed and I hope to explain by illuminating the structure of the
phenomenon of arts activities and programs that create community within a geographically and
socioeconomically fragmented township. This chapter articulates the understandings and the
meanings the Arts Planning Council, the township trustees, and the teaching artists have of the
phenomenon of arts events and programs and their contribution toward community creation.
Ultimately, the project of phenomenological reflection and explication is to affect a more direct
contact with the experience as lived.
To understand the experience is to be involved in the crafting of a text. To come to grips
with the structure of meaning of the texts becomes a reflective analysis of the structural or
thematic aspects of that experience (Van Manen, 1990, p. 78). Therefore, the nature of the
meanings of arts experiences and programs that create community were gleaned from interviews
with members of these groups by identifying significant statements through a method called
“horizontalization” (Moustakas, 1994). Clusters of meanings were organized by creating
consistent themes of understanding articulated in those significant statements. The themes that
arose were the arts as joy, the arts as expression, the arts as connection, and the arts as a public
good. The result is a rich, textual description of the phenomenon of the arts taking place at City
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Township and the role the Arts Planning Council plays as a result of their understandings of
bringing arts experiences to the public in an effort to create community.
The Arts as Joy
Reflections from Field Journal, 4/23/2015
I am not discovering anything new. The people who attend know why
they attend. The people who arrange these events, created the Arts Planning
Council, know why they are doing this. The township employees, who work too
hard, know why they are doing this. I simply have the pleasure of observing the
joy in their actions and writing it down. At each event, I hear people give their
testimonies to the value of the arts and to the value of having them in their own
backyard. It is a pleasure for me to be part of their actions toward creating a
community centering on the joy of the arts.
Figure 14: Arts activities after an outdoor puppet show for children and their families. This event took place in the park-like
grounds outside of the township’s Banquet Hall and Senior and Community Arts Center, June 11, 2015
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A repeated theme in conversations with event participants, class participants, members of
the Arts Planning Council, and township trustees was joy. Arts Planning Council members or
township trustees stated, “I noticed that they are having a good time at the art fair we had,” or
they stated, “Everybody was just enjoying themselves.” Van Manen (1990) explained that when
analyzing a phenomenon, one must search more closely for what the common words truly mean.
He claimed “ordinary language is a huge reservoir in which the incredible richness of human
experience is deposited” (p. 61). In other words, the “verbal manifestations” (Van Manen, 1990,
p. 62) will have interpretive significance for the interpretation of the phenomenon. Therefore, in
analyzing the word “joy,” we understand that it commonly refers to the emotion excited by the
attainment or expectation of good, gladness, or delight. It is also considered a state of happiness
or bliss. The word that is often used in the descriptions by the participants is “enjoy” which is a
verb, while “joy” is the noun. According to the common definition, “to enjoy” is to have
satisfaction in the experience, to have possession or the use of something, or to have the benefit
of something.
Nel Noddings (1984/2003), however, explained in her book, Caring, that joy is not
necessarily an emotion. Instead, she focused on “the reflective nature of the joy that
accompanies a realization of the responsive relations of caring [for another]: the sense of
connectedness, of harmony—the combination of excitement and serenity—the sense of being in
tune that is characteristic of receptive joy” (C.M. Meadows as cited in Noddings, 2003, p. 144).
In her book, Noddings (1984/2003) philosophically analyzed the idea of caring and why it is
important to us as humans. She explained caring to be integral to relationships of engrossment,
duality, reflection, and receptivity. The receptive nature of caring for another results in what
Noddings (1984/2003) referred to as receptive joy. She claimed (1984/2003):
The occurrence of joy is a manifestation of receptive consciousness—a sign that
we live in a world of relation as well as in one of instrumentality. That joy is
sometimes an emotion—a nonreflective, direct contact with some object—is not
denied. As emotion, it is delightful. But joy is often different from the basic
emotions. As basic affect, it accompanies our recognition of relatedness and
reflects our basic reality. Its occurrence and recurrence maintain us in caring and,
thus, contribute to the enhancement of the ethical ideal. (p. 147).
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Noddings (1984/2003) referred to joy as a “basic effect” that is a result of the recognition
of relatedness. The relatedness of which she speaks is the existential, I-Thou relationship of
which Buber (1975) spoke. Such an existential relationship exists when one human becomes
engrossed with another human or another object. The result of the engrossment, duality,
reflection, and receptivity with the “other” is a receptive joy that seems “to arise without a direct
object and with an element of reflection” (Noddings, 1984).
Receptive joy is a manifestation of a receptive consciousness that accompanies the
recognition of relatedness. Bedford (1972) illustrated the concept of relatedness as a meeting. It
is a situation in which two people encounter each other in such a way they do not perceive the
object reality of the other. Rather, they blend together to incite a feeling of unity between the
two. Neither is trying to accomplish some alternative motif, but both find themselves lifted
above the time-space sphere making them unaware of the interrupting forces in their
environment or of the time that passes during their encounter. Noddings (1984/2003) defined
this occurrence as having the result of a receptive joy. She believed giving rise to receptive joy
increases our “personal vigor” to maintain receptive joy and sustains our “quest for ethicality”
camps, benevolent societies, agricultural fairs, settlement houses, factories, radio stations,
television networks, and arts councils.
Longo (2007) suggested in his book, Why Community Matters, that an “ecology of
education” model could connect education with civic life as education is linked to democracy (p.
5). Longo (2007) critiqued the dismissal of the role of many institutions when the focus is solely
on the role of the classroom, or schooling. This failure to expand the connections between
institutions and communities to create real partners results in democracy as a private, consumer
good. Democracy, according to Longo (2007) “is the work of free citizens” (p. 4). Such work
involves “everyday politics” by ordinary people as “creative decision-makers and actors in all
aspects of public life” (Longo, 2007, p. 4). “Ecology of education” forms a web of interlinked
partnerships connecting education with civic life and shifting the center of learning to the entire
community where most civic and personal growth takes place (Longo, 2007, p. 4).
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The idea of an interlinked social community is also suffering, according to Longo (2007).
Community is suffering from the decline of “social capital” defined as the social network and
relationships between citizens (Longo, 2007, p. 7). The James S. Coleman study of 1966
entitled, Equality of Educational Opportunity (the Coleman Report as cited in Longo, 2007),
found “children with strong cultural capital” are more successful in school “than those without
social capital” (p. 7). The resulting conclusion of the report was that “schools are far less
significant than communities or families for students’ success” (p. 7). Therefore, children who
have lost those “connecting institutions are at an extreme disadvantage compared to those” who
are from connected institutional settings (Longo, 2007, p. 7). Longo (2007) declared that
“revitalizing community life may be a pre-requisite to revitalizing American education” (p. 8).
The public must think about “education differently…more comprehensively, relationally, and
publicly” (Longo, 2007, p. 9). The public must rely on myriad places where people learn and act
collectively. Strong schools need strong communities and strong communities can build strong
schools. The public must “bridge the connections” and emphasize them between the “formal and
informal educational opportunities” (Longo, 2007 p. 9). The empirical literature in this study
lends evidence to the idea that the public can build community. It can be built in a classroom,
the school, the neighborhood, and the surrounding township through arts experiences.
City Township has focused on revitalizing its community. Through democratic means of
ordinary, everyday political work of creative citizens as decision-makers, the trustees have
allowed the work of the Arts Planning Council to address the issues of their diverse and
fragmented public. The Arts Planning Council’s board members’ understandings of the
meanings of the aesthetic experience created through arts events and programming that lead
toward community creation has allowed them to treat the arts as a public good and has removed
arts education as a discourse of schools alone. The board members understand, from their own
experiences with the arts, the arts are joyful, expressive, connecting, and public. They
understand these meanings so strongly that their understanding directs the collective action of
their joint aims as a community of practice toward delivering such a public good and ultimately
creating an ecology of education in City Township. By analyzing the themes hermeneutically
discovered through the interviews, observations, and casual conversations with the board
members, this chapter will address the implications toward a revitalized community and ecology
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of education that is created by the board members’ understandings of the phenomenon of arts
events and programming toward community creation.
The Arts as Joy
The ecology of civic learning in City Township is given meaning by the Arts Planning
Council’s efforts to create “pathways” through their four-programmed arts series connecting the
institutions and individuals who allow arts events and programming to take place (Longo, 2007,
p. 100). These pathways begin with the Arts Planning Council’s and the township trustees’
understanding of the arts as joyful. Many of them commented on the events as “fun.” Rick
explained people are “engaged, happy, they are positive, they are joyful. They are not sitting
there with their arms crossed…” Lisa commented the people are “generally really happy when
they come to these events” and Mitch explained, “They just enjoy it. I did too.” In chapter 4, I
equated this “joy” with Nodding’s (1984/2003) concept of receptive joy, which results from the
engrossment, duality, reflection, and receptivity with another individual. I also explained the
liminal status of the arts as a leisure activity removes the arts events and programs from the
social structure of regulations and oppression. The result is a freedom space giving rise to
imagination that overcomes barriers to inhibit relatedness. The resulting feeling when a group is
working together toward a goal with no perception of social status or structure is called
communitas. Edith Turner (2012) and Victor Turner (1969) believed communitas occurs
through the readiness of people to rid themselves of their concern for the social status of others.
It comes in the direct moments of life of a person or a society and is a group’s pleasure or
enjoyment when sharing common experiences with one’s fellow humans.
The individual, receptive joy and the group feeling of communitas felt in creating and
observing art together is the personal vigor for the members of the Arts Planning Council to
sustain the experience of coming together publicly in City Township and is the driving factor in
all that is done to share it publicly with others. V. Turner (1969) explained that communitas,
itself, soon develops a structure in which free relationships between individuals become
converted into norm-governed relationships between social personas. The result is three types of
communitas that are visible within the Arts Planning Council’s events and programming.
The first type of communitas is a “happening” or an existential moment when the feeling
occurs due to individuals coming together to share the common aesthetic moments that arise
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from experiencing and/or creating artwork during the events or programs. Estelle’s comment,
“…people are generally very happy, calm and in the moment,” describes the existential moment
of communitas. Ultimately, that enjoyment of the moment is why the trustees and board
members desire to share the arts with the community as a public good. It is what they refer to as
“quality of life.” They understand the public benefits from enjoying moments together. They
understand the township members will equate enjoyable moments with “home” and the richness
they attribute to a flourishing life where they live. Lisa distinguished the “fun” of a common
aesthetic experience as distinctive from “a cookie cutter created, forced type of fun that a festival
is.” Experiencing arts events and programs is “natural,” as Mitch claimed. It creates spontaneous
communitas. It is, therefore, logical for Lisa to ask, “How can we continue to build quality of
life? How can we provide a service so that it makes people want to live in this community?”
Lisa’s questions lead to the eventual progression of the desire to continue spontaneous
communitas. V. Turner (1969) explained the second type is called normative communitas, in
which the existential first type is organized, over time, into a lasting social system (p. 132). The
Arts Planning Council’s understanding of the first type of communitas as enjoyable has engaged
them as a community of practice in creating normative communitas through the four different
programmed series they planned to occur each year. Normative communitas arises from the
“need to mobilize and organize resources” and “social control” among the members of the group
pursuing the goal of continuing and sustaining spontaneous communitas into the future (Longo,
1969, p. 132). Thus, the Arts Planning Council formed the art education series of classes. The
dinner theater series is planned with a structure of four dinner theater events happening during
the months of September, October, and November. The family series has six to seven family arts
events that happen throughout the calendar year, and the concert series is made up of four
concerts that take place in June, July, and August. Thus, the Arts Planning Council has shaped
the spontaneous communitas into normative communitas, over the course of a calendar year.
The normative communitas is now a lasting social system, to be presented to the members of the
township as a public good in which they can partake. The series structure enables the members
of the Arts Planning Council to establish their resources of arts partners and community
volunteers and market their public good in order to sustain the spontaneous communitas into the
future for the township members.
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Once the social structure of normative communitas is in place, the next progression has
been the desire to have a central location where the spontaneous communitas can always be
found. V. Turner (1969) described the third type of communitas as ideological communitas,
which is an attempt to describe the external and visible effect of an inward experience of
existential communitas. The hope is to lay out “the optimal social conditions under which such
experiences might be expected to flourish and multiply” (Longo, 1969, p. 132). The optimal
social conditions understood by the Arts Planning Council are embodied in the possible, future
entity of a Cultural Arts and Events center to serve as a “community hub where there is constant
activity and constant programming and constant engagement and things to do. A place that
people know to go to when they are looking for excitement and fun” (Interview with Lisa,
4/2016). This center was described as a place where all diverse individuals in City Township
might find an identity and come together despite their socioeconomic status, race, or
neighborhood. Community becomes linked to belonging as Delanty (as cited in Mulligan, 2013)
explained. Sarah said:
…I feel like it is going to take something as big and as grandiose as this new arts
center to pull all of those communities together and to really give City Township
a name and an identity and to have people talking about City Township and to be
proud of City Township. (Interview with Sarah, 4/4/2016)
According to Hoffman-Davis (2010) the goals of community arts centers prioritize
personal and interpersonal development, cultural and intercultural awareness, and a commitment
to community service and development. Self-sustaining outcomes, such as community interest,
support, attendance, and student performance are the forms of assessment in a community arts
center (Hoffman-Davis, 2010). An arts center’s success is measured by how much spontaneous
communitas the township members desire and experience at the center as ideological
communitas.
The fate of spontaneous, existential communitas is to fall into structure and law once it
becomes part of normative and ideological communitas. In normative communitas, those rules
found are meant “to abolish structural differentiation” and, instead, serve “to liberate the human
structural propensity to give it free reign in the cultural realm of myth, ritual, and symbol” (V.
Turner, 1969, p. 133). Hence, the structure of the ideological communitas serves to continue the
joy of the aesthetic experiences found within the arts events and programs of the normative
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structure created by the Arts Planning Council. Consequently, community based art education
serves as a guiding framework (normative communitas) for the joy felt when working together
without social structure (spontaneous communitas) and to create artwork in a public space
(ideological communitas). The joy of the arts is one meaning for why the trustees of City
Township established the nonprofit entity of the Arts Planning Council to ensure township
members will continue to come together to experience spontaneous communitas, or “quality of
life,” through arts events and experiences that create community where they live.
The Arts as Expression
The trustees’ and board members’ understanding of the joy of the arts extends into their
understanding of why they believe the arts are so enjoyable. John’s comment explains their
understanding: “I think it [art experience] is something that is enlightening and it helps people to
grow and have a better appreciation for not just the arts, but kind of a reflection of life overall.”
Some people enjoy reflecting on their state of being and expressing their understandings of that
state through artistic means. They also enjoy relating to others who have expressed their own
reflections through artistic means. Lisa stated, “It is not necessarily a niche thing. I think kids
like to play. I think that parents like to play.” She has equated play with expressing oneself.
The trustees and board members see art expression as an essential characteristic. John said, “A
person’s life without the arts would be devoid of an essential human characteristic.” This
understanding plays directly into the establishment of normative and ideological communitas
leading to the ultimate creation of the ecology of education for the township.
The key to establishing the ecology of education is in the board members’ understanding
that the ecology of education already existed. Lisa said, “We had a core group of talented artists
who were doing this on their own.” Her comment gives value to Mitch’s statement, “It [the arts]
is an expression of humanity...The arts have been important to us since the beginning of time. I
don’t think they are going away.” This core group of artists enjoyed expressing themselves
artistically to such a great extent they established their own normative communitas by meeting
once a week in the public space of the Senior and Community Arts Center. They encourage
others to join them and experience artistic expression together. They are not interested in
teaching. Lisa stated, “They do not want to teach, but they would love to have more adults join
them.”
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Longo (2007) explained that when education moves into the community, traditional
learning reforms into a culture of learning. It is best explained in a graph form of counterparts:
Traditional Education Cultural Education
School Centered Education in the Community
Expert Centered Citizen Centered
Youth Centered Intergenerational
Linear Systemic
Experts on Top Experts on Top and Within
Consumer oriented Producer oriented
Spectators Actors
Students Teachers and Learners
Figure 18: Traditional verses Cultural Education (Longo, 2007, p. 103).
Through the graph, one can see how the roles and focus of community education lend a
conceptual shift in a community setting. No longer are the students one age and just observing.
The students are intergenerational learners who are involved in the act of expression. The goal
of creating normative and ideological communitas stimulates conversation among board
members and township volunteers about how to best provide expressive learning opportunities
for township members. The aim becomes a democratic one to create meaningful learning
partnerships across generations, socioeconomic fragmentation, racial diversity, organizations,
schools, and neighborhoods.
Ultimately, this understanding of the arts as expression drives the creation of a
community based art education program known as the Arts Planning Council’s Art Education
Series. It necessitates a curriculum of skills allowing the township actors to be producers with a
community focus and socially minded. It is a curriculum that is citizen driven, utilizing experts
to guide the production of expression. The curriculum is pragmatically democratic, in that it is
the work of free citizens: the members of the Arts Planning Council, the teaching artists, and the
learners. There is “conjoint activity whose consequences are appreciated as good by all singular
persons who take part in it” (Dewey, 1927, p. 149). These citizens are the creative decision-
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makers who choose the skill sets they want to learn and the path they want to use to express their
reflections. A web of partnerships connects the township learners with artists, artists’ studios,
arts educators, musicians, actors, college institutions, other local arts centers, museums, and
other non-profit, professional, and semi-professional arts groups.
Understanding the meaningful structure of expression in the arts guides the Arts Planning
Council’s decision to have an art education series. Such a series creates the normative
communitas generated from expression structured into two hour classes occurring weekly and
taught in six week sessions. For example, basic drawing classes were created for students age 15
and older in which drawing skills could be learned and perfected. The need for foundation skills
came from the township citizens who wanted to learn the skills necessary to be more profound in
their expression. The curriculum exists as one that can be amended and molded by the learners
themselves. The Arts Planning Council utilizes surveys in which the learners can give their
feedback on the subject matter taught, the teacher’s ability to teach, the best times and prices for
class, and whether they would want to teach (see Appendix G).
The establishment of a summer art camp for children is another example of the
implication of the members of the Arts Planning Council’s understanding of the arts as
expression. This year’s art camp holds a curriculum with a township-focused message of
creating artwork to convey the harm of littering in local parks within the township. This
township-focused curriculum was reached by township members and the Arts Planning
Council’s board who were upset about the amount of litter in the neighborhood parks. Educating
the young people of the township about littering through an expressive, community art
curriculum seemed the best way to change a negative trend in the township community10. The
Arts Planning Council’s understanding of expression in the arts guided them in a community
centered curriculum taught by citizens to make systemic changes through educating children on
the issue. The “Kids Can” art camp curriculum allowed the children to become the actors to
artistically produce the public message needed to educate the rest of the township citizens about
the same issue of littering. Through puppet show “commercials” videotaped for the township
website, a song created with a local musician to be performed at a community concert, and
trashcans decorated with “stop littering” themed murals, these learners will become part of the
10 This is the beginning of a progression from simply community-focused art curriculum to creating more socially-just curricula in the future within the township.
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revitalized community created through the ecology of education the Arts Planning Council is
building.
Yet, another example of the implications for the Arts Planning Council’s understanding
of the arts as expression occurs through the input the teaching artists have in the community
based art education curriculum itself. The teaching artists are local citizens of the township or
educators from townships that neighbor City Township. The teaching artists meet after each six-
week session to discuss best practices for intergenerational students, best motivations for
continued enthusiasm, and outcomes for their learners’ final artwork. They reflect on the
curriculum so learners can, in turn, express their own lived experiences through their artistic
skills. After one meeting, the teaching artists decided to provide gallery space for learners to
exhibit and share their expressive artwork. Allowing learners to choose a piece of their artwork
to contribute to the local art show gives learners another venue to share, reflect, express, and
connect with other artists. The teaching artists also considered the requests made by local
citizens for other class offerings such as a colored pencil class. The suggestion provoked a
conversation about who would teach such a class, who was best skilled, and what would be the
best way to teach it.
The literature review in this study supports community-focused and social justice
curricula as a means to revitalize and to educate the community on the local issues at hand.
Studies by Asher (2012), Buda, Fedorenko, and Sheridan, (2012), Hutzel (2007), and Song and
Gammel (2011) centered on community needs and issues of place. The results were more
student awareness of the community issues, social issues, increased classroom community
support of one another, and an increased sense of agency within the neighborhood community.
These results contribute to a revitalized community. As Estelle said, “I keep coming back [to the
arts events and programs] because I love to see how the Arts Planning Council is working to
revitalize our community and to give new meaning to our community.” The structural meaning
of the arts as expression is understood by the Arts Planning Council and the implication of that
understanding is manifest in a normative communitas of a community based art education
curriculum. It is another building block in the ecology of education being established in City
Township.
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The Arts as Connection
The joy of spontaneous communitas continues its thread through these four themes of
understanding voiced by the Arts Planning Council. It contributes heavily to the third theme of
the arts as connection. This theme draws on Buber’s (1975) definition of community imbued
with existential responsibility of humans for each other. Most significantly, this theme directly
creates an “ecology of education” marked as a web of interlinked partnerships connecting
education with civic life. Connecting with each other in the township through arts events and
programs is how the Arts Planning Council understands its work to be done. As Elizabeth said,
“It is human nature to feel a sense of belonging.” Estelle believes the Arts Planning Council is
the “lead system to make this work. Therefore, we have to engage more individuals.”
The connections for the Arts Planning Council happen on at least two levels. The
spontaneous communitas that occurs due to the joy of the arts is one level connecting humans
with humans. The implication for this is the normative communitas embodied in the structure of
the arts series the Arts Planning Council has created. Such a structure serves to continuously
connect humans on an individual level. The Arts Planning Council invests in their events in the
hopes to connect their diverse and fragmented township. Mitch said, “We wanted to bring the
community together because we have such a disconnected community.” Rick explained, “Our
township is very diverse today, but I think we would like to get more diversity in who is coming
to our events…”
The connections that occur on this level are the essential aim of the Arts Planning
Council and the City Township trustees. They understand individuals need to connect to each
other to feel comfortable where they live. But, Buber’s (1975) explanation of existential
connections illustrates the deeper level and implication that this type of connection has for the
ecology of education in the township. In Chapter 4, I reiterated Buber’s answer to the human
crisis of the 20th century, which is for humans to have contact with each other and to develop a
feeling of fraternity. This can only come from trust in each other and having meaning in each
other’s lives. Then humans can feel solicitude or concern with life surrounding them. Solicitude
is derived from direct, whole relations between humans, in this case through arts events and
programs. When liminal, aesthetic encounters provide opportunity for individuals to seek
connection points with personal stories objectified in artistic media, further and deeper
connections transpire allowing empathy for individual situations. Connections between
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individuals contain the capacity to grow into relationships. Relationships can lead to support,
mentoring, modeling, or, one could say, educating. William commented about the variety of
skill levels among his watercolor students, “That is nice to have a lot of different people because
they are all at different levels. They all learn from each other.” The literature of this study refers
to many other studies reviewed indicating connections, awareness, empathy, and various skills
gained through aesthetic experiences, which serve to create a regard for and an understanding of
each other in group situations (Asher, 2012; Buda, Fedorenko, & Sheridan, 2012; Hutzel, 2007,
Krensky, 2001).
In City Township, I observed many connections happening between individuals. Some
were between individuals of the same age, such as two women who met at a concert and talked
to each other about their adult children, the music they were hearing, and their dogs at home
(field journal notes, 6/9/2015). Others were between individuals of different generations such as
the connection made between a drawing student who was 18 and another who was 70. They
began a conversation with mutual admiration for each other’s glasses that led to more supportive,
artistic conversations (field journal notes, 4/7/2016). Even the artists and musicians who
performed made connections with each other. For example, Tim, the musician who wrote songs
with the children in City Township, hung out and made friends with the members of the blues
band that followed his performance on the Arts Sampler Weekend at City Township (field
journal notes, 2/27/2016). Connections developed between audience members, performers,
artists, learners, teachers, and board members. What is most important to note is that individuals
are also connected to larger institutions, further drawing together the entities and communities of
individuals with other’s entities and communities. The arts are then a public, democratic good
growing a web of interlinked partnerships connecting education with civic life.
The second level of this implication is the connection that must occur between
institutions for the structure of arts events and programs to exist. The empirical literature in this
study illustrates the necessity of this level of connection to the success of the normative structure
of arts events and programming. Arts collaboration can occur between several community
institutions. The term for this is a community partnership where an organization or individuals
share needed resources, ideas, connections, and expertise (Serig & Hinojosa, 2010). The Arts
Planning Council understands that its funding is derived from grants given to them from the local
public arts fund, the Greater City Foundation, and the State Arts Council (all pseudonyms given).
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Community members and businesses can sponsor events and programs, but the bulk of the
funding for these programs is derived from other non-profit entities. Lisa confessed, “We found
an income source through Currents in Art that helped us really bring in things that we would not
have been able to.”
The programs themselves are extensions of the total body of work of non-profit groups
such as the Artists Guild, the Children’s Puppet Theater, the many semi-professional acting
groups, the semi-professional orchestras, bands, and musicians, and artists’ studios. The cycle of
partnering becomes a cycle of interlinking benefits and an extension of education into the local
public spaces. Many of these entities have education directors who work for them. These
directors have an aim to educate the public in the artistic medium they perform, the etiquette
involved in viewing the art medium presented, and the understanding of the aesthetic experience
created by the art event and programming. When these groups perform at City Township, they
are educating the township members through the aims of their arts education programs, further
extending the ecology of education in the township. Frank commented:
There used to be this untouchable. You had to be on a certain caliber to go to the
theater…What does it mean to come into a theater?... I even see what Jake
(pseudonym given) is doing at [the Artists Guild], the programming he has done
with Peter and the Star Catcher that is bringing in a lot more, younger families…
I think it is breaking down the barriers. I think you have to. I don’t think the arts
have to be this untouchable thing that only certain amounts of people with this
certain socioeconomic background can take advantage of. I believe that theater
and arts are what form the well-rounded community. I think that through the arts
is the only way we are teaching the cultural etiquette. The Emily Post days are
gone. We don’t teach that anymore. I think that through different pieces of theater
that you do, you learn a totally different respect than just running amuck.
(Interview with Frank, 4/6/2016)
As Frank referred to the education of cultural etiquette, he is acknowledging the
need for the community to educate its citizens on the topics that may not occur in the
school setting. He understands the need for the arts as connection and for the ecology of
education in the public.
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Conversations with the trustees and the Arts Planning Council members in regard to the
future Cultural Arts and Events Center always fall back to the necessity of connecting and
forming partnerships in order to even have the center exist. Mitch explained, “Whether you are
talking about funding of the staff or the funding of the facilities, it is going to require a
partnership of a lot of different entities both from within the township and beyond the township.”
The township may be the main tenant in the building, but a local university could rent space for
arts education. A local music group could rent space for rehearsal as could theater groups, dance
groups, or local philanthropies. Mitch even explained part of the building could possibly house a
fire or police station. The building itself would be an objectification of the connections and
partnerships necessary for the survival and existence of the arts in City Township. It would
become more than a reification of the community of practice, but a literal destination for the
ecology of education of the township.
A large implication of the theme of the arts as connection is the township’s desire to
connect with and support the schools. Again, the literature in this study contributes evidence to
this idea. Collaboration with institutions already established by the local community was cited to
positively transform schools by extending educational opportunities for students (Bains & Mesa-
MU SOCIAL & BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH INVESTIGATORS AND KEY
PERSONNEL.
COURSE/STAGE: Basic Course/1
PASSED ON: 11/10/2014
REFERENCE ID: 14299385
REQUIRED MODULES DATE COMPLETED
Introduction 10/14/14
History and Ethical Principles - SBE 10/14/14
Defining Research with Human Subjects - SBE 10/14/14
The Federal Regulations - SBE 10/16/14
Assessing Risk - SBE 10/16/14
Informed Consent - SBE 10/16/14
Privacy and Confidentiality - SBE 10/23/14
Research With Protected Populations - Vulnerable Subjects: An Overview 10/23/14
Internet-Based Research - SBE 10/23/14
Avoiding Group Harms - U.S. Research Perspectives 10/26/14
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Vulnerable Subjects - Research Involving Workers/Employees 10/26/14
Conflicts of Interest in Research Involving Human Subjects 10/26/14
Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) 11/04/14
ELECTIVE MODULES DATE COMPLETED
Basic Institutional Review Board (IRB) Regulations and Review Process 11/10/14
Informed Consent 11/10/14
Research in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools - SBE 11/10/14
For this Completion Report to be valid, the learner listed above must be affiliated with a
CITI Program participating institution or be a paid
Independent Learner. Falsified information and unauthorized use of the CITI Program
course site is unethical, and may be considered
research misconduct by your institution.
Paul Braunschweiger Ph.D.
Professor, University of Miami
Director Office of Research Education
CITI Program Course Coordinator
170
Appendix C
Research Compliance Office 102 Roudebush Hall Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056
Certification: Human Subjects Research Exempt from IRB Review
January 28, 2015
Exempt Research Certificate Number:
TO: Katherine Smith and Dr. Kathleen Knight-Abowitz 01497e RE:
The Effects of Art on the Community: A Case Study of the Democratic Process Involved When
the Arts are a Priority for a Community
The project noted above and as described in your application for registering Human Subjects (HS)
research has been screened to determine if it is regulated research or meets the criteria of one of the
categories of research that can be exempt from Institutional Review Board review (per 45 CFR 46). The determination for your research is indicated below.
The research described in the application is regulated human subjects research, however, the description meets the criteria of at least one exempt category included in 45 CFR 46 and
associated guidance. The Applicable Exempt Category(ies) is/are: 2
Research may proceed upon receipt of this certification. When research is deemed exempt from IRB
review, it is the responsibility of the researcher listed above to ensure that all future personsnot listed
on the filed application who i) will aid in collecting data or, ii) will have access to data with subject identifying information, meet the training requirements (CITI Online Training).
If you are considering any changes in this research that may alter the level of risk or wish to include a
vulnerable population (e.g. subjects <18 years of age) that was not previously specified in the application, you must consult the Research Compliance Office before implementing these changes.
Exemption certification is not transferrable; this certificate only applies to the researcher specified
above. All research exempted from IRB review is subject to post-certification monitoring and audit
by the compliance office.
Jennifer Sutton, MPA
Associate Director of Research Compliance
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Appendix D Research Consent Form
My name is Katherine Coy Smith. I am a Ph.D. student in the Department of Educational Leadership at
Miami University. I am conducting a case study to describe the process and the effects a community
experiences when the arts are placed as a priority.
My research will consist of observations and participation with the Township Administrators, the Arts
Connect Officers and Board of Directors, and the events and classes that are planned through Arts
Connect. I will conduct formal and conversational interviews that could be recorded and published for
use in my doctoral dissertation and possible publications in academic journals. Names and identifying
information will be changed to protect the participants’ privacy and confidentiality unless the Township
agrees that it would want information published. Although identifying information will be collected, the
data will be analyzed for all subjects and presented in aggregate summary form. Data will not be
presented in a way that individuals could be identified. Quotations will only be used with participants’
permission.
Any participation by the board members, officers, or administrators in this case study is completely
voluntary. Participants should be 18 years old or older and should feel free to decline a request for an
interview or ask that information is not recorded.
For questions about the research, please contact me, Katherine K. Smith ([email protected], 513-
378-6708) or my faculty advisor, Dr. Kathleen Knight-Abowitz ([email protected]). For questions
or concerns about the rights of research subjects or the voluntariness of this consent procedure, please
contact the Research Compliance Office at Miami University: (513) 529-3600 or