http://open.bu.edu:80/xmlui The DSpace digital repository system captures, stores, indexes, preserves, and distributes digital research material. 2013-05-17T12:18:17Z http://hdl.handle.net/2144/5451 Understanding How the Role of an Artist-Teacher May Impact Student Learning and Teaching Practice Gronvold Roller, Nichole The definition of an artist-teacher has been an ongoing debate amongst many within the fine arts and art education. The following research is the journey of a newly proclaimed artist-teacher as she finds meaning in her newfound declaration with the dual identities. The action based research documented the happenings and insights of an artist-teacher, along with nineteen high school art students in Central Illinois. The researcher sought to discover whether an artist-teacher may work alongside students in a studio setting, investigating and analyzing both the positive and negative results. The goal of the research was to understand how the role of an artist-teacher may impact student learning and teaching practice. As a result of a triangulation approach to data collection, the researcher uncovered that an artist-teacher working alongside learners in a studio setting promoted a comfortable working environment that increased student interactions and dialogue. Additionally, the importance of an artist-teacher being reflective of practice was revealed as the researcher found such reflections to be a resourceful tool in order to better balance the dual roles that at times may become overwhelming. Art Education Research Project 2013-05-15T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2144/5450 State power and the Colonial Mindset: Defining state legitimacy in postcolonial South Asia Tewarie, Pradyuman Abstract: This paper will argue that the way in which the Pakistani and Indian states have legitimized their rule over the past sixty year is influenced by the legacy British colonialism. This case is made by analyzing and contrasting the way pre-colonial empires legitimized their rule to the British Raj. This investigation has shown that the pre-colonial empires were accompanied by an ideology that sought legitimacy exclusively through the furthering of Dharma. Dharma in the context of state power meant the promotion of “good governance” that was specifically contingent on the fulfillment by the ruler of basic forms of citizenship rights. Absent in these pre-historic documents was an emphasis on “divine rights” or “absolutist” rule that was accorded to state authorities. As such, the administrative structures in India’s pre-colonial empires were highly decentralized and boasted many measures of checks-and-balances on the power wielded by the state. On the contrary, the British ruled India through an ideology that was tinted with a Euro-centric, racialist lens. This had the effect of delegitimizing the previous form of Indian rule and promoting a political culture in which post-enlightenment ideas founded on the premises of a powerful and coercive unitary state were imported to replace the pre-colonial political system of layered and shared power. But there was embargo on the export of rights of citizens of sovereign states to Europe’s colonies. This distortion of in ideas of state power and citizenship rights has had fundamental implications in post-colonial South Asia, resulting in a crisis of political legitimization that has plagued the Indian and Pakistani state for the past 60 years. Since this analysis has shown how ideas and discourse can affect the way states legitimize their rule, this paper concludes by arguing that the path to progress for both nations lies in undergoing an ideational shift in the way the states have legitimized their rule. 2013-05-14T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2144/5449 Spiritual but not Religious?: Beyond Binary Choices in the Study of Religion Ammerman, Nancy T. "Spirituality" has often been framed in social science research as an alternative to organized "religion," implicitly or explicitly extending theoretical arguments about the privatization of religion. This article uses in-depth qualitative data from a religiously-diverse U.S. sample to argue that this either-or distinction not only fails to capture the empirical reality of American religion, but it does not do justice to the complexity of spirituality itself. An inductive discursive analysis reveals four primary cultural "packages," that is, ways in which the meaning of spirituality is constructed in conversation -- a Theistic Package that ties spirituality to personal deities, an Extra-Theistic Package that locates spirituality in various naturalistic forms of transcendence, an Ethical Spirituality that focuses on everyday compassion, and a contested Belief and Belonging Spirituality tied to cultural notions of religiosity. Spirituality is, then, neither a diffuse individualized phenomenon nor a single cultural alternative to "religion." Analysis of the contested evaluations of Belief and Belonging Spirituality allows a window on the "moral boundary work" (Lamont 1992) being done by the cultural discourse of being "spiritual but not religious." The empirical boundary between spirituality and religion is far more porous than the moral and political one. This is a postprint (author's final draft) version of an article to be published in Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion in June 2013. The final version of this article will be found at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1468-5906 (login may be required). The version made available in OpenBU was supplied by the author. PLEASE NOTE: per publisher rules, the text of the article is embargoed until twelve months after publication. If it's after June 1, 2014, and the article is still not available for download, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. 2013-06-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2144/5448 TECHNOLOGY TOOLS IN THE MIDDLE SCHOOL ART ROOM Trausch, Christine M. The growing use of educational technology tools in the classroom was the impetus behind this study. This classroom-based study was conducted to determine how technology-based lessons in middle school art classes might impact student motivation, understanding, and art production. An art unit, enhanced with technology lessons, was presented to three sixth grade art classes to determine the answer to this question. Observation notes and student surveys were used to gain multiple perspectives of this phenomenon. Additional data supporting the results of this study include teacher interviews, observations of technology-based lessons in various classrooms, and literature based on similar studies. It was determined that technology-based lessons can be used to increase student motivation and to help students to more clearly understand new material. It was also determined that with increased motivation and understanding, students were more engaged in the art process, worked more independently, and produced more meaningful art pieces. Also noted in this study is the importance of carefully planned technology-based lessons. These lessons should be varied and creatively planned in order to maintain a positive impact on student learning. 2013-05-09T00:00:00Z