I adopted an arts-based methodology looking specifically to autobiographical narrative, culture jam, and performance. To foster self-reflection, I turned to autobiographical forms of narrative and considered the work of Rolling (2010) and Jupp & Slattery (2012). Narrative as research data is discussed by Rolling (2010) and considered an opportunity to “re-search” past experiences (p. 6). This re-searching enables one to reach new understandings of the self in relation to these experiences. He states, “Narrative methodologies invite the description and meaningful interpretation of experiences, artifacts, phenomena, performances, and events as research data (Connelly & Clandinin, 2006)” (Rolling, 2010, p. 7). Therefore, the narratives, both written and performed by my participants, become active pieces of data that represent the connection of the past, present, and future. Also, narrative methodologies enable me, as the researcher, to reflect upon my art educational practices in relation to this curriculum.

Jupp & Slattery (2012) present the importance of autobiographical narrative in relation to becoming an educator. In their article “Becoming teachers of inner-city students: Identification creativity and curriculum wisdom of committed white male teachers,” Jupp & Slattery (2012) explored “identity as self-authorship” (p. 285). They utilized autobiographical and pedagogical narratives (discussed as “professional identifications”) as evidence that complicated White identity and repositioned participants as race-conscious, fluid members of White culture (pp. 285-286). From their work, I pulled the necessity for self-reflection as a tool to guide members of a “race-evasive” community (pp. 283-284) to adopt “race visibility” (p. 302) in their pedagogy and relationship with their students and community.

Considering my own participant population, who are predominantly White, and the pedagogy of CRAE, it was important for the narrative prompts presented to the students to encourage self-reflection and transformative thinking, and provide these pre-service educators with opportunities to become more aware of race in relation to their own cultural identity and teaching practice. Participants were provided with the following narrative prompts during Session 1 of the study:

1. What culture, ethnicity, and/or race do you identify with?

2. How do your culture, ethnicity, and/or race impact your day-to-day life?

3. Have you ever had a moment when you were “jammed” by someone’s presumption of your cultural/ethnic/racial background? If so, can you describe what happened and how it made you feel?

4. How do you think your cultural/ethnic/racial identity will/will not impact your teaching?

While this aspect of the study focused on writing and personal reflection, I sought to incorporate art making and performance as vehicles to enable more meaningful connections to the curriculum and instigate deeper reflection on racial, cultural, and ethnic issues in relation to (teacher) identity (Garoian, 1999; Lai, 2012; Lee, 2012; Rolling, 2010). The first art-based component of the project was the creation of a photography-based self-portrait that represented their culture, ethnicity, and/or race (Appendix A). When thinking of this visual, I recalled the artistic work of Nikki S. Lee, an artist who literally embodied different cultural groups during her “Projects” series in an effort to truly understand their ways of living[1]. Other artists who inspired this aspect of the project include Guillermo Gomez-Pena and Cindy Sherman. I wanted to inspire participants to think about how cultural markers can be read through an image and come together to represent an identity.

These images were then jammed with the final aspect of the curriculum, the visual culture jam performance. Garoian (1999) states, “…performance enables the critique and reevaluation of culture through subjectivity—a reflexive process of embodiment that enables the subject to turn history onto itself and to explore and interrogate its terrain” (p. 6).  Garoian’s (1999) explanation of performance aligns with the dialogue previously established by Rolling (2010) and Jupp & Slattery (2012) and pushes the idea of reflection past thought and into the body. Therefore, it enables CRAE to become an embodied experience that guides participants to potentially experience transformative forms of learning and a meaningful shift in their own worldviews and pedagogy in relation to race, culture, and ethnicity.

For this project, I re-positioned culture jamming alongside CRAE to enable participants to embody moments of disruption. These moments could then be re-experienced and re-searched to reveal new meaning and impact on their lives. The parameters of their performance included for participants to focus on an experience when their cultural identity was “jammed” (direct connection with narrative prompt 3). To complicate this moment of disruption, I asked them to incorporate another jam into their performance in the form of a poem, mash up, word collage, etc. [2] This poetic component encouraged students to truly perform their identities instead of just reciting a narrative. Music or some sort of sound was the last requirement of the performance and was to be thoughtfully chosen as another layer of the participants’ cultural identity, rather than a complete distraction from the performance.

To foster a transparent, comfortable environment, I also performed a visual culture jam alongside my participants. Data took the form of digital self-portraits, narrative responses, recorded visual culture jam performances, and a final class discussion following the performances. The data was analyzed for emergent themes, with special attention given to the students’ performances. The following themes were found: family as culture, heritage, and other forms of identity.

My participants

To understand what role culture does (not) play in White culture was important to my study because of my participant population. The university where the study was performed is located in a rural area with a majority White student population. I had 14 participants, 13 who self-identified as White or Caucasian and one participant who is Colombian by birth but adopted and raised in Pennsylvania. 13 of my participants grew up in Pennsylvania and one student grew up in New Jersey. Going into the study, I more or less understood the cultural background of my participants because I was enrolled in pre-service art education courses alongside them. As a researcher, this placed me in a unique position to develop a more personal relationship with many of the participants and understand their views toward race, ethnicity, and culture before the study began.