Abstract

Talking about spirituality can be uncomfortable. The topic is especially precarious within the sphere of education. Despite the discomfort and precarity, many scholars argue that there may be room in the postmodern curriculum for safe, open, and generative dialogue about religion and spirituality as cultural phenomena. These curriculum theorists (see Slattery, 2013; Doll, 2002; Huebner, 1991; Noddings, 2005; Whitehead, 1967a/1929; Wang, 2002) propose a sensitive critique of spirituality and religion that can lead to cultural healing, re-membering, re-integration and re-collection (Huebner, 1991). In an increasingly fractured world (Slattery, 2013), where spiritual and religious underpinnings cause an array of conflict, this study works toward critical dialogue in a secondary level public school art classroom. Through art-making, writing, and class discussions, the teacher and student researchers explored, critiqued, and de/constructed their own spirituality—with the aim of aggregating, accommodating (Rolling, 2011) and appreciating ways of thinking, being, and practicing that were different from their own. The project adopted A/r/tography as a qualitative research methodology, which views art-making, writing, and conversations as generative pools of data that can produce new understandings, meanings, and potentialities (Irwin et al., 2006; Irwin & de Cosson, 2004; Irwin & Springgay, 2008).

Degree

College and Department

Fine Arts and Communications; Art

Rights

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