Art Blended Research and Children’s Gender Identity Making
Author(s)
Camilla Hällgren
ABSTRACT
The intention with this article is to explore how visuals and written text may combine to further understandings about complex matters such as gendered aspects of the human condition. To do so, I bring together my professional practices as researcher and artist by theorizing, conceptualizing and visualizing aspects of children’s gender identity making. As such, this article is conceptual rather than empirical and covers issues about learning, existentialism, social constructivism, children, identity, and gender. It also exemplifies what I call Art Blended Research, an approach that draws on the insight of that there is more to see than meets the eye. In conclusion, the strength of this approach does not lie in the ability to explain what is. Instead, the strength of Art Blended Research is found in possible explorations and inspirations of what might be.
The intention with this article is to explore how visuals and written text may combine to further understandings about complex matters such as gendered aspects of the human condition. To do so, I bring together my professional practices as researcher and artist by theorizing, conceptualizing and visualizing aspects of children’s gender identity making. As such, this article is conceptual rather than empirical and covers issues about learning, existentialism, social constructivism, children, identity, and gender. It also exemplifies what I call Art Blended Research, an approach that draws on the insight of that there is more to see than meets the eye. In conclusion, the strength of this approach does not lie in the ability to explain what is. Instead, the strength of Art Blended Research is found in possible explorations and inspirations of what might be.
KEYWORDS
Children, Learning, Gender, Identity, Existentialism, Interdisciplinary, Art, Research, Art Blended Research
Children, Learning, Gender, Identity, Existentialism, Interdisciplinary, Art, Research, Art Blended Research
Cite this paper
Hällgren, C. (2015) Art Blended Research and Children’s Gender Identity Making. Creative Education, 6, 2333-2350. doi: 10.4236/ce.2015.622240.
Hällgren, C. (2015) Art Blended Research and Children’s Gender Identity Making. Creative Education, 6, 2333-2350. doi: 10.4236/ce.2015.622240.
References
[1] Arendt, H. (1958). The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [2] Bem, S. L. (1993). Lenses of Gender: Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press. [3] Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. [4] Connell, R. W., & Messerschmidt, J. W. (2005). Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept. Gender and Society, 19, 829-859.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0891243205278639 [5] Connell, R. W. (1987). Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, Cambridge: Polity Press, Stanford: Stanford University Press. [6] Connell, R W. (1995). Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press. [7] Connell, R W. (2005). Growing up Masculine: Rethinking the Significance of Adolescence in the Making of Masculinities. Irish Journal of Sociology, 14, 11-28. [8] Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, 43, 1241-1299.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1229039 [9] Davies, B. (2003). Frogs and Snails and Feminist Tales: Preschool Children and Gender (Rev. ed.). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. [10] de Beauvoir, S. (1949/2011). The Second Sex. London: Vintage Books. [11] de los Reyes, P., & Mulinari, D. (2005). Intersektionalitet: Kritiska reflektioner över (o)jämlikhetens landskap. [Intersectionality: Critical Reflections on the Landscape of (In)equality]. Malmö: Liber. [12] Deutsch, F. M. (2007). Undoing Gender. Gender & Society, 21, 106-127.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0891243206293577 [13] Dewey, J., & McLellean, J. A. (1889). Applied Psychology. An Introduction to the Principles and Practice of Education. Chicago, IL: Educational Publishing Company.
https://archive.org/details/appliedpsycholog00mclerich [14] Diffey, T. J. (1995). What Can We Learn from Art? Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 73, 204-211.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00048409512346541 [15] Du Bois, W. E. B. (1903). The Souls of Black Folk. Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library.
http://web.archive.org/web/20081004090243/
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/DubSoul.html [16] Eisner, E. (2008). Chap. 1: Art and Knowledge. In J. G. Knowles, & A. L. Cole (Eds.), Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research: Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples, and Issues (pp. 3-12). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781452226545.n1 [17] Foucault, M. (1977/1995). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (2nd Vintage Books ed.). New York: Vintage Books. [18] Gadamer, H.-G. (2013/1977). Konst som spel, symbol och fest [Die Aktualitet des Schönen-Kunst als Spiel, Symbol und Fest]. (P. Sällström, Trans.). Ludvika: Dualis. [19] Gaut, B. (2003). Chap. 25: Art and Knowledge. In J. Levinson (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics (pp. 436-450). Oxford: Oxford University Press. [20] Griffiths, G. (1999). Other. In B. Ashcroft, G. Griffiths, & H. Tiffin (Eds.), Key Concepts in Postcolonial Studies (pp. 169-173). London: Routledge. [21] Hacking, I. (1999). The Social Construction of What? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [22] Hällgren, C. (2005). “Working Harder to Be the Same”: Everyday Racism among Young Men and Women in Sweden. Race, Ethnicity and Education, 8, 319-342.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13613320500174499 [23] Hällgren, C. (2006). Researching and Developing Swedkid: A Swedish Case Study at the Intersection of the Web, Racism and Education. PhD Thesis, Umeå: Umeå University. [24] Hällgren, C. (2013a). Chap. 1: Gendered Other Hidden Girl. In G.-M. Frånberg, C. Hällgren, & E. Dunkels (Eds.), Invisible Girl (pp. 17-21). Umeå: Umeå University.
https://iml.edusci.umu.se/invisiblegirl [25] Hällgren, C. (2013b). Chap. 5: The Girlish Condition. In G.-M. Frånberg, C. Hällgren, & E. Dunkels (Eds.), Invisible Girl (pp. 55-63). Umeå: Umeå University.
https://iml.edusci.umu.se/invisiblegirl [26] Hällgren, C. (2015). Chap. 3: —Be a Man! Art Blended Research to Explore Boys’ Gender Making. In C. Hällgren, E. Dunkels, & G.-M. Frånberg (Eds.), Invisible Boy: The Making of Contemporary Masculinities (pp. 17-30). Umeå: Umeå University.
http://www.invisibleboy.org [27] Hällgren, C., Dunkels, E., & Frånberg, G.-M. (Eds.) (2015). Invisible Boy: The Making of Contemporary Masculinities. Umeå: Umeå University.
http://www.invisibleboy.org [28] Heidegger, M. (1927/2008). Being and Time. (J. Macquarrie, & E. Robinson, Trans.). New York: Harper Perennial/Modern Thought. [29] Hirdman, Y. (1988). Genussystemet-reflexioner kring kvinnors sociala underordning. [The Gender Order-Reflections about the Social Subordination of Women]. Kvinnovetenskapligtidskrift, [Journal of Gender Science], 3, 49-63. [30] Jewitt, C. (Ed.) (2009). The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis. London: Routledge. [31] Kane, E. W. (2006). “No Way My Boys Are Going to Be Like That!”: Parents’ Responses to Children’s Gender Nonconformity. Gender & Society, 20, 149-176.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0891243205284276 [32] Kane, E. W. (2012). The Gender Trap: Parents and the Pitfalls of Raising Boys and Girls. New York: New York University Press. [33] Kessler, J. S., & McKenna, W. (1978). Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach. New York: Wiley. [34] Knowles, J. G., & Cole, A. L. (2008). Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research: Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples, and Issues. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781452226545 [35] Knowles, M. S. (1950). Informal Adult Education: A Guide for Administrators, Leaders, and Teachers. New York: Association Press. [36] Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Multimodal Discourse. London: Bloomsbury Academic. [37] Lacan, J. (1949/2010). The Mirror Stage. In C. Lemert (Ed.), Social Theory: The Multicultural, Global and Classic Readings (2010) (pp. 343-344). Philadelphia, PA: Westview Press. [38] Livingston, P. (2013). History of the Ontology of Art. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2013 ed.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University.
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2013/entries/art-ontology-history/ [39] Mulvey, L. (1975). Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Screen, 16, 6-18.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/screen/16.3.6 [40] Nietzsche, F. W., Swensen, A. J., & Clark, M. (1887/1998). On the Genealogy of Morality: A Polemic (Electronic Resource). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. [41] Polanyi, M. (1983). The Tacit Dimension. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith. [42] Rahilly, E. P. (2015). The Gender Binary Meets the Gender-Variant Child: Parents’ Negotiations with Childhood Gender Variance. Gender & Society, 29, 338-361.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0891243214563069 [43] Ridgeway, C. L. (2009). Framed Before We Know It: How Gender Shapes Social Relations. Gender & Society, 23, 145-160. [44] Rubin, G. (1975). Chap. 8: The Traffic in Women: Notes on the “Political Economy” of Sex. In R. R. Reiter (Ed.), Toward an Anthropology of Women (pp. 157-210). New York: Monthly Review Press. [45] Sartre, J.-P. (1943/2005). Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology. London: Routledge. [46] Searle, J. R. (2011). Making the Social World: The Structure of Human Civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [47] Solórzano, D. G., & Yosso, T. J. (2002). Critical Race Methodology: Counter-Storytelling as an Analytical Framework for Education Research. Qualitative Inquiry, 8, 23-44.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/107780040200800103 [48] Sousanis, N. (2015). Unflattening. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [49] Taylor, C. (1994). The Politics of Recognition. In D. T. Goldberg (Ed.), Multiculturalism: A Critical Reader (pp. 75-106). Oxford: Blackwell. [50] Thomasson, A. L. (2005). The Ontology of Art and Knowledge in Aesthetics. Journal of Aesthetics & Art Criticism, 63, 221-230.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0021-8529.2005.00202.x [51] United Nations (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights. New York: United Nations. [52] van Leeuwen, T. (2011). Chap. 28: Multimodality and Multimodal Research. In E. Margolis, & L. Pauwels (Eds.), Visual Research Methods (pp. 549-569). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781446268278.n28 [53] Weber, S. (2008). Chap. 4: Visual Images in Research. In: J. G. Knowles, & A. L. Cole (Eds.), Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research: Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples, and Issues (pp. 41-53). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781452226545.n4 [54] West, C., & Zimmerman, D. H. (1987). Doing Gender. Gender and Society, 1, 125-151.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0891243287001002002 [55] Westbrook, L., & Shilt, K. (2014). Doing Gender, Determining Gender: Transgender People, Gender Panics, and the Maintenance of the Sex/Gender/Sexuality System. Gender and Society, 28, 32-57.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0891243213503203 [56] Young, I. M. (2005). On Female Body Experience: “Throwing Like a Girl” and Other Essays. Studies in Feminist Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/0195161920.001.0001
[1] Arendt, H. (1958). The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [2] Bem, S. L. (1993). Lenses of Gender: Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press. [3] Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. [4] Connell, R. W., & Messerschmidt, J. W. (2005). Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept. Gender and Society, 19, 829-859.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0891243205278639 [5] Connell, R. W. (1987). Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, Cambridge: Polity Press, Stanford: Stanford University Press. [6] Connell, R W. (1995). Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press. [7] Connell, R W. (2005). Growing up Masculine: Rethinking the Significance of Adolescence in the Making of Masculinities. Irish Journal of Sociology, 14, 11-28. [8] Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, 43, 1241-1299.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1229039 [9] Davies, B. (2003). Frogs and Snails and Feminist Tales: Preschool Children and Gender (Rev. ed.). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. [10] de Beauvoir, S. (1949/2011). The Second Sex. London: Vintage Books. [11] de los Reyes, P., & Mulinari, D. (2005). Intersektionalitet: Kritiska reflektioner över (o)jämlikhetens landskap. [Intersectionality: Critical Reflections on the Landscape of (In)equality]. Malmö: Liber. [12] Deutsch, F. M. (2007). Undoing Gender. Gender & Society, 21, 106-127.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0891243206293577 [13] Dewey, J., & McLellean, J. A. (1889). Applied Psychology. An Introduction to the Principles and Practice of Education. Chicago, IL: Educational Publishing Company.
https://archive.org/details/appliedpsycholog00mclerich [14] Diffey, T. J. (1995). What Can We Learn from Art? Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 73, 204-211.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00048409512346541 [15] Du Bois, W. E. B. (1903). The Souls of Black Folk. Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library.
http://web.archive.org/web/20081004090243/
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/DubSoul.html [16] Eisner, E. (2008). Chap. 1: Art and Knowledge. In J. G. Knowles, & A. L. Cole (Eds.), Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research: Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples, and Issues (pp. 3-12). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781452226545.n1 [17] Foucault, M. (1977/1995). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (2nd Vintage Books ed.). New York: Vintage Books. [18] Gadamer, H.-G. (2013/1977). Konst som spel, symbol och fest [Die Aktualitet des Schönen-Kunst als Spiel, Symbol und Fest]. (P. Sällström, Trans.). Ludvika: Dualis. [19] Gaut, B. (2003). Chap. 25: Art and Knowledge. In J. Levinson (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics (pp. 436-450). Oxford: Oxford University Press. [20] Griffiths, G. (1999). Other. In B. Ashcroft, G. Griffiths, & H. Tiffin (Eds.), Key Concepts in Postcolonial Studies (pp. 169-173). London: Routledge. [21] Hacking, I. (1999). The Social Construction of What? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [22] Hällgren, C. (2005). “Working Harder to Be the Same”: Everyday Racism among Young Men and Women in Sweden. Race, Ethnicity and Education, 8, 319-342.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13613320500174499 [23] Hällgren, C. (2006). Researching and Developing Swedkid: A Swedish Case Study at the Intersection of the Web, Racism and Education. PhD Thesis, Umeå: Umeå University. [24] Hällgren, C. (2013a). Chap. 1: Gendered Other Hidden Girl. In G.-M. Frånberg, C. Hällgren, & E. Dunkels (Eds.), Invisible Girl (pp. 17-21). Umeå: Umeå University.
https://iml.edusci.umu.se/invisiblegirl [25] Hällgren, C. (2013b). Chap. 5: The Girlish Condition. In G.-M. Frånberg, C. Hällgren, & E. Dunkels (Eds.), Invisible Girl (pp. 55-63). Umeå: Umeå University.
https://iml.edusci.umu.se/invisiblegirl [26] Hällgren, C. (2015). Chap. 3: —Be a Man! Art Blended Research to Explore Boys’ Gender Making. In C. Hällgren, E. Dunkels, & G.-M. Frånberg (Eds.), Invisible Boy: The Making of Contemporary Masculinities (pp. 17-30). Umeå: Umeå University.
http://www.invisibleboy.org [27] Hällgren, C., Dunkels, E., & Frånberg, G.-M. (Eds.) (2015). Invisible Boy: The Making of Contemporary Masculinities. Umeå: Umeå University.
http://www.invisibleboy.org [28] Heidegger, M. (1927/2008). Being and Time. (J. Macquarrie, & E. Robinson, Trans.). New York: Harper Perennial/Modern Thought. [29] Hirdman, Y. (1988). Genussystemet-reflexioner kring kvinnors sociala underordning. [The Gender Order-Reflections about the Social Subordination of Women]. Kvinnovetenskapligtidskrift, [Journal of Gender Science], 3, 49-63. [30] Jewitt, C. (Ed.) (2009). The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis. London: Routledge. [31] Kane, E. W. (2006). “No Way My Boys Are Going to Be Like That!”: Parents’ Responses to Children’s Gender Nonconformity. Gender & Society, 20, 149-176.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0891243205284276 [32] Kane, E. W. (2012). The Gender Trap: Parents and the Pitfalls of Raising Boys and Girls. New York: New York University Press. [33] Kessler, J. S., & McKenna, W. (1978). Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach. New York: Wiley. [34] Knowles, J. G., & Cole, A. L. (2008). Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research: Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples, and Issues. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781452226545 [35] Knowles, M. S. (1950). Informal Adult Education: A Guide for Administrators, Leaders, and Teachers. New York: Association Press. [36] Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Multimodal Discourse. London: Bloomsbury Academic. [37] Lacan, J. (1949/2010). The Mirror Stage. In C. Lemert (Ed.), Social Theory: The Multicultural, Global and Classic Readings (2010) (pp. 343-344). Philadelphia, PA: Westview Press. [38] Livingston, P. (2013). History of the Ontology of Art. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2013 ed.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University.
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2013/entries/art-ontology-history/ [39] Mulvey, L. (1975). Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Screen, 16, 6-18.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/screen/16.3.6 [40] Nietzsche, F. W., Swensen, A. J., & Clark, M. (1887/1998). On the Genealogy of Morality: A Polemic (Electronic Resource). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. [41] Polanyi, M. (1983). The Tacit Dimension. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith. [42] Rahilly, E. P. (2015). The Gender Binary Meets the Gender-Variant Child: Parents’ Negotiations with Childhood Gender Variance. Gender & Society, 29, 338-361.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0891243214563069 [43] Ridgeway, C. L. (2009). Framed Before We Know It: How Gender Shapes Social Relations. Gender & Society, 23, 145-160. [44] Rubin, G. (1975). Chap. 8: The Traffic in Women: Notes on the “Political Economy” of Sex. In R. R. Reiter (Ed.), Toward an Anthropology of Women (pp. 157-210). New York: Monthly Review Press. [45] Sartre, J.-P. (1943/2005). Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology. London: Routledge. [46] Searle, J. R. (2011). Making the Social World: The Structure of Human Civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [47] Solórzano, D. G., & Yosso, T. J. (2002). Critical Race Methodology: Counter-Storytelling as an Analytical Framework for Education Research. Qualitative Inquiry, 8, 23-44.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/107780040200800103 [48] Sousanis, N. (2015). Unflattening. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [49] Taylor, C. (1994). The Politics of Recognition. In D. T. Goldberg (Ed.), Multiculturalism: A Critical Reader (pp. 75-106). Oxford: Blackwell. [50] Thomasson, A. L. (2005). The Ontology of Art and Knowledge in Aesthetics. Journal of Aesthetics & Art Criticism, 63, 221-230.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0021-8529.2005.00202.x [51] United Nations (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights. New York: United Nations. [52] van Leeuwen, T. (2011). Chap. 28: Multimodality and Multimodal Research. In E. Margolis, & L. Pauwels (Eds.), Visual Research Methods (pp. 549-569). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781446268278.n28 [53] Weber, S. (2008). Chap. 4: Visual Images in Research. In: J. G. Knowles, & A. L. Cole (Eds.), Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research: Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples, and Issues (pp. 41-53). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781452226545.n4 [54] West, C., & Zimmerman, D. H. (1987). Doing Gender. Gender and Society, 1, 125-151.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0891243287001002002 [55] Westbrook, L., & Shilt, K. (2014). Doing Gender, Determining Gender: Transgender People, Gender Panics, and the Maintenance of the Sex/Gender/Sexuality System. Gender and Society, 28, 32-57.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0891243213503203 [56] Young, I. M. (2005). On Female Body Experience: “Throwing Like a Girl” and Other Essays. Studies in Feminist Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/0195161920.001.0001