Past buoy lines : an arts-based inquiry into living and knowing giftedness

• Main Author: Richardson, Pamela
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2010
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/28696

In this dissertation, I articulate an approach to knowing and living giftedness based in arts-based educational inquiry practices (Barone & Eisner, 1997; Knowles & Cole, 2008; Springgay, Irwin, Leggo & Gouzouasis, 2009). This work represents aspects of a four-year inquiry based in poetic and narrative writing (Leggo, 2005; 2008), during which I facilitated community development projects with radically early entrants to university (adolescents who entered university at 14 or 15). Here I expand upon methodological approaches to research in the field of Gifted Education and challenge categorical definitions of giftedness. Through a series of artful inquiries, including poetry, narrative, autobiography, biography, literary analysis, digital storytelling and field research, I model intrinsically relational, emotional and situated ways of relating to gifts as a researcher and educator. Woven through these inquiries are the themes of poetry, polyphony, fluidity and freedom. These are explored as aesthetic practices underlying an arts-based understanding of giftedness.