Autoethnography

This study adopts an autoethnographic approach to research data to engage the reader in new ways of thinking and viewing the phenomenon of the conductor- music educator. Autoethnography, which falls into the broader field of Arts-Based Educational Research (Barone & Eisner, 2008), has the goal of empowering its readers to see educational phenomena in new ways and to question what they might have left unasked (Reed-Danahay, 2009). Denzin (2006) writes that ―[t]hrough our writing and our talk, we enact the worlds we study...instruct our readers about this world and how we see it...it challenges, contests, or endorses the official, hegemonic ways of seeing and representing the other‖ (Denzin, 2006, p. 422).

The autoethnographic mode of inquiry provides the researcher with the opportunity to experiment with the research text in the hope that it will allow the reader to raise important educational questions in the mind of the reader. The language used is often evocative and designed to stimulate the reader‘s imagination as well as to challenge them to insert their own life stories, opinions and preconceptions into the narrative thus allowing them to create their own personal meaning from the text (Barone & Eisner, 2008). One of the aims of autoethnography is the capacity to position readers in the time and place of the story being told, and in a way that entices the reader to enter the story and experience all of its potential and possible outcomes (van Manen, 1990; Stake, 1995; Reed-Danahay, 1997; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Dimaggio, Salvatore, Azzara, & Ctania, 2003; Anderson, 2006; Barrett & Stauffer, 2009; Lee, 2009).

The choice to use autobiographical data is often driven by the questions the researcher asks. Questions that pertain to the researchers own professional practice

themselves (Tenni, Smyth, & Boucher, 2003). In this research study the questions were shaped partially from my personal desire to identify what it is I do as a conductor and music educator. To answer the research questions it was necessary to position myself in the research questions and the data, through interrogating my practice and beliefs through self-study. It‘s not about presenting one‘s self as competent, in charge or organised, it is about writing rich and full accounts of one‘s professional practice. It is not just about writing of the successes which are easy to share. But it is also about sharing the embarrassing moments, inconsistencies, mistakes and self-doubt which are more difficult to describe. However, these experiences are part of what make the researcher who they are and these stories must be included; it is the disconnected, irrational and illogical thoughts that come from reflecting on our own practice that have the potential to create a great wealth of issues for analysis (Tenni, Smyth, & Boucher, 2003).

As teacher-researchers our daily practice informs our theoretical constructs. It informs what we choose to write about and how we write it is based upon the ways we understand the world and ourselves (Denzin, 2006; Bartleet & Hultgren, 2008). One of the challenges for autobiographical writers is the necessity to step outside the theoretical constructs upon which the data is predicated (Tenni, Smyth, & Boucher, 2003).

Autoethnography allows researchers to gain an understanding of ‗self‘ in relation to others. Loughran, Berry and Corrigan (2001) offer that when studying one‘s own practice it is common for data to be drawn from personal journals, discussions and observations. Methodologically, the study of self draws on data sources that are appropriate to examine the issues, problems or dilemmas that are of

concern to the teacher educator (Loughran, Berry, & Corrigan, 2001). If teachers document and describe what it is they have come to understand and are currently experiencing in their teaching, then a significant knowledge base may be developed to assist those that follow. For Tenni, Smyth and Boucher (2003) the study of self aids in the transformation of teaching. It assists the teacher to meet the aims of modelling good practice to students, peers and most importantly to one‘s self through reflection.

Data generation becomes problematic when working with one‘s own life. The focus on self and our practice, as researchers and practitioners, requires that we reveal, in all its complexity and as authentically as we can, what we do, how and why we do it and what this means about us and the field or context in which we operate (Tenni, Smyth, & Boucher, 2003).

The data researchers collect about themselves may be used in two ways. Firstly, some of the studies maybe extremely personal where most of the data collected are about the researcher. Other studies involve data which are collected from multiple sources where one of the sources is about the researcher (Tenni, Smyth, & Boucher, 2003). As a participant in the study, the researcher may keep a journal, personal diary or video footage that records their thoughts, feelings and actions as part of the processes of data collection and analysis in order to ensure that validity and rigour. Data collection methods of journaling, video-stimulated interviews and semi-structured interviews employed in this study are discussed in sections 3.7.2, 3.7.3 and 3.7.4 respectively.