{"id":557,"date":"2012-12-02T13:14:55","date_gmt":"2012-12-02T18:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli-research\/?p=557"},"modified":"2012-12-02T13:14:55","modified_gmt":"2012-12-02T18:14:55","slug":"putting-the-puzzle-pieces-together-how-interviewing-shapes-the-research-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli-research\/2012\/12\/02\/putting-the-puzzle-pieces-together-how-interviewing-shapes-the-research-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting the Puzzle Pieces Together: how interviewing shapes the research process"},"content":{"rendered":"

Formulating\u00a0my research focus this fall, I wanted to understand how\u00a0teaching artists can collaborate with social workers when engaging in art intervention\u00a0with\u00a0populations affected by incarceration.\u00a0I chose to use the Judy Dworin Performance Project (JDPP), a arts organization in Hartford that works with incarcerated women and youth with parents in prison, \u00a0as my case study.\u00a0 The JDPP Bridging Boundaries<\/a>\u00a0program\u00a0has established a working relationship with mental health professionals at each of their arts program sites: York Correctional, Moylan Elementary, Church of the Good Sheppard after school program, and A.I. Prince Technical High School. Moving forward with the study, I knew what I was interested in, but struggled to formulate a focused research question.<\/p>\n

I began my first community partner interview armed with twenty five interview questions in hand. Rachael Barlow’s workshop on how to phrase our questions and shape our responses helped me feel prepared for this first interview, but did not remove the edge of nervousness. Sitting across from an elementary school social worker I read the first question off the sheet in front of me \u201cWhat is your current degree and did you receive any other special training beyond this degree?\u201d From this point the interview evolved naturally. I worked to maintain eye contact and connection, while intermittently jotting down notes on important points the social worker said. As the interview drew to a close I glanced back down at the sheet of questions in front of me; over the hour-long interview we had\u00a0moved into the mode of conversation, but the natural progression of the interview touched upon each of my question topics. I soon discovered that interviewing was a balance of following the direction of the interviewee, while still steering the conversation back to the topic of my research.<\/p>\n

I entered my second interview a little less nervous, and slightly more focused on the goals of my research question. Back in early September I first wrote my research question about the collaboration between social workers and teaching artists.\u00a0 At the time, I was overwhelmed by the differences I expected to find amongst the after-school program, elementary school, high school, and prison. Yet, once I immersed myself in the interview process, I was surprised to find that differences did not emerge in my interviews as often as commonalities did.<\/p>\n

Each of the social workers talked about what I have termed the “culture of silence” – the way in which women, youths, and children have silenced their emotions and experiences due to the stigma, pain and shame associated with incarceration. Common themes also arose as we discussed the strengths and challenges of teaching artists and social workers collaborating to provide arts interventions for populations affected by incarceration. Through my interviews with the social workers it became clear that I also needed to interview the teaching artists. \u00a0Only then would I be able to understand the collaboration, as well as incorporate the strengths of both perspectives into my research. Again, I was surprised to find strong connections between the benefits and challenges mentioned by the teaching artists in relation to the social workers\u2019 responses.<\/p>\n

As I began my observations of the JDPP art programs I was able to see for myself the patterns highlighted in the interviews. The teaching artists and social workers both talked about how art uncovers memories and emotions that the social workers can then follow up on. Observing the arts group and then the support group at York Correctional Institution, I was able to see how the material that unfolded in the performance group was processed the following week in the support group. The combination of interviews and observations began to create a clear picture of the collaboration, simultaneously allowing me to narrow my research question.<\/p>\n

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JDPP: Bridging Boundaries in action (photo: JDPP website)<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The perspectives of the teaching artists and social workers have together created an image of how artists and mental health professionals can collaborate to provide JDPP: Bridging Boundaries with comprehensive art interventions for populations affected by incarceration. Personally, my study has been like a puzzle, finding the different pieces of the collaboration and beginning to understand how they fit together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Formulating\u00a0my research focus this fall, I wanted to understand how\u00a0teaching artists can collaborate with social workers when engaging in art intervention\u00a0with\u00a0populations affected by incarceration.\u00a0I chose to use the Judy Dworin Performance Project (JDPP), a arts organization in Hartford that works with incarcerated women and youth with parents in prison, \u00a0as my case study.\u00a0 The JDPP […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":479,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[30,7,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/479"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":601,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions\/601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}