The transformative potential of the signature pedagogies of arts education: a Deweyan pragmatist analysis

The transformative potential of the signature pedagogies of arts education: a Deweyan pragmatist analysis

Signature pedagogies are pedagogical activities that capture, represent, and characterise ways of thinking, acting, and doing within specific disciplines or professions (Shulman, 2005). As forms of instruction, signature pedagogies are designed to prepare learners for effective engagement and participation in a discipline or community of practice. Dinham (2022) proposes six signature pedagogies that articulate ways of knowing, being and doing to characterise Arts education. This paper provides an analysis of the learning opportunities and pedagogical implications inherent within these signature pedagogies through the lens of pragmatist learning theory (Dewey, 1934; Elkjaer, 2018; Greene, 2000; 2001; Holdo, 2022). A reflexive methodological approach (Alvesson and Skolberg, 2009) is applied during a close reading (Greenham, 2018) of Dinham's (2022) six signature pedagogies for arts education. The analysis explicates multifaceted pedagogical intentions that are characterised by epistemological, ontological, and axiological qualities inherent within these signature pedagogies. The implications for how teachers may effectively position and scaffold learners to address the transformative intentions of learning in and through the arts is considered and discussed.