Arts in Health, also known as Arts for Health, is an umbrella term used to describe the domain of using the arts to enhance our (mental) health and well-being. It involves a heterogeneous range of professionals who use the arts in various ways, with different goals and outcomes. The practices of these professionals can be placed on a continuum based on the variety of goals and outcomes, ranging from promoting social connection or well-being to treating (mental) health conditions. Recent discussions in the Netherlands have raised questions about the position of creative arts therapists on this continuum. This opinion paper addresses this issue by providing a brief overview of the development of the profession of creative arts therapists, the working areas of creative arts therapists and the growing evidence base of creative arts therapeutic interventions. The practices of creative arts therapists are positioned on the continuum, where the emphasis on and accountability for the clients’ (mental) health increases and evidence-informed use of the arts within a more clearly delineated and legally safeguarded professional framework are present. Knowing where the practices of creative arts therapists are placed can assist in identifying when to choose creative arts therapists, other professionals combining arts and healthcare, or a combination of professionals.
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From June 28 to July 7 the National Arts Festival took place in Grahamstown, South Africa. For the 20th time Cue, a daily print newspaper about the Festival, was produced by Rhodes University journalism students. It was the first time that the newspaper was printed in full color. Cue is at the core of journalistic production during the Festival. But nowadays, what is a newspaper without pictures or without an online edition? Cue Pix, run by the photo department at the School of Journalism and Media Studies in the AMM (African Media Matrix) provides the pictures. Cue Online is run by the NML (New Media Lab) in the same building and is mostly shoveling print content online. Cue Radio and Cue TV take care of the audio and video, and broadcast during the Festival. Up to 2000 copies of Cue newspaper were printed daily with the number of sold copies around 1600. The newspaper was sold in the Grahamstown streets for 3 Rand. The number of pages of Cue ranges from 16 to 20, including advertisements. Cue is produced by students and lecturers of the School of Journalism and consists of about 50 student-reporters, 10 sub-editors, and 2 editors (who are generally University staff). The productions layout is taken care of by a group of design students. Twenty students from the photo department take care of the pictures and rework them with Adobes Photoshop. Cue TV and Cue Radio (with a total of about 10 students) brought their reporting skills to the Festival as well. Reporting about the Festival by Cue is a major happening that has been growing over the years. From print to TV, to radio and online. This is fantastic, but also reflects equal problems in the media industry: each media platform runs their own show. Print, TV, radio and photography: they all have their own targets, content production, and some coordination. In order to take full advantage of the different possibilities of all the media platforms, convergence is the keyword.
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Het onderzoek beslaat 3 grote thema's: Arts-based Research in al zijn facetten, de ontwikkeling van studenten tot docenten en het doen van onderzoek op de lerarenopleidingen.
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The focus of the thesis is an exploration into students’ vocational knowledge in the context of Dutch vocational education and training (VET). The reason students’ vocational knowledge requires exploration is because there is no consensus among scholars in the field of VET about how to theorise the nature of students’ vocational knowledge; most (not all) scholars rely on dichotomous conceptualisations, such as theory versus practice, general versus specific or explicit versus implicit. However, such commonly used dichotomies are not very helpful to understand the complex nature of vocational knowledge. Vocational knowledge is more than putting bits of theoretical and practical knowledge together, it is characterised by sometimes-intimate relationships between knowledge and actions. As a result of the above-mentioned gap in the VET literature, there is little empirical research on how VET students develop vocational knowledge and the extent to which this is occupation-specific knowledge. To understand students’ vocational knowledge, four different aims are formulated and carried out in four studies. The aim of the first study is to identify powerful vocational learning environments to enable the selection of a case that represents high quality vocational learning and teaching. With an eye on analysing students’ vocational knowledge, the second study aims to conceptualise the nature of vocational knowledge that avoids dichotomies. Therefore, two conceptual frameworks are integrated; the idea of contextualising is introduced which is based on cultural-historical theory to highlight the crucial role activity plays in knowledge development and to understand the relationships between the mind (i.e., what people think (and feel)), and action (i.e., what people do). Secondly, the theory is supplemented with ideas from inferentialism, a philosophical semantic theory of meaning to provide a useful way to focus on students’ processes of knowing and to reveal students’ vocational knowledge in terms of ongoing reasoning processes. The third study uses the conceptualisation of vocational knowledge to explore how students develop vocational knowledge in occupational practice, and to illustrate the process of contextualising. The forth study aims to describe what characterises students’ vocational knowledge using an analytic framework that distinguishes between occupation-specific knowledge components and qualities. This thesis contributes to research scholarship in the field of VET and an understanding of students’ vocational knowledge in practice. The theoretical framework of contextualising supplemented with inferentialism provides an alternative way to focus on students’ processes of knowing and helps to reveal students’ vocational knowledge in terms of reasoning processes. The empirical explorations and illustrations of students’ vocational knowledge contribute to the scholarly literature and practice on understanding the nature of vocational knowledge, how students develop vocational knowledge and what characterises their vocational knowledge. The intention to introduce the idea of contextualising is not about reinventing the wheel but rather an attempt to understand how it turns and how it functions. The intention of this thesis is to encourage dialogue and move the debate about the nature of vocational knowledge further, and hence, to provide some “food for thought”.
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In de recensie worden systematisch de verschillende onderdelen van het boek besproken. De door ons aangedragen structuur wordt gevolgd. Via de uitgangspunten van praktijkgericht onderzoek, de kenmerken van ABR en de kwaliteitscriteria zoals door ons geformuleerd, komen vervolgens de verschillende disciplines aan bod en wordt het afsluitende hoofdstuk kort beschreven. Door de gekozen schrijfstructuur wordt onze opbouw mooi voor het voetlicht gebracht. Alhoewel we op onderdelen gekozen zouden hebben voor andere accenten, wordt zo een herkenbaar verhaal gepresenteerd. Wel is het jammer dat we voor de recensent onvoldoende duidelijk hebben kunnen maken waarom we het zo belangrijk vinden dat er meer ruimte komt voor ABR in het sociaal domein
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Het lectoraat Lifelong Learning in Music & the Arts van de Hanzehogeschool Groningen en de Hogeschool der Kunsten in Den Haag is onderdeel van het sinds kort ingerichte Kenniscentrum Kunst en Samenleving van de Hanzehogeschool Groningen en heeft het project „Het Cross Arts Laboratorium‟ vormgegeven. Het resultaat is dit rapport van het onderzoeksproject dat als een reisbeschrijving is beschreven. Het is een pleidooi geworden voor het belang van interdisciplinair samenwerken tussen kunstenaars en musici. Samen leren en ontdekken binnen de kunsten. Studenten van het Prins Claus Conservatorium Groningen, Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag en Academie Minerva Groningen en o.l.v. van Horst Rickels en Elvira Wersche, hebben deelgenomen en samengewerkt aan het project in 2010 op het eiland Schiermonnikoog. Centraal stond de vraag op welke wijze interdisciplinaire samenwerking tussen musici en beeldend kunstenaars kan leiden tot artistieke vernieuwing.Ook de impact voor het curriculum wordt beschreven en werkbare modellen hiervoor onderzocht.
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Aim We investigated the extent and characteristics of injuries in contemporary dance students. Methods During one academic year, 134 students of Bachelor dance and Bachelor dance teacher from Codarts University of the Arts (Rotterdam, the Netherlands) were prospectively monitored monthly, using the Performing Artist and Athlete Health Monitor which includes the Oslo Sports Trauma Research Centre Questionnaire on Health Problems. Results 130 students were included in the analyses. The response rate of monthly completed questionnaires was 80%. During the academic year, 97% of students reported at least one injury, mental complaint or other health problem. The 1-year injury incidence proportion was 81%. Of these injured students, 58% were substantially injured (ie, problems leading to moderate or severe reductions in training volume or performance or complete inability to participate in activities). The monthly injury proportion (all injuries) ranged from 23% to 43% and for substantial injuries from 6% to 17%. The injury incidence rate per 1000 hours dance exposure was 1.9 (95% CI 1.7 to 2.2). Ankle/foot (30%), lower back (17%) and knee (15%) were the most common sites of injury. Conclusion Contemporary dance students are at high risk for injuries. Injury prevention programmes among contemporary dance students should focus on the ankle/foot, lower back and knee.
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Interviews with students, lecturers, researchers, management and professional field.
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Individuals with autism increasingly enroll in universities, but little is known about predictors for their success. This study developed predictive models for the academic success of autistic bachelor students (N=101) in comparison to students with other health conditions (N=2465) and students with no health conditions (N=25,077). We applied propensity score weighting to balance outcomes. The research showed that autistic students’ academic success was predictable, and these predictions were more accurate than predictions of their peers’ success. For first-year success, study choice issues were the most important predictors (parallel program and application timing). Issues with participation in pre-education (missingness of grades in pre-educational records) and delays at the beginning of autistic students’ studies (reflected in age) were the most influential predictors for the second-year success and delays in the second and final year of their bachelor’s program. In addition, academic performance (average grades) was the strongest predictor for degree completion in 3 years. These insights can enable universities to develop tailored support for autistic students. Using early warning signals from administrative data, institutions can lower dropout risk and increase degree completion for autistic students.
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Introduction: Depression can be a serious problem in young adult students. There is a need to implement and monitor prevention interventions for these students. Emotion-regulating improvisational music therapy (EIMT) was developed to prevent depression. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of EIMT for use in practice for young adult students with depressive symptoms in a university context. Method: A process evaluation was conducted embedded in a larger research project. Eleven students, three music therapists and five referrers were interviewed. The music therapists also completed evaluation forms. Data were collected concerning client attendance, treatment integrity, musical components used to synchronise, and experiences with EIMT and referral. Results: Client attendance (90%) and treatment integrity were evaluated to be sufficient (therapist adherence 83%; competence 84%). The music therapists used mostly rhythm to synchronise (38 of 99 times). The students and music therapists reported that EIMT and its elements evoked changes in all emotion regulation components. The students reported that synchronisation elicited meaningful experiences of expressing joy, feeling heard, feeling joy and bodily responses of relaxation. The music therapists found the manual useful for applying EIMT. The student counsellors experienced EIMT as an appropriate way to support students due to its preventive character. Discussion: EIMT appears to be a feasible means of evoking changes in emotion regulation components in young adult students with depressive symptoms in a university context. More studies are needed to create a more nuanced and evidence-based understanding of the feasibility of EIMT, processes of change and treatment integrity.
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