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Participatory Action Research with Chinese-American Families Participatory Action Research with Chinese-American Families: Developing Digital Prototypes of Chinese Art Education Resources Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Yinghua Wang, MFA Graduate Program in Art Education The Ohio State University 2013 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Jennifer Eisenhauer, Advisor Dr. Deborah L. Smith-Shank, Co-Advisor Dr. Karen Hutzel Dr. Clayton Funk Copyrighted by Yinghua Wang 2013 ABSTRACT This study explores a collaborative and co-learning process with three Chinese-American families living in the Bay Area, California. These families and the researcher worked together toward creating an interactive website that sought to make learning Chinese art and culture fun and meaningful for Chinese-American children. The families were involved in the design process and discussed how Chinese children’s identity is shaped by their family cultures and educational experiences. The participants discussed how children learn about Chinese art and culture, the kinds of Chinese art they can learn from their communities, and how they might appreciate and talk about Chinese art. The participants also reviewed the interactive and educational websites the children used, discussed the usability, visual design, interactivity, and educational features of the website, and iterated and finalized the paper prototypes of the website. This participatory process is expected to encourage mutual understanding between the parents and the children, incorporate children’s needs and voices into the educational website design, and finally inspire changes in their future lives. ii The study examines the theories of multicultural art education, and how they are related to the participatory action research methodology. It also looks at how the research is connected to the Chinese-American community, and why the study uses Chinese traditional art as the main content of the participatory process. This study explores the technological perspective of the research, which includes a discussion of the theoretical support for using interactive technology in education, current practices in art education, an analysis of usability and user-centered design process, and a review of a list of educational websites. This study could be read as a step-by-step account of how to collaborate with the minority groups to build socially and culturally sustainable developments. Instead of studying on people, this study chose to collaborate with the participants to figure out problems, finding solutions, and thus inspire changes to their lives. Working with the participants encouraged them to actively engage into the process that can accomplish a set of goals, benefit their lives, and create a better foundation for future action. I believe this study provided a foundation and an example for those researchers and organizations that want to conduct PAR studies in minority communities. iii DEDICATION Dedicated to the Chinese-American families in the Bay Area and all those who supported me in this process. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I wish to thank my advisor Dr. Jennifer Eisenhauer for her intellectual support, encouragement and attention to detail. Without her support and continuous feedback and edits, this research would not have been possible to complete. Dr. Eisenhauer has made me a better researcher and writer though this research and the three years we have worked together. I appreciate everything she has done for me and the amount of time she has invested in helping me to write and complete my dissertation. I also wish to thank Dr. Smith-Shank to help me edit my dissertation in the final semester of my study. She kindly read through all the chapters and gave me helpful suggestions. I also wish to express my gratitude to my other committee members, Dr. Hutzel and Dr. Funk, for their kind support and insightful suggestions. Second, I wish to express my deep appreciation to the three Chinese-American families involved in this study. They gave willingly of their time to attend each of the make sessions and to share their thoughts and ideas in building the interactive website prototypes. They offered me valuable suggestions and ideas to design the website v prototypes. They also shared their knowledge about China with me. Without the help of the three families, it would be impossible for me to complete this study. Third, I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. Blandy and Dr. Congdon for letting me join the ChinaVine project and for inspiring me to conduct this study. I am grateful to the ChinaVine team for supporting me in conducting the field study in Shanghai, China. Finally, I wish to thank my husband, my children, my parents and my parents-in-law for their support in my research. I am grateful to my parents and my parents-in-law for helping me with the housework. I am grateful to my husband for lending your ears and hearts and giving me suggestions during this process. Without your love, support and patience, this accomplishment would not have been possible. To all of my friends, old and new, I appreciate the love and laugh you provided to help me along the way. vi VITA 2001…………………………………………………………… B.E. Industry Design, The Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China 2007…………………………………………………………... M.A. Artistic Design, The Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China 2007-2010…………………………………………………Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of Art Education, The Ohio State University Field of Study Major Field:…………………………………………………………....... Art Education vii Table of Contents ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................... ii DEDICATION ...................................................................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................................... v VITA .................................................................................................................................. vii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................ viii List of Figures .................................................................................................................. xiii List of Tables ................................................................................................................... xvi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 1 1. Background of the Study ............................................................................................ 2 2. Statement of the Problem .......................................................................................... 5 3. Research Questions .................................................................................................... 8 4. Methodology .............................................................................................................. 9 5. Significance of the Study .......................................................................................... 13 6. Limitations ................................................................................................................ 16 7. An Overview of the Chapters .................................................................................... 18 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................................... 20 1. Multicultural Education ............................................................................................ 21 1.1. Single-Group Approach ...................................................................................... 22 1.2. Critical Multicultural Education ......................................................................... 24 1.3. Multicultural Approaches in Art Education ....................................................... 35 2. The Sociology of Chinese-Americans ........................................................................ 40 viii 2.1. Overview of Chinese-Americans ........................................................................ 41 2.2. Chinese-American Ethnicity ............................................................................... 44 2.3. Culture Gap among Chinese-American Families ................................................ 47 2.4. The Educational Experiences of Chinese-American Children ............................ 50 2.5. The Model Minority Stereotype ........................................................................ 52 2.6. Relevance to My Research ................................................................................. 54 3. Why Teach Chinese Traditional Art .......................................................................... 55 3.1. Heritage and Tradition ....................................................................................... 55 3.2. Chinese Traditional Art ...................................................................................... 57 3.2.1. Chinese Folk Art .......................................................................................... 58 3.2.2. Chinese Painting and Calligraphy ................................................................ 62 3.3. Rational in Using Chinese Traditional Art as the Contents ................................ 65 4.
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