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date: 26 February 2021

Abstract and Keywords

Qualitative research is an umbrella term for a wide array of genres. Recognizing the differences in intellectual traditions, purposes, units of analysis, and foci of qualitative research, this chapter examines the shared assumptions within qualitative inquiry, its broad goals, key concepts, general characteristics, and methods. The epistemological, methodological, and ethical underpinnings of qualitative research are discussed through current research examples in music education. Central to the discussion is reflexive, recursive, responsive, and collaborative aspects of qualitative research, as well as its emergent research design and interpretive process. Related issues to be discussed are the criteria of process and product, including trustworthiness and validity of interpretation, the situated nature of the researcher, subjectivity, the role of senses, and empathetic, case-specific understanding. We also discuss how the processes and characteristics of music and sound can inform the ways we conduct and think of qualitative research.

Keywords: case study, ethnography, phenomenology, emergent research design, empathy, senses in fieldwork, polyphonic texts, ethics

Koji Matsunobu

Koji Matsunobu - Honorary Research Fellow, University of Queensland, Australia

Liora Bresler

Liora Bresler has a B.A. in piano performance and philosophy and M.A. in musicology from Tel-Aviv University, and a Ph.D. in Education from Stanford University. Bresler is a professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her research and teaching focus on Arts and Aesthetic Education, Qualitative Research Methodology, and Educational/Artistic/Intellectual Entrepreneurship. Her research and teaching focus on Arts and Aesthetic Education, Qualitative Research Methodology, and Educational/Artistic/Intellectual Entrepreneurship. She is the co-founder and co-editor of the International Journal of Education and the Arts. Bresler has published 100+ papers, book chapters and books on the arts in education, including the International Handbook of Research in Arts Education (2007), and Knowing Bodies, Moving Minds (2004). Her work has been translated to German, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Hebrew and Chinese. She has given keynote speeches and presented invited talks, seminars and short courses in thirty-some countries and forty-some universities in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, and the Americas.

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