Introduction

The first edition of Arts-Based Research (ABR) in Education (2008), there has been continued and growing interest in pursuing alternative forms of data representation, including poetry, story, theatre, and visual image as means to increase attention to complexity, feeling, and new ways of seeing. There are two Special Interest Groups (SIGs) of the American Educational Research Association that specifically focus on ABR, with other SIGs and divisions presenting ABR papers. Increasingly, scholars feel compelled to take on arts-based methods rather than follow the directives of institutional bureaucracies that define the parameters of how research or art should or should not be conducted. ABR is the logical continuation of the shift to qualitative inquiry in the social sciences that began half a century ago. With the recent "What Works Clearinghouse" (WWC) guidelines, federal funding agencies continue to strictly define "credible and reliable evidence" for educational decision-making.