Date of Award
2014
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Education (MEd)
First Advisor
Robert J. Nash
Second Advisor
Gail L. Rose
Abstract
Interdisciplinary integration and practice through meaning making and context can contribute to the reconsideration and revolution of research by supporting narrativesand creating space for public discourse. In researching my heritage as a Korean adoptee, I found that the literature has been predominantly from adoptive parents' perspective,focusing primarily on child and adolescent development. Lacking in the literature is the adult adoptee perspective, and specifically their experiential voices.
This interdisciplinary thesis has three major purposes (1) to explore how transracial transnational Korean adoption affects identity formation, (2) to illustrate how mentoring relationships can be a means to address and reframe the theme of loss as experienced by an adoptee, and (3) to use interdisciplinary inquiry as a means of expression to make meaning and illuminate adoptee identity formation. Drawing from my personal experience as an adoptee, an artist, a researcher, and as an educational mentee I integrate past research findings, Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN: storytelling), epistolary Scholarly Personal Narrative (eSPN: epistolary storytelling), and visual artistic research through jewelry/sculpture to describe constructing my adoptee identity. Images of the jewelry/sculpture are provided, while a public art opening displayed the series of work.
Language
en
Number of Pages
116 p.
Recommended Citation
Ferraro, Tonya, "Letters from an interdisciplinary artist: Illuminating Korean adoptee identity through mentors and metal" (2014). Graduate College Dissertations and Theses. 5.
https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/graddis/5
Included in
Asian American Studies Commons, Education Commons, Fine Arts Commons