Constellations

Abstract

In Part 3, I reveal my study’s findings by taking you to view a galaxy of 21 constellations. I invite you to witness the transformation of self, and other, as we explore the possibilities poetry affords in providing insights and provocations in educational research. Creating poetic constellations was my ultimate research act, bringing together shining fragments from across all my poems that were created in the research. In this section, I describe the significance of the constellation metaphor for generating, sorting and conceptualising the voices of my research participants in an artistic and phenomenological way. I discuss how constellations provide an alternative to the crystallization metaphor in making sense of data in arts-based research. Next, I detail how I created the constellation poems in two and three dimensions and present my poetic research findings as a galaxy of 21 constellations. The section concludes by considering the place where a navigation of tutor constellations guides us, a terrain that bears resemblance to the social pedagogy discipline. In an astonishing turn of fate, I suggest that tutors today return us to the very headwaters of Western education traditions where we meet Greek mythological tutor Chiron, who himself became a constellation that shines upon us from above.