Master of Education in Arts-Based Educational Research (ABER)
World-class teaching and hybrid learning designed for working professionals
The Master of Education in Arts-Based Educational Research (ABER) is a unique program blending art, research, and teaching to meet contemporary educational needs. Develop expertise in the theories, methodologies, and practices of visual, literary, performative, and digital arts within educational research.
Collaborate with World-Class Faculty
Engage with leading faculty and scholars who use artistic practices in collecting, analyzing, and mobilizing creative research processes, practice and findings. This program’s hybrid delivery model combines in-person summer intensives, including studio-based courses, with a variety of online options throughout the academic year, fostering a dynamic community of practice and participatory learning.
Explore Diverse and Relevant Topics in Arts-Based Educational Research
Students will delve into topics such as a/r/tography, arts-based educational research, visual art practice, poetic and narrative inquiry, performative inquiry and digital media. These research areas promote equity and diversity through creative practices in K-12 education, teacher education, community education, and higher education.
This program is offered by the Department of Curriculum & Pedagogy.
Start Date: September 2025
Length: 2.5 Years | Part-Time
Format: Blended (online & in-person)
Location: UBC Vancouver Campus
Domestic Tuition: $16,716.70
International Tuition: $19,145.28
Program Details
About
This program invites students to:
- Nurture a research community and build international connections dedicated to ABER theory, methodology, and practice.
- Critically analyze visual, literary, digital, and performative theories and discourses in learning, teaching, and research inquiry.
- Address historical contexts that inform ABER methods and practices.
- Assess how ABER practices are applied rigorously across various disciplines, including Education, Fine Arts, Arts and Humanities, and Health Sciences.
- Demonstrate the integration of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Decolonization (EDID) principles in ABER.
- Apply ABER inquiry in professional practice across institutional, community, and personal settings.
Schedule
2025-2027 Cohort Schedule
Student choice of 30 credits of coursework, or 27 credits of coursework and 3 credits graduating paper.
| Date | Course Title | Course Description | Course Code |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 W1 | Artwork Scholarship | This course surveys perspectives on artwork scholarship – visual, literary, performative, digital – and the pedagogic turn to art as research through theoretical propositions and methodological dispositions, around which communities of practice are clustered, including arts-based educational research, arts-informed, practice-based, artistic research and research-creation. | EDCP 585 |
| 2026 W2 | Indigenous Visual Expression as Pedagogy | Pedagogical implications of Indigenous art making and visual expression both for Indigenous peoples and for non-Indigenous viewers and consumers through the lenses of misrepresentation, self-representation, and auto-pedagogical potential and practice. | EDCP 546 |
| 2026 S1 | Curriculum Issues and Theories in Museums | The intersection between Museum Education and Curriculum Theory through a survey of research and practices in curriculum, teaching, and learning. Curriculum studies as it relates to museum education. | EDCP 567 |
| 2026 S2 | Seminar in Art Education: Aesthetic Orientations, Dispositions and Approaches to Research in Art and Education (Optional) | To orientate oneself to the world aesthetically is to invite the world to show up in ways that it might not otherwise. This seminar will engage with the above claim. It will consider aesthetic practice as a distinctive mode of attending to and perceiving the world and study its promise for the conduct and dissemination of research in art and education. The seminar will explore the concept of aesthetics as one that can both orientate us to phenomena of interest and frame those phenomena as potentially interesting in character by engaging with the writings of Arnold Berleant, Peter deBolla, Maxine Greene, Jacques Rancière, Joan Didion, Leanne Shapton among others and considering the art practices of Sophie Calle, Leo Saul Berk, Li Binyuan, Mark Dion, Song Dong, Lee Mingwei, Amie Siegel, Simon Starling, and others. During the seminar, you will study how some scholars understand the concept of aesthetics — a concept that is understood differently across time and place and by intellectual traditions and histories and a concept that has the capacity to call aspects of the world into appearance and to give particular form to these aspects, many of which might otherwise remain formless. | EDCP 523A |
| 2026 s2 | Studio – Introductory Practices | TBD | EDCP 581A |
| Any | Elective, in agreement with program coordinators | Student choice of course offering in LLED or EDCP that fulfils performance, digital or literary arts as research. | -- |
This is the proposed schedule and is subject to change.
| Date | Course Title | Course Description | Course Code |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 W1 | Research Methods | This course provides an introduction to educational research methods, methodologies and philosophies; familiarizes students with various rhetorical techniques for reading and writing research and analyzing paradigmatic orientations to inquiry; and addresses challenges and regulation of research ethics and law. | EDUC 500 |
| 2027 W2 | Perspectives, Practices, and Curriculum Issues in contemporary Art Education | This course examines major perspectives, theoretical issues and curriculum practices underpinning the complex and expansive field of art education as it relates to: critical visual culture, community-based practices, social justice, place/space, disability studies, interdisciplinary, gender, race and identity. | EDCP 520 |
| 2027 S2 | ABER: A/r/tography (Optional) | This course explores a-r-tographic (artographic, a/r/tographic+) concepts and practices through geographies in relation, as artists-researchers-teacher. With a-r-t-ographic renderings and propositions, inquiry culminates in activities with critical, experimental, speculative, non-representational (and more) openings of a-r-tographic practice. | EDCP 514 |
| 2027 S2 | Studio - Advanced Inquiry (Optional) | TBD | EDCP 581B |
| Any | Elective, in agreement with program coordinators | Student choice of course offering in LLED or EDCP that fulfils performance, digital or literary arts as research. | -- |
This is the proposed schedule and is subject to change.
| Date | Course Title | Course Description | Course Code |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2027 W1 | Graduating Paper/ ABER Project | The MEd Graduating Project may take a number of forms:
Projects may be multi-media based, in person or online, customised to student needs, and in consultation with advisors. |
EDCP 590 |
This is the proposed schedule and is subject to change.
Application Requirements
All students must meet the admission and application requirements of both the Faculty of Graduate Studies and the program, which include:
- A four-year Bachelor’s degree in Education with at least a 76% average on a senior-level credits.
- In special circumstances teacher education may be waived for those applicants who have a university degree with sufficient standing and experience related to their proposed field of study.
- Normally 18 credits of senior course work or a professional concentration in ABER.
- Normally two years’ teaching experience or other relevant professional experience within schools, communities, business, government, non-governmental organizations, or other education-oriented environments.
- Three letters of recommendation from educators, supervisors, colleagues, or clients that speak to your abilities to complete a graduate degree and interest in ABER.
- Resume/CV
- A 600-word statement of intent of your ABER experience, professional goals, and the anticipated benefit of involvement in the program.
Fees
Tuition Fees
| Type | Per Installment | Total Tuition |
|---|---|---|
| Domestic | $2,388.10 | $16,716.70 |
| International | $2,735.04 | $19,145.28 |
Tuition fees are reviewed annually by the UBC Board of Governors and may be adjusted without prior notice. For the most accurate and up-to-date information on tuition and fees, visit the official UBC Calendar. In case of a discrepancy between this webpage and the UBC Calendar, the UBC Calendar entry will be held to be correct.
Graduate tuition is assessed as an annual program fee, which is divided into three equal installments due at the beginning of academic terms starting in September, January and May. Students in this program will pay a minimum of 7 installments.
Student Fees
Student fees include fees established and authorized by the UBC Board of Governors and fees established and authorized by students societies. These fees are in addition to tuition fees. Please see the UBC Calendar for details on student fees.
Funding Eligibility
As this program is part-time, it is not eligible for student loans or other types of funding.
How to Apply
Application Status: Opens October 15, 2024
Application Deadline: April 1, 2025
Document Deadline: April 15, 2025
ONLINE APPLICATION
- Navigate to grad.ubc.ca/apply/online.
- When you are ready to apply, click “Apply Online”.
- Read the instructions, and either log in with your CWL or create a CWL if you have never attended UBC.
- Once logged in, on the “Degree Program Selection,” type the 4-character cohort designation ABR1 into the “Program Keyword” field.
- IMPORTANT: The program name should be Master of Education in Arts-Based Educational Research – Professional Cohort and the cohort code should be ABR1. Please ensure you are applying to the correct program – this part-time Professional Cohort is different than the regular on-campus program.
- Select the program.
- Click the “Apply” button.
- Fill out the application as indicated.
SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS
Please have these ready to upload when you apply:
Transcripts, degree certificates (if applicable), English language assessment report (if applicable), statement of intent, and an up-to-date resume must be uploaded to your application.
In cases where referees are unable to submit an electronic reference, sealed and endorsed reference letters may be sent by mail. Your reference will receive a link to a reference form that they should complete and send back to us.
You can also find the Grad Reference Form here.
Important: Please ask your references to include the 4-character cohort designation ABR1 when they submit their reference. All references must arrive in sealed envelopes with the reference’s signature on the seal.
Please send mailed documents to:
Kelvin Mok
ABR1 Graduate Cohort
Faculty of Education, PDCE Office
University of British Columbia
1304-2125 Main Mall
Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4
APPLICATION TIMELINE
After your application is submitted, all documents are uploaded, and references have been received, your application file is considered complete.
Once the application deadline for the program has passed, all completed application files are submitted to the Department for review. Applications recommended by the Department for admission are then confirmed against Graduate & Post-Doctoral Studies requirements, and accepted applicants are notified. Any special case admissions require an additional review by Graduate and Post-Doctoral Studies.
The entire process generally takes 8 to 12 weeks.
ASSISTANCE
If you require any assistance with the application process, please contact:
Kelvin Mok
Senior Program Assistant
604-827-5662
pdce.educ@ubc.ca
Info Sessions
Have questions? We’ve got answers!
Meet the Program Advisor and Senior Program Assistant, and learn more about this program and about applying to become a UBC graduate student.
October 23, 2024 | 4:30 - 5:30pm
January 20, 2025 | 4:30 - 5:30 pm
Contacts
For program content questions:
Dr. Anita Sinner
Cohort Advisor
Professor
anita.sinner@ubc.ca
Dr. Marie-France Berard
Cohort Advisor
Lecturer & Art Education Program Coordinator
mfberard@mail.ubc.ca
For application questions or assistance:
Kelvin Mok
Senior Program Assistant
604-827-5662
pdce.educ@ubc.ca