Arts integration in rural Minnesota: A collaborative arts integration framework

In this article, we demonstrate that arts integration holds unique promise and benefits for helping rural teachers to provide more equitable arts opportunities for their students. These benefits include: professional network development in the service of both curricular development for arts integration and connecting teachers who often work in isolation; additional funding to allow for collaborative planning; and introduction to arts experiences and cultural resources for use in arts-integrated unit planning and implementation. We describe the Perpich Arts Integration Project—an innovative, state-funded program centered on a Collaborative Arts Integration Framework in three rural regions of Minnesota. Then, through data collected via a three-year longitudinal program documentation and evaluation, we describe several themes that we have identified about the implementation of arts integration in rural schools. Finally, we will describe a series of considerations and implications for rural schools seeking to implement such a program in the future.     

Collage in Aluminum

An immediate critical task of the arts education field is to resolve the polarities of low-quality integrative and overly marginalized discipline-specific approaches to teaching in schools. In pursuing this challenge, the author defines three teaching approaches—arts as craftsmanship, arts as play, and arts as inquiry—and calls for re-weighted proportional use of all three through thoughtful policy and restructuring within the field. The article frames what a coequal process of collaborative curriculum planning between different types of teachers looks like, and challenges schools of education and schools of arts to rethink their approaches to educating the next generation of teachers.     

Political economy and global arts for social change: A comparative analysis of youth orchestras in Venezuela and Chile

An expansive movement comprised of UN Millennium Development Goals, international banks, and hundreds of programs worldwide promotes access to the arts as a creative means of social change. Often grounded in cognitive science and inspired by the model of youth orchestras in Venezuela known as El Sistema, this movement contends that arts training—which can foster empathy, collaboration, academic achievement, and self-esteem—helps alleviate poverty and combat inequality. In contrast to the majority of the literature on public arts programs—impact studies that often assume arts engagement creates social change through universal mechanisms—this study examines the influence of political economy on the implementation of public arts programs. Through a comparative study of youth orchestras with social inclusion goals in Venezuela (1974–2015) and Chile (1964–2015), the scope and intensity of government control, social welfare policy, and competition for public funds are found to shape public arts programs' social goals, daily operations, definitions of success, and impact study procedures. Therefore, scholars, practitioners, and policy makers must reexamine their understanding of arts programs as a development model. Future global efforts to combat inequality should avoid over-standardization. This article offers a new Arts for Social Change Context Framework that places input variables at the center of analysis, with policy implications.     

Designs Made in the Free Brush Manner

In this article, the author examines the current arts education policies in the United States through the lens of Matthew Arnold's work and prose during his time as one of Her Majesty's School Inspectors in England and Wales in the nineteenth century. Arnold argued for government funding of public school systems, setting standards of quality for teacher education, and many other issues that still affect us today. His passion for a liberal education that included everyone, reinforced by his belief in the moral and humanistic goals that could be reached through an education in the arts, helped open the public schools to the humanities that we teach today. The author provides a valuable overview of what Arnold saw, not only in the English and Welsh schools but also in the French and German approach to education. Finally, the author leaves us with a concise list of what Arnold can teach us today about arts education.     

Education Through Art

In this article, the author revisits a case study presented in Arts Education Policy Review 105(1) in September/October 2003. The author discusses Arts Collaborator's Incorporated's (ACI) efforts to educate the community about art and about arts opportunities in River City. Themes visited in the discussion are community development through the arts, and connecting economic development to education. Implications for the arts education community that the author draws from this discussion are (a) ACI has assets and connections that the arts education community may not have, (b) ACI uses its influence to teach and promote certain kinds of art, and (c) the arts education community needs to be aware of advocacy groups to maintain education standards and to fully use available opportunities.     

Ambivalent moralities of cooperation and corruption: Local explanations for (under)development on a Philippine island

Concepts of development are inevitably loaded with value judgements concerning what constitutes ‘proper’ social and economic organisation. Focusing on the cultural politics of development on Siquijor, an island in the Central Visayas region of the Philippines, this paper explores these often tacit ideals. It considers one of the key idioms Siquijodnon use in explaining how development is brought about—cooperation—and some of its locally perceived opposites—‘crab mentality’, politicking and corruption—which contain powerful moral critiques of self and society. On Siquijor, local discourses of development have it that widespread poverty in the Philippines demonstrates a failing of Filipinos to live up to supposedly universal norms of ethical socio‐economic conduct. However, I argue that attention to local norms of moral economy reveal the ambivalence underlying these notions of development, particularly in relation to the roles of individualism and reciprocity in socio‐economic organisation.     

Theorizing the nexus of STEAM practice

ABSTRACT

Recent advances in arts education policy, as outlined in the latest National Core Arts Standards, advocate for bringing digital media into the arts education classroom. The promise of such Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM)–based approaches is that, by coupling Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and the arts, new understandings and artifacts emerge that transcend either discipline. Evidence of this can be seen through fundamental shifts in both fields; in the arts, artists are expanding the creative potential for design through computational flexibility, which affords artists the ability to exceed the limitations of their tools. The infusion of the arts into STEM has shown to be equally transformative, with the emergence of tools and communities that not only engender new content understandings but also invite participation from populations historically underrepresented in STEM fields. Drawing on over a decade of research at the intersection of the arts, creativity, and new technologies from the Creativity Labs at Indiana University, this article theorizes the learning that takes place at effective couplings of STEAM to assist today's educators in realizing the potential for transformative experiences for learners of all levels. This article provides a synthesis of this past work across two compelling cases of STEAM-based tools, materials, and activities (i.e., the media-rich programming environment Scratch as well as the work the LilyPad Arduino used to create electronic textiles), incorporating findings from more than 50 peer-reviewed papers and books, and conceptually outlines an approach to “gathering STEAM” in arts education classrooms today. Implications are explored for policy makers in teacher education to think about preservice curriculum and field experiences; policy makers in arts education to think about tools needed in classrooms today; as well as how art education can play a critical role in STEM disciplines and offer solutions to address STEM pipeline challenges. Such efforts extend current and prior discussions in the arts education landscape about the use of new technologies, and draw our attention to how new technologies can be leveraged for artistic expression.     

Seeking a higher level of arts integration across the curriculum

To seek a higher level of arts integration across the education curriculum, I investigated designs of teaching through arts activities that would motivate educators to adopt the spirit of “aesthetic teaching.” Two different designs were tested, with the second as a continuation of the first. Each ascribes a different educational role to arts activities—in the first design the role of art is that of a teaching medium, while in the second its role is as a teaching approach to the taught subject. The study followed the steps of a “teaching design experiment.” The preschool teachers who constituted the sample used these activities with groups of kindergarteners. The analysis of the data was based on the reports of the teachers, which were examined for indicators of “aesthetic teaching.” The findings of this study suggest that there is a correlation between the educational role of the arts and the level of aesthetic orientation of educators in applying arts integration. Generally, the sample experienced the second design (in which the role of art is that of a teaching approach to the taught subject) as more of an aesthetic teaching situation than the first design (in which the role of art is that of a teaching medium).     

Setting up a Woodworking Shop

This article provides an initial look at Race to the Top as it relates to professional development for arts educators. Topics include the philosophy of Race to the Top education reform, data informed professional development, performance pay, and how these changes may affect arts educators.     

Teaching the arts as a second language: A school-wide policy approach to arts integration

The arts can be used to teach, not just as activities that enhance learning, but also as the primary medium through which students process, acquire, and represent knowledge. This means the arts can function as a language. If we accept this metaphor, and we truly want students to be fluent in the artistic languages, then the arts can be taught in the same constructive, sequential way language is taught, where the rules of the system are explicitly learned and fluency is acquired through regular application within a meaningful context. This article provides a framework for the implementation of effective arts integration in line with second language learning: Arts as a Second Language. In doing so, it addresses two common problems in arts education: when arts integration is disconnected from artistic development, and when discipline-based arts education is disconnected from other learning. Nine principles for teaching with an Arts as a Second Language policy are proposed. Ultimately, it is a call for pedagogical reform that enables equitable access for all students to learn in, about, and through the arts with school-wide policy that scaffolds artistic learning across the grades, embedded in meaningful contexts.     

The rise of creative youth development

ABSTRACT

Creative youth development (CYD) is a dynamic area of community arts education that successfully bridges youth development and arts education. CYD is an intentional, holistic practice that combines hands-on artmaking and skill building in the arts with development of life skills to support young people in successfully participating in adolescence and navigating into adulthood. Young people in CYD programs exhibit high levels of artistic skill and accomplishment along with increased self-esteem and sense of belonging. CYD participants are immersed in a broad array of rigorous artistic endeavors, including creating documentary films, researching and reporting on community issues through radio broadcasts, writing and staging new theatrical works, and engaging in thoughtful critique of one another's visual art work. The impact for youth of program participation extends beyond pride in artistic accomplishment. Throughout the United States, teen participants in CYD programs assert that the programs saved their lives, putting them on positive trajectories and away from gangs, drug use, crime, and ennui. This article provides a definition for the term creative youth development, describes core characteristics of CYD programs, and briefly describes four CYD programs. It provides background on the origins and history of creative youth development, including current advances in the field and signs the field is coalescing. The article describes creative youth development in the larger contexts of arts education and of education reform. Lastly, the article discusses policy, funding, and research needs and opportunities and provides questions for consideration.     

Le soi vulnérable: Identité, ipséité et depersonnalisation dans la mélancolie et dans la schizophrénie

Schizophrenic and melancholie abnormal experiences reveal—an statu-detrahendi—different levels of the self Schizophrenic depersonalization shows the most profound level of self awarness the pre-reflective one—the self as the tacit dimension of what is given the non reflexsive first-person In schizophrenia, this involves the experiencing of a dualistic Cartesian form of existence in which embodied self-awarness. Melancholic depersonalization highlights narrative identity—the self as the product of concerving oneself in a certain way An abnormal of the melanchoic-type existense, a manner of exiting in accordance with a finite perspective of arise when melancholic people cannot escape the demands of identity as a diatective process, by festricting themselves to being the-same and avoiding otherness in themselves.     

Research,practice, and policy connections: The ArtPlay case study

ABSTRACT

This article explores the nexus between arts-based research, theory, practice, and policy. It does so through reference to a longitudinal study of ArtPlay, a unique Australian community arts center that offers artist-led workshops involving young people aged 3–13 years. The ethnographic and action research study investigated how children responded to ArtPlay workshops (engagement), how they benefited from such experiences (learning), and what broader encounters with culture and community were evident (cultural citizenship). Over a 4-year period (2007–2012), data collected included dual researcher observations of 39 workshops (100+ hours), interviews with artists, ArtPlay staff, teachers, and other stakeholders (60+ hours), family surveys (350+ returns), demographic mapping of families, family focus groups, and meeting notes. Through deep immersion in the site, the researchers, experienced in diverse art forms, collaborated with the organization to theorize how constructs such as engagement, learning, and cultural citizenship are interpreted and translate into practice. The research indicates that ArtPlay offers children engaging encounters with the arts that promote intrinsic learning. With reference to these findings, and relevant policy and theory, this article discusses the impact of participatory research on an organization's capacity to interpret and respond to the interests and needs of children and artists.     

Stormy Winds and Southern Comfort(s): On Categories,Strategies, and Cartographies

How do we see Southeast Asian and diasporic visual culture today? This is the central question we ask in the Introduction to this special issue of Visual Anthropology. To answer the question, we trouble the geographic designation of “Southeast Asia” and how the region’s arts and culture have traveled and are received at the present moment. We posit that we need to see Southeast Asia and its diasporas differently. Most notably, we argue that through the lens of gender and sexuality we can better visualize and analyze the critical and creative strategies of artists and writers situated in many parts of the world. We foreground the collected essays, art pieces and poetry that query what it means to labor for the state, the art world or the academy. And as we emphasize, the collection brings together—in color, in varying compositions, in long and short form—the dynamism of art and media texts in all of their complex circulations.     

Assessing the professional development needs of arts instructors working in multi-age classrooms

This article presents the results of a national survey conducted with 223 arts teachers working in public schools that feature mixed-age classrooms rather than traditional grade levels. The purpose of the survey was to identify the professional development needs of arts teachers working in these unique environments and to offer suggestions for policymakers who might provide appropriate training or foster the development of multi-age school sites. The results showed that most respondents (73.1%) were in favor of developing new multi-age training for arts teachers and revealed their preferences for workshop content related to organizational strategies, collaboration with colleagues, assessment, integrated curriculum, collaborative student work, research, and thematic instruction. The results also revealed respondents' preferences for venues, formats, and the scheduling of such professional development experiences. The implications of these findings provide a number of options for policymakers to weigh in planning optimum training opportunities for multi-age arts instructors.     

Enhancing river vegetation: conservation, development and restoration

The welcome increase in projects increasing river vegetation prompts theoretical consideration. To restore is to bring back what was there before — but at what period? 1860 to 1940 is suggested, as ‘traditional’. Traditional rivers differ greatly between river types and between rivers: in water, structural and biotic characters, and Sense of Place. Aiming at these, holistically, is aiming at restoration. Aiming at part, or trying to convert rivers to a Standard Recommended river is, at best, enhancement. The latter development lessens the unique variety and special features of rivers that are the heritage of each country.     

Happy Art

This article looks at how arts integration can boost the language development of limited English proficient students in kindergarten through second grade. I first review existing research on how young children learn and describe the special challenges faced by children who must learn in an unfamiliar language. I then identify arts-based mechanisms that boost the language development of limited English proficient students and examine strategies used by a successful urban arts-and-literacy program to enhance the language development of English language learners in the primary grades.     

Community arts: (Re)contextualizing the narrative of teaching and learning

ABSTRACT

Education in the United States is often characterized by testing and standardized outcomes, and bears little relevance to the culture and the community that surrounds both students and teachers. Conversely, community arts connect the philosophies of art and education to the larger spheres of culture and community. The community thus becomes an educational space in which both the teachers and students are motivated to learn from each other through a reciprocal relationship that changes the dynamic of both teaching and learning. Consequently, the (re)contextualization of art and education within culture and community has distinct policy implications regarding both what we teach and the way we teach it. There is an opportunity to increase the significance of art education in a democratic society if we embrace practices that empower preservice teachers to analyze how artmaking practices shape their own sensibilities and those of the communities in which they live. This article suggests a field experience model for informing cross-cultural understandings of community-based pedagogy, participation, and collaboration that challenges existing educational policy while informing the values and beliefs of the preservice teacher. It presents the opportunity to develop socially relevant programs for use in the teaching of art that include community, social justice, democracy, collective responsibility, activism, and equity—among others—that confront established perceptions of both art and education.     

Comparing the effects of art education and science education on creative thinking in high school students

What is the link between art and creativity? The purpose of this study was to determine the role of art education in creative thinking. A causal-comparative research design was used. Arts and science high school students (N = 162) participated. Results showed that creative thinking in visual arts students in Grade 10 with high scores differed significantly from that in music and science students; however, this difference was not found among students in Grade 11. A main reason for this result in Grade 10 students might be the non-routine problem-solving process in visual arts education, in which artwork production is an important component in creative thinking development. Considering this result, it was concluded that the effect of different education disciplines—called education department effect—on creative thinking can be significant.     

Abstract Nature Forms

Abstract

This article is the introduction to the special issue about Evaluation, Educational Policy Reforms, and Their Implications for Arts Education. A summary of all the articles comprised in the special issue is reported, mainly featured, on the one hand, by a discussion about how the education policy reforms shape a particular approach to evaluation that ends up conforming education and arts education and, on the other hand, it shows some magnet examples of arts curriculum evaluation combining both standardized assessment with qualitative strategies pertinent to the nature of arts content and experiences. The article also discusses how it could be possible to move from the current scope of school arts education most of the authors depict to the development of another way of evaluation and curriculum development where the experiential process is taken into account. While these signals might be still scarce, for some other authors could be the opportunity to overcome at least partially the current demise of school arts curriculum.