Education Commons^™

Beyond The Bell: Rebuilding Care, Civic Learning And Creativity Within Youth Spaces, Michelle R. Haapala

Culminating Experience Projects

The purpose of this research is to investigate high school age students’ opportunities within formal classroom settings to engage in care, civic learning, and creativity within a suburban, publicly-funded charter school. This study used thematic analysis and coding methods to organize and find patterns in the qualitative data from surveys distributed to education professionals at Canton Preparatory High School in Canton, Michigan. The goal is to establish a foundation of the perception of care, civic learning, and creativity within school environments and classroom settings. Overall, education professionals rated these categories positively, but with a closer investigation, a disconnect is found. …

Food For Thought: Rituals In Place Based Learning, Natalia Pilato

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

In my mother’s kitchen lasting bonds among family, friends, and newcomers are created. Using that space as a point of departure, I explore the significance of pedagogical places outside of classrooms that serve as flavorful ingredients for performative and participatory learning. This article articulates ways in which rituals associated with Sicilian cultural traditions are interwoven and complicit in establishing dispositions for socially engaged learning and teaching in the arts, showing how an ethic of care can transcend generations. With a focus on place-based learning, making art and enjoying food are investigated to show how healthy productive relationships, appreciation for beauty, …

Ambigú Trashumante Barra De Café Ambulante Ambigú Trashumante Barra De Café Ambulante, Augusto Martin Rivero

Master's Projects and Capstones

Ambigú Trashumante Barra de Café Ambulante is an applied research project which took shape over the course of a calendar year from May 2022-2023. A six-person team evolved including the personified project itself, united as one communal entity in collaboration. The project entailed creation of a bicicargo, or cargo bike–useful art becoming a mobile coffee bar and literal vehicle embodying justice through coffee offered freely in México, as facilitated through decolonized ethnography and Mesoamerican Community-Based Participatory Action Research (CBPAR). The project’s theoretical framework centers on Bruguera’s (2012) arte útil conceptualization. Five core patterns emerged, including the right to thrive in …

Creating Commons: Photovoice Philosophy In A Third Space, Jason M. Cox, Lynne Hamer

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

Teach Toledo is a program that the authors co-coordinate using community assets to create a third space to confront systemic racism’s impact on teacher education programs and facilitate hybridity (Bhaba, 1994). Diverse student cohort members use their lived experience as the base for their individual and shared urban educational philosophies, coordinated in a first-year horizontally and vertically integrated curriculum including written compositions and a PhotoVoice project. “Creating commons” refers not only to provision of a third space as a common space where private experiences can be combined to create a hybrid, new understanding, but also to the creative act of …

Cezzartt: Building Community Through The Arts, Cesar Aguiar

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

In this project, I propose Building Community through the Arts in San Bernardino California. In the recent decade, the city of San Bernardino has lost so much of its motivation and dedication to care for the art community. The local art community has always been present, however, overseen by the lack of resources and efforts in bringing the art community back to life through events, art shows, gatherings, or awareness within the city. The purpose of this project was to educate and bring awareness to the city and its people regarding the forgotten art community in the city of San …

Relational Ecologies: Artistic Engagement And Mentorship Of Adults In Community Spaces, Rebecca Bourgault

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

In this article, I share insights from research and experience working as a teaching artist and mentor inside and outside traditional institutions. I investigate how relational and contemplative pedagogies promote and sustain authentic relationships of reciprocity. Narrating recent experiments with mentoring practices that emerged from the cultural landscapes of adults engaged in arts learning, the paper highlights new connections discovered through a research model borrowed from intuitive inquiry. Findings are presented as reflective stories, journal entries, or field notes gathered while mentoring graduate art education students and participating in a community of practice in the visual arts. The article demonstrates …

An Artistic Response To Social Unrest In Hong Kong: Utilizing The Arts To Build Up And Sustain An Understanding And Respectful Community, Shue-Kei Joanna Mok

Peace and Conflict Studies

The 2019–20 Hong Kong protests, commenced in March 2019, were triggered by the introduction of The Fugitive Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation Bill 2019 by the Hong Kong government. In June 2019, peaceful civil disobedience escalated into violence, signalling the emergence of polarization and antagonism in the city. As of December 2019, an estimated 300,000 excess probable depressive cases and 810,000 suspected PTSD cases were associated with the 2019–20 social unrest. Furthermore with the pandemic, the hopelessness manifested in the city and citizen’s mental wellbeing are of extreme concern. Given the holistic and therapeutic nature of …

A Model For Equity In Arts Education For Youth In Greater Portland, Maine, Catherine Scheirer

Thinking Matters Symposium

Time and time again, by providing an outlet that allows innate human creativity to roam free, participation in arts activities such as dance, music, theatre, and visual arts is proven to have significant positive impacts on participants, regardless of age, experience, or background. Even though the arts have been acknowledged as critical for mental, physical, and emotional health, especially for children and adolescents, research has found that providing arts education in an equitable and culturally appropriate way is fraught with barriers. In addition, certain areas of the arts have seen a downward trend in educational priority and availability. My project …

Mending Art Classrooms: An Exploration Of The Benefits Of Collaborative Artmaking For Underinvested Black Youth In Richmond, Virginia, Jazmine M. Beatty

Theses and Dissertations

This arts-informed research study explored the experiences of local community artists and educators working to radically transform and heal the experiences of underinvested Black students in Richmond through collaborative arts engagement. Through a series of seven one-on-one interviews with Black teaching artists in the Richmond community, I was able to uncover how collaboration has and can continue to improve the well-being and livelihoods of Black students in Richmond. Also, by tapping into the local Mending Walls mural project, I was able to make a tangible connection between the Richmond community, art, and collaboration. An analysis of the interviews led to …

Fashion, Identity And The Muslim-American Narrative, Shireen Soliman

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

In this pivotal time, assumptions, boundaries, power structures and relationships within society are being reconsidered and reimagined. My research project, “Fashion, Identity and the Muslim- American Narrative” builds off of well-established prior models and responds to this moment. Through this multidisciplinary, multimedia design workshop series geared towards Muslim American female adolescents, we are able to leverage the powerful intersection of design, technology, community, social media and social justice. In this affirming, enlightening space, we use fashion, dress and personal narrative as the springboard and means of exploring the intrinsic connection between social and emotional issues surrounding identity development, social justice …

Art Education As Mutual Aid: Community And Social Justice Based Initiatives, Janelle O'Malley

Student Projects

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, education has drastically changed. The months of pandemic coupled with rising political upheaval left issues with schooling at the bottom of the list. Yet, the repercussions of the pandemic have forever changed the face of our educational system. Especially hard hit during this time was subjects deemed unimportant such as music and art. These classes, which already have faced their fair amount of cutbacks, were once again left on the chopping block. Even though the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015 ensured that art would be treated as a core subject, it …

"Revolution", Noelle Lilley

Capstones

When faced with gun violence in 1990s Canarsie, one 17-year-old carried his community on his back. “Revolution” chronicles the rise and fall of the Canarsie arts youth-led movement, Team Revolution, and the man at the center of it all: Divine Bradley.

Reaching Across Community Lines: How Informal Visual Art Educational Programming Bridges The Gap, Janelle O'Malley

Student Projects

Economic disparity in underserved communities is in large part responsible for a lack of access to quality visual arts education. The communities most in need are often hit first when it comes to funding the arts, and the students suffer these financial consequences. How can we ensure those underserved communities receive a complete education with the visual arts? What other ways can access to the visual arts be provided to schools?

Building An Empathetic Society: The Hidden Curriculum Of Art, Katherine Randall

Education | Master's Theses

Previous research on the benefits of art classes beyond being a creative outlet show that art classes can be a good place for students to practice being a better citizen. However, in the research there is a lack of the student view on completing a socially engaged art (SEA) project and what they learned from it. The purpose of my research was to understand student perception of socially engaged art, as well as to explore the skills learned from art that can help students be socially active in their communities. More specifically, this research shows that art classes teach skills …

Cultivating A Democratic Community In The Elementary Art Classroom, Kelly Fergus

Theses and Dissertations

Cultivating a more socially just, democratic classroom community is a best pedagogical practices qualitative case study. This study is designed to explore how three Virginia elementary art teachers define and create a democratic classroom community, inside their art rooms, through the implementation of various instructional strategies within the physical, social-cultural, and pedagogical spaces of their classrooms. Such instructional strategies may include a shift in power dynamics, student-centered art, choice-based art, and a big idea/real-world issue-orientated curriculum (ex: visual culture, social justice, democratic pedagogies). Each of the three selected participants were interviewed and asked to describe their classroom practices as well …

The Unity Mural: Bridging Communities Through Artmaking, Margaret A. Walker

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

A visual essay of a community based art education mural between two universities and a local community, following a tragic hate crime.

Intention, Questions, And Creative Expression: An Antidiscriminatory Diversity Statement, Hannah S. Bright

Scholarship and Engagement in Education

Supporting education that reflects diversity involves maintaining awareness of one’s personal positionality, creating safe and inclusive learning communities, and using creativity and choice to empower and honor student voice and individual development. When working in educational settings, teachers may involve students in selecting relevant materials, and follow their lead in creating critical dialogue about salient factors of identity.

Center For Social Equity + Inclusion Action Plan, Center For Social Equity & Inclusion, Rosanne Somerson, Rene Watkins Payne

Center for Social Equity & Inclusion Action Plan

Art and design have far-reaching capacities for generating shared language and connecting people and communities. The creative forms we study at RISD are powerful means for conveying ideas and shaping experiences across habituated boundaries. Today we see those forms resonate more than ever before in the multilingual, culturally heterogeneous, digitally interconnected spaces around the globe. In fact, the democratization of communications media has made it possible for long marginalized voices to join and substantively transform our public discourses. The resulting body of critical knowledge has focused attention on interlocking systems of privilege and disenfranchisement entrenched throughout our social institutions, including …

#Mobilephotonow: Two Art Worlds, One Hashtag, Jodi Kushins

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

In the winter of 2015, the Columbus Museum of Art (CMA) co-curated an exhibition with the loose-knit mobile photography collective known as JJ Community. #MobilePhotoNow included images created in response to a series of prompts and shared on the photo sharing and social networking application Instagram®. The exhibition reflected a community-based curatorial practice (Keys & Ballengee-Morris, 2001) demonstrating new possibilities for participatory art and culture in the age of social media. This portrait of how the project came to be is presented as an example of how art world factions might be brought together, in both virtual and real spaces, …

Interdisciplinary Arts As An Agent For Community Building In A U.S. Public School, Ida Pappas

Educational Studies Dissertations

The aim of my dissertation research is to understand the relationship between interdisciplinary arts experiences and the establishment of a community culture in a mainstream public high school in northeast United States. With this research, I hope to provide evidence to support the inclusion of interdisciplinary arts projects in the fabric of students’ high school curricular and extra-curricular experiences. Through engagement in design, art, video, music, dance, theater and the close study of a minority culture, high school participants provided regular responses to planned survey questions and open-ended survey questions (Experience Sampling), as well as through interviews, written prompts and …

Better Alternatives For Youth: Peace, Education And Human Rights, Abraham Jones

Master's Theses

Many urban youth in the United States live in what are identified as high stress neighborhoods, where trauma is a normative reality within which common life themes permeate. Colloquially, the communities in these high stress areas reclaim space by naming them as hoods, barrios and ghettos. However, depending on one’s perception, these words can have a negative connotation. Even when these communities hold various forms of community cultural wealth and capital, urban narratives are often dominated by false common perceptions that associate these spaces with the violence that occurs within them. There is a need for spaces that produce counter …

"The Whole Building Is A Classroom": An Oral History Of A School's Role In The Culture Of The Community, Valerie Free Jones

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Edward Lee and Lulu McClain gave the gift of a new high school to the rural Appalachian community of Greenfield, Ohio, in 1915. Inspired in part by John Dewey’s Progressive theories of education, the school became the center of the community, both literally and figuratively, providing the best, most modern education for its students. The school was particularly unique in its focus on the arts, with its spaces carefully crafted and developed; its halls and classrooms filled with over 200 pieces of classic and original art, including murals, sculpture, and other works; and its curriculum inspired by art-based ideas of …

Culture In The Community, Adelaide Olander

Senior Year Experience Student Projects

Our goals for this project include: establishing a connection between culture groups in Columbus and schools which persists into at least next year through the scheduling of cultural events; exposing children in elementary schools to cultural art and customs outside of their own through cultural events scheduled at their schools at least once a year; and promoting cultural groups in Columbus by providing them with business relationships with Westerville Elementary Schools. We will coordinate with some cultural arts groups around Columbus and bring them to a Westerville elementary school to give a performance for a group/class of kids. We also …

Re-Imaging City Walls: Engaging Children To Replace Hostile Wall-Chalking With Their Drawings, Rabeya Jalil

Teaching Resource Archive

Experience how two art educators lead a community-based initiative by engaging children from suburban districts to revamp public walls; erase hate graffiti and wall- chalking and replace them with interactive drawings.

Community Is Stronger Than Hate

Racial Justice

Community is Stronger Than Hate poster displayed on campus.

Inverse Inclusion: A Model For Preservice Art Teacher Training, Angela M. La Porte

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

A university community-based intercession course offers preservice art teachers a unique opportunity to experience inverse inclusion in an art class for special needs adults. Inverse inclusion allows preservice teachers to become students working side-by-side with an equal or greater number of special needs learners, and also places them in occasional roles as teacher, teacher’s assistant, and videographer. Their observations and interactions within these roles provide preservice teachers with perceptive insights and perspectives about teaching, and nurture a better understanding of special needs students’ personal interests and abilities. Applying, reflecting upon, and adapting open-ended art curriculum theory and practice from multiple …

Storytelling In Art Museums, Hayley P. Trinkoff

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Storytelling, in the context of art museums, is a method of communicating the qualities and attributes of art through a story. It helps the visitor bring the work of art to life and understand something the eye cannot see, a compelling narrative. It is important for visitors to discuss art and share stories on tours and through virtual media. We learn and form our own meanings from stories. These interactions will help build more relationships within communities. It is the museum’s job to take visitors on a journey and introduce them to new objects and perspectives.

This thesis addresses what …

Museum Activism And Social Responsibility: Building Museum Education Programs For Juvenile Offenders, Elizabeth E. Sirhall

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Museums are important to their communities and serve many significant purposes to society. The traditional viewpoint of a museum’s function is that they are there to preserve and interpret collections for the sake of facilitating deeper understanding and education for museum audiences. However, museums are also viewed as institutions that can bring people in the community together, promote social activism, and develop programs aimed towards creating positive changes within communities. In today’s world, museums are finding this task increasingly difficult due to financial challenges and struggling to stay socially relevant for diversified audiences. In facing this challenge, it is imperative …

Public Space Interventions: Collaborating With New Craft Artists In Action- Finger Knitted Basketball Nets, Jody Boyer

Middle School Resources

A variety of artists make artwork that intervenes in public spaces. There are many reasons why artists engage communities in their work. This lesson explores a variety of artists who make artwork that intervenes in public spaces and engage communities with their work and teaches students to finger knit a 4 foot piece of yarn with excellent technique and craftsmanship. This lesson explores how the NCAA New Craft Artists in Action Net Works project and their public space interventions with handmade basketball nets. This lesson explores how artists collaborate to make artwork and empowers students to collaborate with their peers …

Urban Pets As Social Practice: Constructing Pets With A Purpose, Carrie Pope

Middle School Resources

I developed this lesson in my fourteenth year of teaching. I had just transferred to sixth grade general art after primarily teaching pottery classes in a high school for thirteen years. I was at a low income, high poverty school and was having a difficult time engaging my students. I had seen Robert Marbury’s work about ten years earlier and had wanted to do something with it but had never had the opportunity. Recognizing the student's need for play, I first approached this lesson with one class bringing in several garbage bags of stuffed animals my daughter had discarded.

The …