Teaching And Assessing Social Justice Art Education

This incisive and wholly practical book offers a hands-on guide to developing and assessing social justice art education for K–12 art educators by providing theoretically grounded, social justice art education assessment strategies. Recognizing the increased need to base the K–12 curriculum in social justice education, the authors ground the book in six social justice principles–conceptualized through art education–to help teachers assess and develop curriculum, design pedagogy, and foster social justice learning environments. From encouraging teachers to be upstanders to injustice to engaging in decolonial action, this book provides a thorough guide to facilitating and critiquing social justice art education and engaging in reflexive praxis as educators. Rich in examples and practical application, this book provides a clear pathway for art educators to connect social justice art education with real-life educational assessment expectations: 21st-century learning, literacy, social skills, teacher performance-based assessment, and National Core Art Standards, making this text an invaluable companion to art educators and facilitators alike

In this lively and groundbreaking book, arts educator Marit Dewhurst examines why art is an effective way to engage students in thinking about the role they might play in addressing social injustice. Based on interviews and observations of sixteen high schoolers participating in an activist arts class at a New York City museum, Dewhurst identifies three learning processes common to the act of creating art that have an impact on social justice: connecting, questioning, and translating. Noting that “one of the challenges of social justice art education has been the difficulty of naming effective strategies that can be used across multiple contexts,” Dewhurst outlines core strategies for an “activist arts pedagogy” and offers concrete suggestions for educators seeking to incorporate activist art projects inside or outside formal school settings. Social Justice Art seeks to give common language to educators and others who are looking to expand and refine their practices in an emerging field, whether they work in art education, social justice programming, or youth development.

Art and Social Justice Education offers inspiration and tools for educators to craft critical, meaningful, and transformative arts education curriculum and arts integration projects. The images, descriptive texts, essays, and resources are grounded within a clear social justice framework and linked to ideas about culture as commons. Essays and a section written by and for teachers who have already incorporated contemporary artists and ideas into their curriculums help readers to imagine ways to use the content in their own settings. This book is enhanced by a Companion Website (www.routledge.com/cw/quinn) featuring artists and artworks, project examples, and dialogue threads for educators. Proposing that art can contribute in a wide range of ways to the work of envisioning and making a more just world, this imaginative, practical, and engaging sourcebook of contemporary artists’ works and education resources advances the field of arts education, locally, nationally, and internationally, by moving beyond models of discipline-based or expressive art education. It will be welcomed by all educators seeking to include the arts and social justice in their curricula.

Arts educators have adopted social justice themes as part of a larger vision of transforming society. Social justice arts education confronts oppression and inequality arising from factors related to race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, class, ability, gender, and sexuality. This edition of Common Threads investigates the intersection of social justice work with education in the visual arts, music, theatre, dance, and literature. Weaving together resources from a range of University of Illinois Press journals, the editors offer articles on the scholarly inquiry, theory, and practice of social justice arts education. Selections from the past three decades reflect the synergy of the diverse scholars, educators, and artists actively engaged in such projects. Together, the contributors bring awareness to the importance of critically reflective and inclusive pedagogy in arts educational contexts. They also provide pedagogical theory and practical tools for building a social justice orientation through the arts. Contributors: Joni Boyd Acuff, Seema Bahl, Elizabeth Delacruz, Elizabeth Garber, Elizabeth Gould, Kirstin Hotelling, Tuulikki Laes, Monica Prendergast, Elizabeth Saccá, Alexandra Schulteis, Amritjit Singh, and Stephanie Springgay

Expanding on a groundbreaking framework, this revised edition connects activist art education with current campaigns for social justice. Nearly a decade after Social Justice Art, innovative arts educator Marit Dewhurst returns with a new edition offering further guidance for developing meaningful, justice-centered art programming. Reflecting on a growing interest in the field and its place within larger movements that uses creative strategies to drive social change, Dewhurst brings new research to bear on her interviews with educators, artists, and students to suggest clear, actionable approaches to facilitating the collaborative process of creating art for social change. In Social Justice Art Education, Dewhurst examines how to teach art-making to address systems of injustice, how to talk about the process, and the role of activist art projects not only in school classrooms but also within museum education, afterschool education, and other youth programming. In a new chapter, she introduces essential steps that prepare educators to engage in this work: recognizing power differentials, identifying community strengths, and nurturing relationships. Through real-world examples, Dewhurst highlights three key learning processes--connecting, questioning, and transforming--and frames a critical arts pedagogy that incorporates collaboration, inquiry-based discussion, and changemaking into arts curricula. This invigorating work provides common language and concrete support for educators and others who want to expand and refine their practices, empowering students through liberatory education that aims to inspire social change.

This book explores the relationship between social justice practices and the Arts in Education. It argues that social justice practices, at their best, should awaken our senses and the ability to imagine alternatives that can sustain the collective work necessary to challenge entrenched patterns and practices. Chapters display a range of arts-based pedagogies for challenging oppressive practices in schools, community centers and other public sites. The examples provided illustrate both the promise and on-going challenge of enacting arts based social justice practices that can transform consciousness and organize action toward justice and social change. They show the power of arts-based pedagogies to engage the imagination, reveal invisible operations of power and privilege, provoke critical reflection, and spark alternative images and possibilities. They also show the importance of on-going critical reflection for this work with attention to both the specificities of place and the obstacles (internal and external) to maintaining a social justice stance in the face of contemporary neoliberal discourses. This book was originally published as a special issue of Equity & Excellence in Education.

This book is a comprehensive introduction to the theory and practice of Community-Based Art Education (CBAE). CBAE encourages learners to make connections between their art education in a classroom setting and its application in the community beyond school, with demonstrable examples of how the arts impact responsible citizenship. Written by and for visual art educators, this resource offers guidance on how to thoughtfully and successfully execute CBAE in the pre-K–12 classroom and with adult learners, taking a broad view towards intergenerational art learning. Chapters include vignettes, exemplars of practice, curriculum examples that incorporate the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards, and research frameworks for developing, implementing, and assessing CBAE projects. “This is the book I have been waiting for—carefully researched, thought-provoking, and inspiring.” —Lily Yeh, Barefoot Artists Inc. “A practical guide for community-based art education that is theoretically grounded in social justice. Insightful suggestions for working with communities, planning, creating transformative learning, and evaluating outcomes are based in the authors’ deep experience. This book is a timely and welcome volume that will be indispensable to individuals and community organizations working in the arts for positive change.” —Elizabeth Garber, professor emeritus, University of Arizona