International Journal of Education & the Arts

This paper narrates the creation and evolution of the International Journal of Education and the Arts, focusing on the interplay of key characters, their motivations and aspirations. Metaphors for this journal, from oxygen of the profession to that of a vital, interdependent organism, allude to the lived experience of editing within an evolving international academic culture. The non-verbal quality of tuned listening, central to the experience of editing, is conveyed in an Authentic playing/Movement video and subsequently explored for its artistic, sensorial, and multidisciplinary affordances.

This study examined a professional development (PD) intervention that provided kindergarten-through third-grade teachers with drama-based pedagogy to improve student reading achievement. The PD consisted of collaboration between teaching artists and teachers to integrate drama into English language arts instruction for a school year. Twenty-six classroom teachers and their 815 kindergarten, first-, second-, and third-grade students participated in this quasi-experimental study. Student reading achievement was measured with the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) in the fall, winter, and spring. With the exception of first-grade students, results indicated statistically significant student growth in favor of the experimental group relative to a business-as-usual comparison group. Implications in terms of embodied theories of cognition and classroom practice are discussed.

This paper is a collaborative reflection on a graduate a/r/tographic (artist/researcher/teacher research project using vlogging as its means of inquiry into potential for subjective reconstruction. The initial study focused on shifting perspectives of self in times of solitude and new surroundings. Springgay et al.’s (2005) a/r/tographic renderings were used to methodologically investigate emergent perspectives and realities of Tyson Lepage’s journey in grappling with repositionings needed to open himself to shifting courses of action. The initial study took place in Sydney and the North Coast of New South Wales, Australia from September 2017 to December 2017. This revisitation of Lepage’s research results from subsequent and ongoing discussion and reflection between Lepage and his two graduate mentors, one in Australia and the other in Canada. William Pinar’s scholarship on cosmopolitanism provides a theoretical lens for developing deeper understandings of a relational self and is used in both initial research and in this return to the research. The multidimensional movement of understanding self in relation to other, requires openness to the world but also to one’s inner feelings and opinions. It requires individuals acting in the world with others while also cultivating solitude and independence of mind, the combined process of which, Pinar describes as worldliness, and which he claims is the pedagogical project of cosmopolitanism in curriculum theory. The authors revisit Pinar’s worldliness and Lepage’s renderings/findings from the initial research, to now extend their collective thinking regarding the research journey of making visual expressions of living a passionate and contemplative public life.

In this article, we focus on dance as intra- and intergenerational learning that cultivates corporeal knowledge held in common. Three interrelated projects reveal how danced connections between life stages develops an aesthetics of complex interaction and a mutuality of learning that enacts citizenry through communities in motion in the urban-scape. The projects approach dance practice through an expanded concept of choreography that takes into account the site, situation and life stage of dancers. We propose that moving together is a social choreography, a method for developing body-place awareness and civic participation, sharing experiences and bodily practices and performing relational complexity.

At a time of uncertainty Arts Education continues to offer powerful learning possibilities for being in, and with, the world. While it is crucial to research these possibilities in our own communities, clearly, engaging and collaborating with colleagues from various global contexts and cultures offers great potential. These interactions can develop our understandings of common and disparate issues related to arts education from a range of perspectives and allow us greater impact in the work we do. The Arts Education Research for Cultural Diversity and Sustainable Development network is an international think tank and part of the UNESCO UNITWIN program supporting arts education academics to collaborate and engage in interdisciplinary discussions and research initiatives. In this article we outline the distillation of previous and current research from this group and affiliates to identify four key areas of arts education research that have global relevance and significance. We argue that these four “imperatives”—decolonisation; cultural resilience; inclusion, agency, and wellbeing; and the post-digital age—not only represent a snapshot of current research in arts education but provide a focus for future research and collaborations critical in a pandemic and post-pandemic world. We invite arts education scholars to join us in the discussion.

This article critically reflects on the pedagogical practices I explored, reimagined, and employed while shifting dance improvisation education from face-to-face lessons in a dance studio setting to existing online platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Through self-study research as a method of inquiry I analyse my experiences and approaches to teaching and learning while navigating through the untested waters of transferring skills and knowledge in tertiary dance education via virtual means. It is revealed that interdisciplinary teaching and learning and the use of technology, such as camerawork, can help to overcome physical boundaries and could be seen as a new signature pedagogy in tertiary level dance improvisation education.

This article reflects the inquiries and discoveries experienced by early childhood educators and teaching artists involved in participatory action research designed to explore how to co-construct sustainable collaborations in early childhood settings. Drawing inspiration from the Reggio Emilia Approach and other international examples, the authors detail how professional development through collaborative research leads to co-constructed experiences that significantly impact artistic encounters for children. This article highlights a two-year research project, named the Leading Learning Council (LLC), and focuses on overarching pedagogical practices, the role of documentation and reflection in the co-construction of arts experiences for educators and children, an example of the classroom as a laboratory, and considerations for applying the model within diverse early childhood settings. A significant outcome of the project was participant recognition of leadership roles in sustaining collaborative arts-based approaches in early childhood education.

This exploratory study reports findings from an arts-based service-learning (ABSL) programme where student musicians facilitated therapeutic community music (TCM) (Aigen, 2012) for, with, and alongside children and seniors in different community settings. The data primarily comprised student musicians’ reflective logs and feedback forms and were analysed through a quality of life lens (Raphael, 2002). This paper discusses the student musicians’ reported experiences of belonging (Raphael, 2002). Belonging manifested itself in physical, social, and community aspects. For example, facilitating TCM within a circular format helped the student musicians experience deeper social interactions and a greater sense of inclusion. Moreover, the sense of belonging became a resource for developing resilience, expressing creativity, building professional networks, and experiencing the possibilities of their careers. The study concludes with implications for embedding ABSL in higher education programmes to support learning, enhance well-being, and promote community.

This article examines the unique intersection of knowledge that occurs in the digital arts learning context. The knowledge shared has emerged from the author’s practice as a teaching artist designing and delivering an immersive and interactive intermedial arts learning experience in the field of physical theatre entitled Creature Interactions: an interactive workshop. Building on Mishra and Koehler’s TPACK model for technology integration in learning contexts, an adapted model for conceiving and understanding technology integration in arts learning is proposed, TPAACK. The revised model presented acknowledges the primacy of aesthetic knowing and affect in arts encounters and its intrinsic presence in arts learning across any domain; digital or analogue.

Parents’ perceptions and beliefs regarding the benefits of early childhood music classes for toddlers are a significant determining factor in their decision to introduce music into their children’s lives. The current study aims to explore the beliefs and experiences of 12 mothers attending parent-toddler music classes in an early childhood music center in Cyprus. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in order to probe the mothers’ motivation to enroll their children. A wide range of perceived benefits were expressed during interviews. Interestingly, while participants identified intrinsically musical benefits of engaging in early years music classes, the findings reveal that the majority of reasons given could be categorized as being non-musical, including, social/emotional, cognitive/educational and physical/motor-skills benefits. The insight gained into parents’ perceptions and expectations has given us the impulse to consider how we can work with the mothers to better support musical learning, both during the classes and at the home.

Drawing from six-months of action research with spectacle theatre-makers in Chicago, this study explores multimodal, expeditionary practice of teaching artists who apprenticed girls through Redmoon Theatre’s Dramagirls program. Concepts of new literacy design and aesthetic experience illustrate teaching in socio-semiotic and material worldcraft, set in motion via intermedial, expeditionary platforms: Imaging, Games, and Dramatizing with Objects. Ethnographic, arts-based analysis of discourse scenarios reveal an emerging aesthetic playground, where teaching artists afford girls imaginative schema to construct socio-semiotic material, felt realities and cultural affinities for a girls’ utopia. As this hybrid form of theatre is seldom explored as an aesthetic literacy context, Dramagirls’ worldcraft offers pedagogical models for significant youth designs and inquiries.

This article examines three picture books: The Dot (2003) by Peter H. Reynolds, Art & Max (2010) by David Weisner (2010), and The Shape Game (2003) by Anthony Browne, to see how ideas about creativity are conceived of and pictured for children. Various ideas about creativity and the creative process are encoded in these multimodal texts: the idea of a creative genius putting their unique stamp or signature on the world, the idea of an apprentice artist learning to use the tools of the trade, and the idea of the artist as a playful manipulator of cultural signs. Each of these picture book encodings of creativity has implications for a classroom pedagogy that seeks to encourage creativity and nurture quality creative output.

Over the last four years of my K-12 visual arts teaching career, I faithfully kept visual journals, filling them with stories of my experiences in the classroom. What initially began as an experiment as I searched for a tool to help me navigate new challenges within a public school system, eventually led me to realize that my visual journals were a valuable resource to better understand myself as a teacher, my place within the system, and a resource for resilience. In this article, I use narrative and arts-based approaches to explore the ways I leveraged visual journals as a tool for resilience by integrating humor, fostering a sense of accomplishment and self-efficacy, as well as retaking ownership of my journey to fight back. Through sharing this narrative I hope to illustrate some of the ways visual journals can help arts educators find resilience and strength to resist during challenging times.

In recent decades, the discourse of music education and education more broadly has shifted from curriculum-centered to student-centered approaches. In an effort to address the existential dimensions of education, Gert Biesta poses a rhetorical and theoretical alternative: world-centered education, an orientation directed at enabling what Biesta described as student subject-ness. Situated within and drawing upon U.S.-based conceptions of music education, I position project-based learning as a body of practices through which the possibility of a world-centered orientation—and, thus, student subject-ness—can manifest in music education. To that end, I offer three considerations for music educators of all levels interested in student subject-ness in the practice of project-based learning. To prepare a foundation for these three considerations, the article begins with an explanation of project-based learning, an unfolding of concepts pertinent to Biesta’s world-centered education, and a rationale for marrying the two together.

The purpose of this qualitative research was to analyze the career paths of principals working in dance education institutes and to increase understanding of the different careers of the managers and principals working in arts organizations. Very few studies have explored principals’ career paths in art schools in Finland or abroad. The following research questions were answered: (1) What are the pertinent characteristics of the careers of Finnish principals of dance education institutions? and (2) What factors advance their careers? A total of 25 principals from across Finland participated in this narrative research study. The thematic findings of career choice and opportunities, meaningful career experiences, and three types of career narratives emerged from the analysis. These findings provide new viewpoints on and understanding of educational leadership in the field of art education.

Teachers working in special education school settings often lack confidence to deliver classroom music programs. Music therapists working in special schools may be well suited to collaborating with teacher colleagues to improve musical confidence and skills. This action research project worked with teaching staff of three special education classes to design and deliver a collaborative music program. Data sources were focus group discussions and weekly online surveys, triangulated with the researcher’s field journal. Subsequently, reflexive thematic analysis identified four overarching themes in the data: listening inside the musical culture of a school; building capacity by accessing the music child; musicking for brain care; and removing barriers to success. This informed a refined framework supporting delivery skills to improve teaching staff musical capacity. Rehearsal of such an approach can facilitate “delivery without fear” experiences for participants. Therefore, this study informs pre-service and professional development teacher training, where a scaled-up model can be applied.

Postsecondary dance programs in the United States have been called upon to reconsider their curricula and pedagogical approaches in relation to racial equity. Historically students enter university with the belief that ballet is the foundation of dance, which is devaluing to dance forms outside ballet. As academia looks to build more inclusive world views of dance, how can dance curricula counter students’ long-held belief that ballet is the foundation of dance? How can curricula expand students’ understanding of dance to decenter a Eurocentric view? To investigate these questions, first-year students in two dance programs completed questionnaires asking for their perspectives on the relationship of race and dance education. The research sought to reveal if and how students’ understanding of the operations of racial hierarchy change or hold stagnant as a result of curricular interventions. This article contextualizes the research findings and outlines interventions for the continued decolonization of dance curricula.

This ethnographic study explores how elementary school children’s participation in a culturally diverse music program, which featured their active engagement in group music-making and their acquaintance with the cultural-historical context of the music, affected them on interpersonal, collective, and social levels. The study focuses on the feelings of connectedness that the children experienced with their classmates, with the teacher-researcher, and with the people whose musical cultures they studied. The research involved fifth- and sixth-graders from two Greek elementary schools. The data are derived from participant observation, interviews with the children, and the children’s written reflections. The analysis brings to view the many different nuances of the above feelings, the avenues through which they emerged, and the value they had for the children. The study shows that a meaningful engagement with the world’s diverse musical cultures has the power to positively transform relationships inside schools and the children’s feelings toward the cultural Other.

While extensive research has been conducted on text-based plagiarism in tertiary education, with corresponding clearly defined rules for avoidance, far less scholarly material exists concerning perceptions of visual plagiarism. Accordingly, this study investigates ethical considerations specific to applied arts education via three information-gathering focus groups and a subsequent online survey. The resulting qualitative data was analysed using Grounded Theory Methods and revealed significant discrepancies in knowledge. From this analysis, four broad experiential themes were identified: Local, Definition, Honesty, and Education (LDHE). Based on these findings and the underpinning literature, this paper puts forward a conceptual framework for addressing visual plagiarism. The LDHE framework was developed in direct response to the identified experiential themes and their respective concerns, thus providing art and design faculty with a foundational tool to generate and critically analyse pedagogies for preventing visual plagiarism in the context of applied arts tertiary education.

Capacity to teach the arts is a problem reported by many teachers in primary (elementary) school settings in Australia. This paper reports on research which explored how to build primary school teachers’ capacity in arts-based pedagogy. It outlines the design and development of a co-mentoring program between arts mentor practitioners and generalist primary school teachers which used an Arts Immersion approach. The findings of this research reveal the effectiveness of co-mentoring as an approach to support professional learning in arts education, and the use of an Arts Immersion approach to improve teachers’ capacity in planning, facilitating, and assessing authentic arts experiences.

In this study, I discuss the potential implementation of José Ricardo Morales’ relevant dramatic literature (scripts) as an additional pedagogical learning tool for teaching the topics of media manipulation and propaganda in Chilean secondary schools. Moreover, this process encourages students to critically examine and discuss specific past and present-day local conflicts. From a qualitative approach, I analyze several learning objectives from the Chilean national curriculum frameworks that best suit the aforementioned topics developed and problematized in Morales’ plays. As complementary, I discuss the previous results with eight randomly chosen secondary teachers and their students about using Morales’ plays to teach particular topics in Chilean history. The results reveal that incorporating two of Morales’ plays as a reading and writing activity can be helpful for secondary teachers to teach their students the topics of media manipulation and propaganda in authoritarian regimes from a contextualized perspective.

This article evaluates Make it Happen Summer School according to Bernstein’s writing on classification, framing, and recontextualisation. The project was a collaboration between a university and an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) that aimed to develop a curriculum for creative practitioners so they could learn to propose successful socially-engaged arts projects for funding and commissions. NPOs are arts organisations that are funded by the UK Government and the UK’s National Lottery via the Arts Council England.

This article draws upon quantitative and qualitative data collected in relation to this project to evaluate the curriculum and pedagogy. In order to do this, models developed from Bernstein’s work guide the analysis of the findings. It was found that while many gained powerful knowledge from the project, some did not. The processes of recontextualisation demonstrated how ideologies based on accountability and performativity shaped the curriculum reflecting the depoliticisation of socially-engaged practice.

Playing video games is one of the most popular leisure activities across the world. Video game music (VGM) is a musical art form prevalent in popular culture, and there is potential to use it for the music education of students. Using informal music learning (Green, 2002) and online participatory culture (Jenkins, 1992/2013) theories as grounds for inquiry, this multicase study explored how musicians used the music of Undertale—a popular 2015 independent video game created by Toby Fox—to inspire music making by publishing YouTube videos. Twelve case studies were conducted using methods outlined by Robert E. Stake (1995; 2006), each centered around a YouTube channel managed by creators who published Undertale music video covers. Data were analyzed around three themes: learning how to create for YouTube, creating covers of Undertale for publication, and interacting with others within the VGM community. By exploring the processes of VGM cover artists who published on YouTube, music educators may be able to better guide students to develop skills for publishing content on the internet and connecting with others in meaningful ways online.

Background: Mental health concerns prevent positive well-being and are key challenges for Australian children and young people. Arts organisations play a role in enhancing the positive mental health of children and young people. This paper describes the involvement of young people and their parents in the development of a resource for arts organisation’s intentional support of social and emotional well-being.
Methods: Six focus groups were conducted with 19 young people who participate in dance, drama, and circus programs, and 17 of their parents. Questions explored how the arts currently, and potentially, support their social and emotional well-being.
Results: Three overarching themes: Connecting with Others; Being Myself; and Teaching Methods, plus 14 sub-themes were identified.
Conclusion: A framework of well-being factors and pedagogies was developed to guide the creation of a resource to help support the social and emotional well-being of young people participating in arts programs.

This study employed a research and development method to design courses that enhance creative dance skills for students in Mathayomsuksa 1 (typically aged 12-13 years). Divided into four phases, the study used background information and input from students and teachers to design a dance course that addressed the neglect of Thai culture in the existing curriculum. A pilot study was implemented and evaluated, revealing that the curriculum improves artistic, creative, and technical skills while heightening cultural awareness. The results showed that prioritizing personal growth and individual expression over procedural dance technique raised cultural awareness among the sample population. The study indicates that an existential pedagogy leads to heightened cultural awareness among dance students.

Book Reviewed: Hotta, E. (2022). Suzuki: The man and his dream to teach the children of the world. Harvard University Press.

Book Reviewed: Goodrich, A. (2023). Peer mentoring in music education: Developing effective student leadership. Routledge.