In this article, Sue Uhlig highlights the mixed-media artwork of vanessa german. german uses everyday objects like bottle caps, spoons, and coins assembled en masse to create different assemblages, including power figure sculptures. Through these re-collected objects of the past, german shapes new associations in the present and helps direct…

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,…

This article presents a guiding framework for K-12 arts education. The framework lists four goals for arts education and outlines six areas of teaching practices to support these goals. This framework is presented adjacent to specific political moments, executive orders, and movements from the 2017-2018 political landscape in the United States,…

This article explores collaborative social justice art education, community building, and activism through teacher workshops that utilized contemporary art to generate curriculum and dialogue. It models one possibility for professional development that casts teachers as learners in a supportive yet critical environment. It draws on critical…

The purpose of this article is to reflect on the events that occurred at Pulse nightclub and how a social justice camp collided to create opportunities for campers, preservice teachers, and faculty mentors to use creative activities to connect community members during a time of tragedy. The author begins with a brief introduction to critical…

In order to promote effective learning, individuals must feel fully appreciated within their own unique identities (i.e., ethnicities, language differences, socioeconomic status, gender, religions). Culturally competent educators employ practices that acknowledge and build on cultural diversity and that identify students themselves as resources…

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…

Thirty years after its completion, "The Dinner Party" found a permanent home at the Brooklyn Museum in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. At the request of artist Judy Chicago, the authors developed a curriculum guide for educators to include this significant artwork in K-12 programs. Chicago's hope was that by engaging in serious…

Gulf Island Film and Television School (GIFTS) is a community-based new media school founded 15 years ago by a group of documentary and commercial filmmakers on the site of a former logging camp on the island of Galiano in British Columbia, Canada. This article presents insights derived from a component of a larger research project investigating…

Murals have become a powerful art form for portraying antiwar, human rights, social justice, and human dignity issues. Educators and artists have conducted mural workshops with adolescents in international settings to educate them about peace, human rights, and cultural tolerance. Learning with murals has been shown to be pedagogically meaningful…

As a teacher of art teachers, this author values and promotes an education through the arts that loves freedom, an education through art connected to powerful social ideas and movements, connected to social justice. This is not a kind of education common today in public schools, but it has a rich lineage. Drawing inspiration from Maxine Greene,…

This article describes Pinwheels for Peace, an art and literacy project started in 2005 as a way for students to express their feelings about what is going on in the world and in their lives. Art educators, teachers, scout groups, churches, and entire cities quickly embraced the project, which is becoming a meaningful and powerful art advocacy…