Defining social justice art education can help teacher candidates understand what it is and how to use related pedagogies to address issues of access, equity, and power in their future classrooms. In this article, we explore social justice art education with preservice teachers through a lesson based on the work of socially engaged artist Aram Han…

The authors have a lot in common. They are white, cis women, former K-12 art teachers, and recent doctoral graduates. They both entered their first classrooms with good intentions to create lessons reflecting diverse students. Yet, after a few years of teaching, they developed a sinking feeling in the pit of their stomachs. They developed a…

Because she has seen students increasingly advocating for social justice and for their intersectional identities, Rachel Epp Buller hoped that developing a new course called Activism, Art, and Design might offer students models of how to leverage art for social change, while also connecting to their institution's values. She is an associate…

This article shares a curriculum developed by preservice art teachers to encourage 9th-grade art education students to learn and create together, making decorative rain barrels to help their community's future and discover how artmaking can help provide sustainable ways to address ecological challenges related to their local environment. A…

H ow can we integrate art and social studies to advance art teacher education for social justice? This question has guided our collaborative journey as teacher educators at the same institution. At a public university in the southern United States, the first author is an art teacher educator, and the second author is a social studies teacher…

In this article, the authors reflect on a storytelling tunnel book project, from their interdisciplinary course Art & Social Justice for nonmajors at Nazareth College, a small, private, liberal arts college in New York. The authors argue that in an era of increased political polarization, rising racism, and xenophobia, storytelling is a…

The widespread visibility of George Floyd's murder forced many to confront the realities of police brutality and racial inequities in the United States. Educational institutions, businesses, school divisions, and professional organizations (such as the American Educational Research Association [2020] and National Art Education Association [2020])…

When talking with New York City educators about the circumstances of teaching during the upheavals wrought by COVID-19, common terms get repeated: "brutal," "chaotic," "confusing," "traumatic," "disorienting," "sad," and "lonely." While art education often includes digital tools…

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 2014, chief executive artist of Reservoir Studio, B. Stephen Carpenter, II, conducted a participatory performance at Edinboro University to draw attention to the global water crisis. During this performance, art and art education students, faculty, artists, and members of the community made hand built ceramic water filters to raise awareness of…

The Baltimore Uprising was in response to the death of Freddie Gray, who was fatally injured in April 2015 while in police custody in Baltimore City. The Uprising unfolded as a series of protests, community meetings, and actions throughout the city. This was a catalyst for art education faculty and preservice teachers to enter conversations about…

Creativity is a human right for all people, including adults with physical, mental, and/or developmental disabilities. Yet this population has "little opportunity for thoughtful and creative engagement with artworks or with personal meaning making" (Guay, 2010, p. 113), and compared to K-12 learning environments, are less likely to…

This article describes a class titled Art and Human Rights: Western Sahara which provides an example of how to enact pedagogy that is "critical, democratic, moral and ethical--as much as it is about 'key skills' or 'deep' individual learning" (Walker, 2004, p. 131). The Arts and Human Rights: Western Sahara course and others like it are…

This article describes a studio assignment grounded in social learning theory and intersectionality completed by preservice teachers during their first art education class, enabling students to begin to develop nuanced understandings about categories of difference. A studio assignment combines experiences in museum, community, and school settings…

Recently there have been calls to expandSTEM education to include the arts and design, transforming STEM into STEAM in the K-20 classroom (Maeda, 2013). Like STEM, STEAM education stresses making connections between disciplines that were previously perceived as disparate. This has been conceptualized in different ways, such as: focusing on the…