In its four years of life, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) has blazed new pathways for policy and funding in K-12 arts education. Many states acted early to take advantage of these federal opportunities to expand students' access to the arts. Through its definitional language, suggested actions, and funding mechanisms, ESSA provides states…

This issue represents one of the first objective, collaborative pieces addressing Social Emotional Learning (SEL) across all arts content areas in diverse areas of policy. The results justify further investigation into the congruence of the arts and SEL, exploring examples of SEL instruction in the arts, and the development of consistent messages…

Resources for teaching in higher education have undergone a tremendous evolution during the past several decades. The Internet and commercial services, such as YouTube and Google, have revolutionized the manner by which students and faculty access information to both conduct research and meet course requirements. This mixed methods study…

The process of entering prison as a civilian is such … sign in … send stuff through x-ray … walk through metal detector … get patted down by officer … show badge, get buzzed through steel door … get buzzed through another steel door … get buzzed through another steel door … show badge to officer, get buzzed through steel door. Enter the yard and…

This article reviews the development of a qualitative summative assessment based on the National Theater Standards to evaluate theater education classes. The authors examine the current state of the field of theater education; the use of the assessment; an overview of the results of an arts integration U.S. Department of Education project; and a…

Age-appropriate children's books can be an effective way to introduce and discuss issues of social justice with young students. These books can be the anchor for interdisciplinary lessons that integrate core content areas, such as language arts, science, and/or social studies with the visual and performing arts to enrich students' learning…

Looking for a K--12 art teaching position can be a daunting endeavor. What do school district administrators and art teachers feel is important when hiring visual arts teachers and how do they carry out the job search process? This is a question author Lisa LaJevic often hears from her preservice art teachers as they near the end of their college…

During the second industrial revolution (1870-1914), scientists moved away from trial-anderror methods to more systematically apply the principles of chemistry, physics, and biology (Mokyr 1998). The authors chose this period as the foundation of a project-based learning (PBL) unit integrated with the ninth-grade U.S. history curriculum (Thomas…

The goal of the action research project on visual culture is to contribute to the dialogue on the exploratory ecology vs commodity culture of the elementary school classroom. Exploratory culture, unlike commodity culture, applauds open-ended thinking, inchoate imaginings, and critical thinking with its attachment to divergent paths to resolving…

This article examines arts participation as a context for youth to develop purpose. Two analyses were conducted of interviews with arts-involved youth to explore the relationship between their arts participation and purpose, which was defined as an "intention to accomplish something that is both meaningful to the self and contributes to the…

Teaching artists know that many of the children they teach are being deprived of essential human experiences. Poverty, violence, and ineffective education have left them with little hope of emotional or material success, and a student's connection to an artist can change his or her life in little and big ways. Paula Davidoff and Carolyn Hunt are…

Glen Rock Public Schools in New Jersey transformed instruction by enabling teachers to discover the richness of incorporating various aspects of the arts into their classroom work. In a deeper vein, Glen Rock teachers learned that art should not be peripheralized because the arts have unique potential as vehicles that can open new ways of thinking…

The decline of artistic expression in late childhood is an ongoing and well identified problem in the field of art education, yet it has been generally accepted as a natural occurrence and irreversible attribute of normative development. However, this foreclosure of artistic learning has serious implications to the concerns of emotional…

The Laws of Life is an international essay contest and social and emotional learning (SEL) initiative that many school districts use to build students' SEL and related abilities. In the contest, students reflect on their identities--who they are, who they want to become, and what they want their lives to stand for--by writing about the main values…

Plainfield, New Jersey has been a pathway from the Hudson to the Delaware Rivers for Native Americans, a settlement for early settlers, a source for industrial workers, and a residence for homeowners of a wide variety of incomes. The town's architecture recalls its social history. A need was seen to build community through recognition of the…