Teacher evaluation policy is a poignant and high-stakes issue. Driven by research, stakeholders are forging ahead with the premise that quality teachers are a critical, if not the most important, resource. As a result, many states are reforming procedures in response to educational reforms. The change to evaluate teachers in a systematic way has…

Media advances have changed the ways in which we interact, communicate, teach, and learn. The growth of telecommunication, video sharing sites, specifically YouTube, and social media, have exponentially increased the number of people interested in dance and dance education. Technology presents new ways for students to think about their learning,…

This article synthesizes current dance education research that demonstrates connections between the culturally relevant pedagogy and student academic achievement, details why the arts are exponentially important and valuable to all communities, and provides practical solutions for the everyday teacher. Through a pointed focus on culturally…

The chairs of four arts education professional organizations--Jane Bonbright of the National Dance Education Organization, Michael Butera of the National Association for Music Education, Lynne Kingsley of the American Alliance for Theatre and Education, and Deborah Reeve of the National Art Education Association--were individually interviewed for…

Preparing dance specialist teachers to successfully educate an increasingly diverse student population highlights a number of challenges within an educational policy landscape characterized by technical production, methods-centric teacher preparation, teacher-proof curriculum, and standardization. The ramifications of these policies have…

The arts are an integral and important component of our everyday lives. As such, they need to be a vital part of our children's education. However, this has rarely been the case in Australian state primary schools over the past two hundred years. This article explores the history of the arts in Australian state primary schools since the…

The field of dance arts education in the United States is in an entirely different place today than it was at the turn of the century. Much of this change is due to a convergence of events that involved: federal and state legislation, policy, and funding that supported dance in arts education; a forty-year transition of dance out of departments of…

This study investigates teaching artists whose work is rooted in dance and theater. Although the term remains both ambiguous and debated, teaching artists provide a good deal of arts education delivery in P-12 and afterschool programs throughout the United States. Based on survey data from a range of teaching artists across the nation (N = 133),…

Postsecondary dance education is at a crucial juncture in its history in academe. Emerging from women's physical education programs in the 1930s, the profession's realignment with the arts broadly and arts-based education specifically has been characterized by ambitious goals and steady growth through the 1990s. However, a number of critical…

From an administrative perspective, this article investigates equity issues in dance education, and current challenges and opportunities for leadership in postsecondary dance programs involved in teacher education and certification. Although dance education is varied in content and environment, much is shared in terms of common goals for gender…

In the popular media, American cultural, educational, and political life is portrayed as ideologically split down the middle. The split is often framed in terms of opposites by using the ideas and labels addressed by the author in this paper--traditional versus nontraditional, experiment versus the status quo, diversity versus homogeneity, change…

One of the great puzzles within the Western concert dance world is why so many artists who create revolutionary works onstage conduct their classes and rehearsals as demagogues. Such teachers are engaged in teaching practices that replicate and reproduce in the dance studio the very power relationships they are often critiquing as unjust and…

The cultivation of a community environment that attracts the creative worker requires technology, talent, and tolerance. The creative knowledge worker seeks a community not only with technological resources, often including a research university at its hub, but also the presence of arts, culture, and diversity. The Social Impact of the Arts study…

Explores the challenges that arise when government policies are implemented with the goal of promoting culture, tradition, heritage, and identity in society. Focuses specifically on music education. Examines the impact and effects of the post-independence cultural policies in Kenya. Provides recommendations for restructuring present cultural…

Discusses the evolution of dance education, the national support for arts education, and the implications for dance. Considers the challenges that must be met to establish quality dance programs. Focuses on how to address the challenges both at the national and state level. Provides recommendations. (CMK)