Learning to become a democratic educator requires listening to and learning from the perspectives, values, goals, and concerns of local communities. Obtaining and learning from this knowledge, however, is not without its challenges. This article will present an overview of community-engaged teacher education as well as some of the challenges…

Whilst creativity is perceived as an important twenty-first century skill, current research suggests that educators generally do not have a good understanding on how to teach this type of skill, confusing it at times with creative teaching. This paper seeks to respond to educators' needs in this regard by addressing the meaning of creativity, as…

Educators who encounter children facing trauma, present and past, can draw on practices that help all students--like building relationships and helping kids create their own "wellness tools" to handle challenging emotions. See how this educator weaves children's literature and art into practices like these.

Between 2005 and 2017 yielded fertile ground for research studies and articles about transformative learning and the arts within the field of adult education. The main questions this article seeks to answer are: What art forms are being used for transformative learning, how are they being used, and with what effect? The article begins by…

In this study we explored students' perspectives and experiences engaging in an arts integration learning model during middle school through a pluralistic lens of creative engagement in learning. The sample included N=86 students in Grades 6-7 attending schools in fringe rural and urban locales from small and mid-sized cities in the Pacific…

During the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 school years at a public high school in El Paso, Texas the author developed and led an after-school arts-based literacy class. This arts-based literacy class was part of the design of a larger ethnographic study spanning the same timeframe that examined how Texas' high-stakes accountability policies shaped…

When it launched the Youth Arts Initiative (YAI) in 2014, Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) hoped this high-quality arts initiative would address the challenge of attracting and retaining tweens. Research from the first three years of the initiative suggests that it worked: Participants were highly engaged in YAI. This engagement translated…

Recent changes in educational policy have placed 21st-century skills at the forefront of arts education, presenting arts educators with an opportunity to reassess instructional practices. Popular music pedagogies are approaches to learning and practicing popular music that may be useful for addressing 21st-century skills and knowledge in arts…

This report examines the impact of Creative Teaching techniques on students' academic growth on the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) reading and math tests from 2016-2017 to 2017-2018. Statistically significant growth on STAAR reading was found for students who had teachers who were moderately competent at Creative Teaching…

The aim of the present study is to examine the relationships among university students' participation in recreation activities, life satisfaction and happiness. The study was conducted with 460 university students based on the causal comparison pattern. The Survey of Participation in Recreation Activity, Life Satisfaction and Happiness scales were…

Participation in extracurricular activities is associated with positive developmental indicators and wellbeing. However, involvement in some activities may place adolescents at-risk for peer victimization. This study focuses on the effect of participating in sports and academic/arts extracurricular activities on relational victimization, focusing…

This study presents a content analysis of 30 ecology-themed children's picture books published in English and Spanish from 1994 to the present. Books were analyzed for the following aspects: 1) Nature appreciation, 2) Interrelatedness of Nature, 3) Realistic ecology problem, 4) Differing perspectives, 5) Hope for a solution, 6) Reflection and…

An arts-based approach to secondary social studies can promote active learning, develop critical thinking skills, and advance the study of social institutions.

This paper describes an online undergraduate course that explores ways the arts can help students develop a clearer understanding of how perceptions about (dis)ability affect their lives, and the lives of others. The course engages a variety of questions through web-mediated and arts-based activities, including: What is disability? How does…

Medical discourse currently dominates as the defining framework for madness in educational praxis. Consequently, ideas rooted in a mental health/illness binary abound in higher learning, as both curriculum content and through institutional procedures that reinforce structures of normalcy. While madness, then, is included in university spaces, this…