This book champions the arts as essential to the K–12 educative process. Exploring apparently oppositional approaches to the arts and their role in education, it provides both an overview of arts learning in and out of school as well as a set of “artful” lenses through which to regard non-arts teaching and learning. With strong implications for practice, the work celebrates inquiry and multiple perspectives as it explores a range of reflections on art, artistry, artists, art education, and the methods and results of arts-related educational research.

Featuring discussions and illustrations of selected works of art by children and professional artists, the text:

• Offers practical ideas for thinking of the arts as a model for improving teaching and learning in schools.
• Reaches beyond arts educators and advocates to include those who have no experience in the arts.
• Includes a broad vista of settings for arts teaching and learning, including non-arts classrooms, schools that focus on the arts, community art centers, and art museums.
• Examines lessons from urban community art centers with a history of working successfully with, and providing safe havens for, disenfranchised students.

Jessica Hoffmann Davis is a cognitive developmental psychologist and founder of the Arts in Education Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.