Within the past 20 years, the arts have gained increasing prominence in educational discourses as well as public arenas. At the same time that traditional genres of art (e.g., music, visual art, and performance) are being taught as part of school curricula, the study of the arts in education has taken on new venues in supporting learning and teaching through technology and multimedia. These new foci are especially critical in bridging the local and the global, and in linking cultures and worlds across age, time, and space that in earlier periods in history would have been virtually impossible to connect. Moreover, they portend opportunities for enhancing learning and improving pedagogy and practice. This chapter focuses on the arts within a social-cultural-contextual framework, examining their role as a (re)source in educational theory, research, and practice. Rather than highlighting individual disciplines within the field, typically referred to as "the arts," the chapter is concerned with the changing nature of the arts and what counts as the arts. The chapter has a six-part structure that begins with an overview of issues that are central to redefining the relationship of the arts and education. This is followed by a discussion of power, culture, and engagement, which is, in turn, followed by a discussion of epistemological considerations. The next section focuses on arts learning and dispositions, followed by a section that describes research issues in arts learning, including challenges in and to current conceptualizations of the arts. The chapter concludes with a focus on ways of expanding the role of arts education in schools and other learning and teaching communities. (Contains 1 note.)