Arts education can be an important part of the elementary child's experience. However, keeping the arts in schools is often a challenge because of funding concerns and competing academic priorities. An important strategy in arts education advocacy and policy is arts integration. Arts integration creates a rationale for the arts based on the…

In this article, we apply the concept of systemness to music and arts teacher professional development (PD), arguing that to address perennial issues of access and scale, PD policy should be understood as a systems issue. Using systems theory as a lens and the robust and integrated PD system in Singapore as an exemplar, we address the following…

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is a unifying framework for essential life skills, including self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationships, and responsible decision-making. In this article, we examine the intersection of SEL competencies with national accreditation policy, state standards, and course descriptions using…

Visual arts teachers engage in complex work on a daily basis. This work is informed by practical knowledge that is rarely examined or drawn on in research or in the development of policy. Focusing on the work of secondary visual arts teachers, this article reports on a research program conducted in a regional area of New South Wales, Australia.…

As part of the author's graduate studies in the art education program at the University of New Mexico, he conducted a small research study on issues related to New Mexico's educational policies. His interest was motivated by the lack of attention paid to the policy and legislation that affects the art education field in his state. The author…