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As we navigate the complex landscape of continuously emerging and changing social and educational crises, the vision and paths that shed light on social and educational consciousness for transformative learning and teaching remain. In this editorial, I revisit four approaches to transformative education for social and educational equity.
First, storytelling as a practice has been highlighted as a powerful approach for transformative education (Archibald, Citation2008; Delgado, Citation1989; Delpit, Citation1988; Ladson-Billings & Tate, Citation1995). By identifying the effect and importance of storytelling as a form of communication, critical race scholar of law Richard Delgado (Citation1989) also ascertained that when individuals express their oppressed experiences and realities, the oppositional force that challenges unconscious racism is also reinforced. Social justice educational scholars Gloria Ladson-Billings and William F. Tate (1995) extended the notion of storytelling as a healing apparatus for those oppressed because it “stop[s] inflicting mental violence on oneself” (p. 57). In 2008, Jo-Ann Archibald, O’um Q’um Xiiem, from the Stó:lō and St’at’imc First Nations in British Columbia, further introduced storytelling as an educational meaning-making process by sharing Indigenous traditional and lived experiences, which fosters a sustainable life. She guides us to become “story-ready” by demonstrating a storytelling process with respect, responsibility, reverence, reciprocity and holism, interrelatedness, and synergy (Archibald, Citationn.d., For Educators section, para. 1).
Second, collaborative learning has been established as an effective educational approach in developing a sense of responsibility towards students’ ability to contribute a fair share of the work involved in the learning process (Johnson et al., Citation2007; Slavin, Citation1996). Extending such a fair share of the work, Johnson and Johnson (Citation1999) underscored respect, integrity, appreciation of diversity, and compassion as important civic values for collaborative learning. Further, social justice educational scholar Lee Ann Bell (Citation1997) stressed that “the goal of social justice education is full and equal participation of all groups in a society that is mutually shaped to meet their needs” (p. 3), while “the process for attaining the goal of social justice… should also be democratic and participatory, inclusive and affirming of human agency and human capacities for working collaboratively to create change” (p. 4). Bell’s insight of social justice education advances such modes of collaborative learning with the equitable distribution of resources and social responsibility, a student-centered focus, dialogue, and an analysis of power for student empowerment as transformative educational assets for social change.
Next, experiential learning has also been strongly promoted as an element of the educational process supported through engagement in purposeful experiences. As stressed by John Dewey (Citation1938), knowledge emerges through students’ active adaptation to their environment, and education should begin with contextual student experience. This view greatly prevails in U.S. education as a way to encourage students’ active engagement in preparing for a future workforce. It often, however, reinforces students to conform to social norms and expectations. Moving forward, I find that experiential learning could serve as a way to potentially advance an educational vision in developing a more socially just world. Paulo Freire (Citation1970), a proponent of critical pedagogy, believed the importance of experience in praxis is not shared with the banking model in education where a student’s mind is viewed as an empty vessel to be filled with teachers’ preconceived knowledge. Rather, it values learners’ lived experiences which personally affect their lives as a way of learning. The education process, which he terms praxis, must include reflection upon experience, before being translated into purposeful action for social transformation.
And last, community engagement is also an educational notion that significantly focuses on contributions to social justice projects. During the mid-1990s, a movement began in the United States that propelled community engagement into education when educators and scholars established the need to repair a broken connection between schools and communities caused by the lack of relevancy and legitimacy within the field of education (Boyer, Citation1990, Citation1996; Drufoods, Citation1994). Joy Drufoods (Citation1994) also highlighted the importance of connections between schools and social service systems as a way to renew community engagement in facilitating the academic success of students. This seminal work extended the agenda of school–community partnerships as academic missions of schools that better support student learning as well as improve schools while also assisting communities (Stefanski et al., Citation2016). This idea seeks a close working relationship and mutual benefit among schools, families, and communities. The result of this new vision is an array of social and academic benefits. However, community engagement within the service‐learning movement is often positioned as a politically neutral, skills‐based learning experience for students who gain practical application of their academic knowledge and citizenship skills through service to their community (Chovanec et al., Citation2012). This disproportionate focus on pragmatic considerations, along with the notion of embracing an instrumentalist approach, are critical issues that reproduce and perpetuate oppressive colonial relations.
Community engagement in social justice work needs a new direction and groundwork to rethink the notions of community, (dis)engagement, and knowledge. A social justice framework opens “a space for non-oppressive relations based on alliance” (Kajner, Citation2018, p. 281). This space envisions community engagement that moves beyond merely being served, involved, and engaged. It refuses the ambiguous use of language of engagement that is merely reciprocal or mutually beneficial, and it requires clarifying language to inform the core values of community engagement. This space must be social and equity-based so it can foster greater self-awareness and cultural humility through self-critiques and reflection on issues, such as White privilege and Whiteness, deliberating dialogue, and actions that transform inequitable relations of power (Kajner, Citation2018). It also refuses salvationist and paternalistic modes (Bruce, Citation2018). By revisiting these four educational approaches, we recognize how each approach serves as a pivotal reminder of the transformative impact of art education in the quest for social justice.
The first article in this issue of Art Education, “Data Story Finding and Storytelling: Arts-Based Data Visualization in Art and STEM Classrooms,” by Amanda Galbraith, Joy G. Bertling, Tabitha Wandell, Rita Swartzentruber, and Lynn Hodge, introduces a collaborative arts-based data-visualization project in a middle school curriculum that demonstrated how student-centered data visualizations of ecological stories affected social change. The second article, “Moving From Me to We: Highlighting Collaborative Research in Art Education,” by Christina Bain, Kristin Vanderlip Taylor, Borim Song, Kyungeun Lim, Hannah Heller, Michelle Antonisse, Amanda Tobin Ripley, Zoe Fejeran, Olivia Spiers, Ariana Zaia, Aunica Cesena, and Carlos Becerril, presents the challenges and successes of collaborative research in higher education, museum education, and graduate art education by discussing the connections of social and racial justice with collaborative research and its partnership with communities and K–12 schools. The third article, “Turning Green: Challenging Neoliberalism and the Commodification of Color Through Pedagogical Moments” by Timonthy Babulski aims to revisit and challenge the fixed knowledge of color theory defined by neoliberalism and commodification. By highlighting the lived experiences of students of color to demonstrate the construction of various knowledges of color, Babulski also identifies how the resistance against the knowledge of color is being commodified or controlled. Next, Yiwen Wei’s article, “Data Visualization in Art Education Research and Practice,” offers diverse cases in the application of data visualization to practice by including the work of social justice artists, art teaching and assessment, and art research. And last, Stephanie F. Reid’s article, “Sparking K–8 Students’ Connections With the Arts: Perspectives on a School–Community Organization Partnership,” shares insights from qualitative research on the collaborative design of infrastructures in the arts ecosystem to achieve equitable access for students within the school–community space.
References
- Archibald, J. (n.d.). On becoming story-ready. Indigenous Storywork. https://indigenousstorywork.com/1-for-educators
- Archibald, J. (2008). Indigenous storywork: Educating the heart, mind, body, and spirit. University of British Columbia Press.
- Bell, L. A. (1997). Theoretical foundations for social justice education. In M. Adams, L. A. Bell, & P. Griffin (Eds.), Teaching for diversity and social justice: A sourcebook (pp. 3–15). Routledge.
- Boyer, E. L. (1990). Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
- Boyer, E. L. (1996). The scholarship of engagement. Journal of Public Service and Outreach, 1(1), 11–20.
- Bruce, J. (2018). Postcritical service-learning: Interruptions to ethnocentric and salvationist discourses. In D. E. Lund (Ed.), The Wiley international handbook of service-learning for social justice (pp. 205–224). Wiley.
- Chovanec, D., Kajner, T., Mian, A., & Underwood, M. (2012). Exploring shifts in conceptions of “good” citizenship: Community service-learning in activist placements. Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry, 4(1), 43–56.
- Delgado, R. (1989). Storytelling for oppositionists and others: A plea for narrative. Michigan Law Review, 87(8), 2411–2441.
- Delpit, L. (1988). The silenced dialogue: Power and pedagogy in educating other people’s children. Harvard Educational Review, 58(3), 280–298.
- Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. Kappa Delta Pi.
- Drufoods, J. G. (1994). Full-service schools: A revolution in health and social services for children, youth, and families. Jossey-Bass.
- Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed (M. B. Ramos, Trans.). Seaberry Press.
- Kajner, T. (2018). Social justice and community-engaged scholarship: Reconceptualizing community, engagement, and service. In D. E. Lund (Ed.), The Wiley international handbook of service-learning for social justice (pp. 281–298). Wiley.
- Ladson-Billings, G. and Tate, W. F., IV. (1995). Toward a critical race theory of education. Teachers College Record, 97(1), 47–68.
- Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (1999). Making cooperative learning work. Theory Into Practice, 38(2), 67–73.
- Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Smith, K. (2007). The state of cooperative learning in postsecondary and professional settings. Educational Psychology Review, 19, 15–29.
- Slavin, R. E. (1996). Research on cooperative learning and achievement: What we know, what we need to know. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 21(1), 43–69.
- Stefanski, A., Valli, L., & Jacobson, R. (2016). Beyond involvement and engagement: The role of the family in school–community partnerships. School Community Journal, 26(2), 135–160.