Addressing the Underserved

Abstract

It is undeniable that for many individuals, access to high-quality art education has increased in recent years. However, while rich experiences in the Arts-and the personal and cultural benefits that come from such engagements-have become accessible for many, there remain clear disparities in opportunities for many who come from low-income circumstances, individuals with disabilities, the elderly, or members of underrepresented racial or ethnic minorities; as well as for individuals who drop out of school or who are incarcerated, refugees, and recent immigrants; or for individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, or queer (LGBTQ). Art education serves many different populations; however, some are better or more fully served than others.More scholarship is needed in art education, as in many disciplines, to help us gain insight into the nature of the lived and educational experiences faced by individuals who do not receive equitable attention or services within our social and educational systems. This issue of Studies in Art Education considers the concept of within the context of art education, as well as populations we often categorize as being underserved, and it challenges us to better conceptualize and enact art education scholarship and pedagogy from a more inclusive perspective. My hope is that the following articles and commentary will encourage and further our efforts to understand, imagine, and create accessible and equitable art education for all populations. I see this work as critical to the democratic future of the Arts and art education, specifically.In Theoretical Considerations for Art Education Research With and About'Underserved Populations,'Amelia M. Kraehe and Joni B.Acuff look critically at what we mean when we use the concept of under-served as a way to categorize people and their experience. Instead of focusing on the underserved as a category of person, they use the concept underservedness as a tool for looking more closely at the social and material conditions that prevent certain groups from fully accessing and benefiting from the resources and opportunities for effective education, including high-quality art experiences. In discussing the theoretical premises of critical race theory, critical multicultur- alism, and the concepts of intersectionality and social justice within the context of education, they seek to develop more complex understandings and theorizations of the cultural and educational conditions that can to individuals being underserved. In doing so, Kraehe and Acuff challenge us to acknowledge that we may be complicit in maintaining these conditions and, thus, the resulting underservedness.Pamela Harris Lawton and Angela M. La Porte, in Beyond Traditional Art Education: Transformative Lifelong Learning in Community-Based Settings With Older Adults, focus attention on art educational experiences that acknowledge the cognitive and creative potentials and needs of older individuals. Transformative learning, based on reciprocal learning in which the participants have an equal share in the decision making and shapingof the process and outcomes, is presented as a foundation for intergenerational interactions that have the potential to create transformative experiences across all ages of learners. Lawton and La Porte provide examples of community programs that offer older adults opportunities to interact with younger individuals through storytelling and collaborative artmaking. Such programs lead to empowering events, transforming both the individual and the community into lifelong learners and appreciators of the power of art.In Performing Disidentifications: Girls 'in Trouble' Experiment With Digital Narratives to Remake Self-Representations, Olga Ivashkevich discusses how the use of digital video provided a performative space of visibility for young women situated within the juvenile justice system. Faced with the constraints of working with adolescent law offenders, specifically the limitation of imposed anonymity in any image or form that emerged from their interaction, Ivashkevich experimented with digital narratives as a vehicle for performing an identity without being identified. …