Arts-based Education Research Articles

Impact, feasibility, and acceptability of CREATORS: An arts-based pilot intervention to reduce mental-health-related stigma among youth in Hyderabad, India

BackgroundMental-health-related stigma prevents youth from seeking help for mental health problems. Limited studies in low- and middle-income countries assess the effect of arts-based education in reducing such stigma among youth, thereby leaving a gap in evidence-based, age- and culturally-appropriate interventions. ObjectiveTo evaluate the impact, feasibility, and acceptability of CREATORS, an arts-based educational program on reducing mental-health-related stigma among youth in India. MethodsWe conducted a mixed-methods, pre-post control group study among college-going adolescents in Hyderabad, India. At baseline and post-intervention (after six weeks), we examined differences in intended behavior towards people with mental health problems. ResultsOur study involved 432 participants across three study groups: participants creating art on the theme of mental-health-related stigma over six weeks (n = 123), a student audience viewing 2-h arts show by participants (n = 244), and a control group (n = 65). Between baseline and post-test, participants creating art showed significantly lower stigma towards people with mental health problems compared to members of the control group (coefficient = 1.55, 95%CI 0.06–3.04, p = 0.041). Participants found the intervention useful and enjoyable (>95%; n = 773 across six weeks). Participants identified that collaborative creation of art made the subject of mental health interesting and relatable. ConclusionsParticipating in an arts-based educational program was associated with significantly lower mental-health-related stigma among youth compared to a control group in the short term. High acceptability of the program demonstrates the utility of arts-based education to address mental-health-related stigma. With community partners and artists as facilitators, our program may support mental health specialists in mental health promotion.

Belonging in remote higher education classrooms: The dynamic interaction of intensive modes of learning and arts-based pedagogies

In this paper, the authors explore the conditions that support belonging in remote VU Block Model® teaching. They examine the role of arts-based, embodied pedagogy in promoting engagement in learning, connection between students, and between students and teachers, and in an environment in which vulnerability and risk-taking in learning is valued. A discussion of belonging in higher education and the practice of embodied learning is followed by the reflections of seven participants. These participants were students in a remotely taught, arts-based higher education block unit, which had been mindfully adapted to retain the embodied nature of delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic. After students’ participation in focus group interviews, the lead author constructed found poetry from their comments and reflections. This found poetry forms the dataset through which the questions of belonging are explored. The researchers found that when explored through the lens of the Community of Inquiry Framework, embodied and arts-based practices provided opportunities for students to develop a sense of belonging, deepen understanding of lived experiences, and realise higher education and career goals. This study elevates the voices of students, providing opportunities for higher education teachers to consider the importance of belonging for student success in remote, intensive, and on-campus modes of delivery.

Teenagers' perceptions of Mexican primates: A participatory environmental education program for the conservation of mantled howler monkeys (Alouatta palliata) in Los Tuxtlas, Mexico.

This study explores the perceptions that high school students have about mantled howler monkeys in the Mexican community of Balzapote, Veracruz. We systematized the learning process derived from a Primate Conservation Education Program (PCEP) based on participatory action research (PAR) and arts-based education. Our results indicate a decrease in students' fear of monkeys, the recovery of myths and legends about this species, as well as a complex knowledge about monkeys and their habitat. The inclusion of local knowledge enriched the learning experience and reinforced primate conservation concepts. The PAR and arts-based approaches allowed students to internalize and apply acquired knowledge and fostered empathy. In addition to learning, the approach helped develop teamwork, critical thinking, and creative skills. Quantitative indicators showed shifts in emotions and knowledge post-program, and qualitative data revealed a deep articulation of learned content. We also identified migration and mining activities as socio-political factors impacting local people's livelihoods and wildlife conservation in this region.

Using Drama Pedagogy to Enhance Understanding of HIV Transmission, Infection, and Prevention Among Third-Year Student Teachers

Thirty-eight years into the HIV and AIDS pandemic, the world is still striving to reduce global HIV infections towards zero new infections and AIDS-related deaths by 2030. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to carry the burden of global HIV infections as governmental and nongovernmental agencies try out different prevention strategies (UNAIDS, 2024b). Several scholars have argued that comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) is the best preventive strategy to reach youth and key populations with factual information regarding HIV and AIDS. This paper draws from the project, Mentoring as a Method to Promote Women's Health in the Context of HIV-Prevention and Unequal Gender Relations, which employed memory work, photo-voice, drama, drawings, and focus group discussions with third-year student teachers in a life orientation module. Focussing on the data generated through drama, I present an arts-based activity that was used to teach about HIV transmission to student teachers in a bid to equip them with alternative ways of teaching school-learners about HIV and AIDS. The findings highlight student teachers' lived experiences and how they have shaped their perceptions of HIV infections and living with AIDS. I argue from the findings, that arts-based pedagogies allow for enhanced understanding of complex phenomena due to their participatory and in-built intervention nature. Thus, I posit that pedagogies that employ participatory, arts-based, and visual methodologies should be extensively employed in teacher-education towards reducing new HIV infections among the youth.

Using Arts-Based Methodologies: Facilitating First-Year Pre-Service Teachers' Collaborative Teaching of Cell Biology

Even with well-prepared lectures, some of my students still struggled to understand some of the concepts of cell biology. I therefore wondered if an exploration of teaching methods involving the arts would help them to engage with the subject content in ways that made it more accessible, and help them to understand the concepts better. Building on earlier approaches of using collaborative learning, I requested students to discuss, plan, and present to each other on cell biology concepts using arts-based teaching methods. In groups of 4-6 members, they could use any strategy such as dance, drama, music, poetry, and drawing to teach the concepts. The students collaboratively prepared content for a concept of their choice and presented it using their chosen and developed teaching strategy. Some of the strategies that students seemed to enjoy using included rapping the concepts, songs, dance, role play, and poetry. A few students resorted to individual PowerPoint presentations. The hope was that the enjoyment would translate into students' familiarisation with and understanding of the concepts better than through traditional teaching. Although the approach demonstrated that students could teach these concepts in versatile and fun ways, it did not assess their understanding of the concepts presented.

Drama in the Science Classroom: Reimagining the Teaching of Natural and Life Sciences

The low levels of interest by students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related subjects and work is a challenge that needs to be resolved. And research has shown that arts-based, participatory, and humanistic methodologies-when integrated with the teaching of STEM subjects-have the potential to stimulate student interest, facilitate epistemological access, and hence, improve performance. Thus, in this self-study research paper, two science teacher educators share and reflect on their observations and experiences of using an arts-based teaching methodology (drama) in teaching science concepts and socio-scientific issues to pre-service teachers training to be high school teachers. Drama activities were used to teach the concepts of diffusion, DNA structure, meiosis, and a socio-scientific issue associated with albinism in African communities. Data were collected through the development of drama scripts, journaling observations, reflections, and discussions with a critical friend. Insights from the study show that the integration of drama into the science classroom creates opportunities for social interaction, for recognising students' active participation in their own learning, for power sharing, and for promoting engagement (cognitive, affective, and physical) that leads to the construction of new knowledge. In addition, drama pedagogy humanises science subject matter by showing its relevance and catering for varied learning styles. And drama ignites enthusiasm in students by invoking their innate sense of wonder. Consequently, adopting a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) approach to teaching STEM subjects enriches epistemological access to scientific disciplines because such unconventional pedagogical strategies humanise abstract concepts, thereby increasing the likelihood of student success in these fields. There is, however, a need for heightened alertness in the teacher in order to pick up any misunderstandings and misconceptions about the science concepts that may manifest in the drama presentations.

Effects of Arts-Based Pedagogy on Competence Development in Nursing: A Critical Systematic Review.

The integration of arts-based methods into nursing education is a topic of growing interest in nursing practice. While there is an emerging body of research on this subject, evidence on competence development remains vague, largely due to methodological weaknesses. The purpose of this review is to evaluate the effectiveness of arts-based pedagogy in nursing, specifically in terms of students' changes in knowledge, skills, and attitudes. It explores which arts-based approaches to nursing education qualify as evidence-based practice in terms of nursing competence. A systematic critical review of research on arts-based pedagogy in nursing was conducted, identifying 43 relevant studies. These studies were assessed for methodological quality based on the CEC Standards for evidence-based practice, and 13 high-quality comparative studies representing a variety of arts-based approaches were selected. Creative drama was identified as the only evidence-based practice in the field, positively affecting empathy. The findings highlight a research gap in nursing education and emphasize the need for measurement and appraisal tools suitable for the peculiarities of arts-based pedagogy.

Enseñanza basada en las artes en el aula de inglés: Revisión de conceptos y propuesta de integración

This article reports a study about the intersection between Arts-Based and English Language Teaching. The literature review and proposal discuss the promotion of creativity in a pedagogical intervention consisting of sixteen sessions, divided into two cycles, that combine visual arts, mu-sic, acting, and literature. In the qualitative action research, 35 second graders between the ages of 7 and 9 participated. The findings suggest that Arts-Based Teaching fosters the combinational, exploratory, and transformational dimensions of creativity and enhances English language deve-lopment. We propose a syllabus that contributes to holistic education. An Art-Based curriculum should promote considerable progress in the creative dimensions which deal with combinatio-nal, exploratory, and transformational thinking.

Pandemic Portals and Radical Imaginations: Employing Critical Arts-Based Pedagogies Toward Racial Justice with Secondary Preservice English Teachers

Background: In the wake of COVID-19 and protests against racial violence, scholars of education, alongside educational organizations, called for innovative responses to address racial injustice, but one solution was consistently mentioned across educational spaces: the need for educators to reimagine education in a postpandemic/endemic world. And yet, even though the importance of (re)imagination in deterring educational issues was greatly emphasized in academia and popular culture, scholarship detailing ways to activate teachers’ imaginations was limited. Purpose: Considering the role of imagination and creativity in the fight for racial justice, the purpose of this article is to examine how arts-based pedagogies in the teacher education classroom might provide space for preservice teachers to cultivate their imaginative proclivities toward racial justice. Research Design: To engage in this analysis, the author employs a thematic analytic process undergirded by the concept of activist art pedagogy and supported by a conceptual framework that bridges abolitionist teaching and the Archaeology of Self. The combination of the framework and analytic method was used to analyze visual artifacts and meta-reflections created by preservice teachers who constructed multiple aesthetic responses to class readings. Conclusions or Recommendations: Findings suggest that critical arts-based inquiries helped preservice teachers to personally connect to and question the historical roots of racial justice. Further, findings indicate that arts-based inquiries can engage preservice teachers’ creative proclivities toward a reimagination of their roles and responsibilities as racial justice–informed teachers.

Relational Arts-Based Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: Engaging the Mind, Body, and Soul of Child and Youth Care Students

This article has been written as a bridge for instructors who want to move away from conventional teaching methods but are unsure of how to do so. It profiles a relational ontological approach to teaching and learning and an arts-based theoretical framework learning assessment that child and youth care (CYC) complete for an advanced undergraduate third year CYC practice methods course. The advance methods practice course has as its focus the integration of theory, self, and ethical practice. It argues that creative experiential arts-based methods tap directly into the human experience by inviting students to attend to alternative ways of knowing and sense-making, thereby facilitating richer and deeper learning experiences by bringing to consciousness the spiritual, emotional, and mythological aspects of the self, which offers students new landscapes of reflection on themselves, their studies, and their views of the world.

Belonging in remote higher education classrooms: The dynamic interaction of intensive modes of learning and arts-based pedagogies

In this paper, the authors explore the conditions that support belonging in remote VU Block Model® teaching. They examine the role of arts-based, embodied pedagogy in promoting engagement in learning, connection between students, and between students and teachers, and in an environment in which vulnerability and risk-taking in learning is valued. A discussion of belonging in higher education and the practice of embodied learning is followed by the reflections of seven participants. These participants were students in a remotely taught, arts-based higher education block unit, which had been mindfully adapted to retain the embodied nature of delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic. After students’ participation in focus group interviews, the lead author constructed found poetry from their comments and reflections. This found poetry forms the dataset through which the questions of belonging are explored. The researchers found that when explored through the lens of the Community of Inquiry Framework, embodied and arts-based practices provided opportunities for students to develop a sense of belonging, deepen understanding of lived experiences, and realise higher education and career goals. This study elevates the voices of students, providing opportunities for higher education teachers to consider the importance of belonging for student success in remote, intensive, and on-campus modes of delivery.

Predictors of Motivation and Barriers to ICT-Enabling Education for Sustainability

There is an increasing interest and effort in reorienting university curricula to address sustainability and preparing teachers to get involved in embedding sustainability and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in teaching and curricula enabled by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Evidence shows that this interest and effort is often prevented by various barriers at three levels: teacher- level barriers, school-level barriers, and system-level barriers. In this study, the attempt was geared towards identifying the constituencies of these three levels of barriers and examining the extent to which they predict teachers’ motivation to embed sustainability and SDGs in various school subject areas, including arts-based education. A survey of 1253 teachers in Malaysia revealed that the teacher- and system-level barriers explain 83% of the motivation variance. By identifying, addressing, and investigating these barriers, higher education institutions—and especially teacher education—could be better informed in reorienting university curricula to embed ICT-enabled Education for Sustainability (ICTeEfS). These results were also used in planning and implementing in-service teacher training interventions in the context of a European Commission Erasmus+-funded project.

Enhancing Empathy for Justice: A Methodology for Expansive Teacher Professional Development through Creative Body-Based Learning

This paper reports from a design-based research project seeking to reduce bullying, and so, contribute to the sustainability goal of improving (understanding of) justice. Goals such as this call for holistic and interdisciplinary ways of thinking that are quite at odds with the linear and reductionist epistemologies available with globally dominant ‘neoliberal’ discourses on education and educational decision making. To achieve goals such as improving justice, sustainable education and educators must explore and champion expansive ways of knowing that acknowledge and celebrate the complexity of everyday learning contexts. Responding to this need, this paper presents a case study of how we, as a group of educational designers and teacher educators, have explored how the arts-based pedagogy known as Creative Body-Based-Learning, when coupled with Engeström’s expansive theory of learning, can provide an alternative structure and methodology for teacher professional knowledge production. The paper will also outline the use of the research methodology of computer-aided phenomenography as a means of evaluating this kind of complex learning where simple testing and self-reporting are typically inadequate.

A Dirty Little Secret

This article describes my tumultuous journey studying imagination in a graduate leadership seminar using an arts-based pedagogy called Performative Inquiry. Focusing on my own teaching and learning in this course, I share insights that inform my future teaching and can support colleagues interested in exploring imagination with their students. I accepted risks associated with arts-based performances and entered a shared space of vulnerability with my students. My struggles with resistance were real, and so too was the realization of the important role vulnerability plays in imagination-focused (leadership) education. I suggest that Performative Inquiry offers other (leadership) educators a powerful pedagogy and methodology for understanding imagination in their own lives and inquiring into their leadership education practices. Arts-based practices allow learners to feel their own imaginations and experience possibility by accepting invitations to be vulnerable, performing learning in a range of productive and generative ways.

A Literature Review of Mad Studies as Critical Pedagogy: What is Mad Studies, and How Does it Implicate the Education of Adults?

Students diagnosed with mental illness are progressively composing the makeup of our universities’ student bodies. With more “mad” students making their way into the academy, this has encouraged many in Mad Studies to consider the challenges they confront in pursuing post-secondary studies. The purpose of this structured literature review of the Mad Studies canon is to tease out themes apropos to the education of adults through a critical pedagogy lens. Themal categories were organized around: Mad Studies course development and curriculum, popular culture and arts-based education, contesting the university seeped in sanism, surveilling mad bodies/minds, the university demands resilience, the politics of course instruction/teaching, mad disclosures, educational policy, and threat and risk management. This paper concludes by discussing the glaring voids in the literature and recommendations for future research.

Reducing inequalities among species through an arts-based inquiry in early childhood teacher education

This article is based on a study in outdoor arts-based education with Norwegian early childhood teacher students. Their teachers of drama and art & crafts (also the researchers and authors of this article) facilitated the specific arts-based learning environments and posed the following question: Which qualities of arts-based learning environments can challenge students to seek toward reduction of inequalities between themselves and more-than-human others? Four narratives were constructed from four of the students’ visual, verbal and audio presentations of their experiences from the outdoor places they engaged with. The students described their processes of connecting to the more-than-human inhabitants of those places, and more-less explicitly expressed changes in their attitudes toward the inhabitants and materials encountered at the places. The narratives, and their analysis, make visible how the students’ arts-based engagements challenged their anthropocentric values and could potentially lead to reduction of inequalities between themselves and the more-than-humans they met at the places. The discussions at the end of the article focus on the first part of the research question and sum up four qualities of the arts-based environments that were present in the four narratives. These qualities are imagination, self-initiated actions, emphatic connections, and time for aesthetic engagement. Cover photo: "Student D" (anonymous".

Exploring student teachers’ aesthetic learning processes

ABSTRACT This case study explores arts-based teaching and learning in generalist teacher education by focusing on student teachers’ aesthetic learning processes in a professional workshop. The workshop is included in a Norwegian teacher education programme, where the student teachers learn about and through aesthetic learning processes. By asking what the student teachers emphasise about the learning processes, the study seeks an in-depth understanding of the case from student teachers’ perspectives. Multiple qualitative data sources have been analysed holistically and interpretatively, leading to three categories that reflect emotional, intellectual and practical qualities of aesthetic learning processes. The findings and the discussion highlight how the learning processes expand student teachers’ perception of learning, as well as how emotions seem to constitute a moving and cementing force in creating spaces for new understandings. Student teachers’ professional development in arts-based teaching and learning is further discussed.

Harnessing the pedagogical power of art for learning about occupation in an entry-to-practice neurorehabilitation occupational therapy course

ABSTRACT Introduction Art can be a transformative pedagogical tool for teaching occupation. Research on arts-based pedagogies to teach occupation within educational programs is emergent and remains limited. Objectives To explore the use of art created by people with acquired brain injury to develop understandings of the lived experiences and occupational impacts of acquired brain injury for graduate students in an entry-to-practice occupational therapy graduate program. Methods First, development of the arts-based pedagogical tool was undertaken through an online review to select works of art that reflected acquired brain injury experience as depicted by people with lived experience. These art pieces were then used to develop a class that facilitated learning of the occupational impacts of acquired brain injury in an entry-to-practice occupational therapy graduate program. A descriptive qualitative approach was then used to explore the learning experiences of five graduate students who participated in a focus group. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to understand the data. Findings Art facilitated transformative learning experiences for students and was described by three themes: (1) captivating the learner, (2) “whole ‘nother layer”, and (3) inviting exploration and expansion. Conclusions Arts-based pedagogy holds potential to be an enriching teaching and learning tool for critically reflexive engagement, awareness, and deep understanding of the lived experiences and occupational impacts experienced by individuals with acquired brain injury.

Visual thinking strategies for interprofessional education and promoting collaborative competencies.

Interprofessional education (IPE) curricula require approaches that address the needs of learners from multiple professions and levels of clinical experience. Frameworks based in the arts and humanities, which can improve learners' skills in collaborative competencies such as communication and team building, remain limited in IPE. We describe the development, implementation and evaluation of a visual arts-based IPE session for over 400 interprofessional learners. During the 90-min session held in 2021, an art museum educator first guided learners through observations of art works using the Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) approach. Subsequently, small groups of six to eight interprofessional learners and two trained facilitators explored how their observations were influenced by personal and professional identities and made connections to interprofessional collaborative practice. Two hundred eleven of the 407 student attendees responded to the post-session survey (52%). Eighty percent of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed that 'the art of observation activity is an effective means of starting discussions with interprofessional teams.' On the Interprofessional Collaborative Competency Attainment Survey, a validated tool assessing changes in interprofessional collaboration-related competencies, there was a significant increase between pre- (M = 45.73, SD = 8.05, p < 0.001) and post-session scores (M = 51.46, SD = 7.97, p < 0.001), using a paired t-test analysis. Qualitative analysis of learners' takeaways identified themes of open-mindedness, hearing other opinions and perspectives, collaboration/teamwork, patient-centeredness and awareness of biases. Our curricular approach shows how integrating visual arts-based pedagogies into IPE activities with learners from diverse disciplines and clinical experiences is both feasible and helpful for developing collaborative competencies.

Multimodal artistic recreations of the ecological university in the Global South

ABSTRACT This article describes how a group of language undergraduates in a local university in the periphery in the Global South conceptualised and enacted the notion of the ‘ecological university’. Theoretically grounded in critical and post-humanist perspectives on education, and language education in particular, and notions of the ecological and the measured university, this qualitative study was conducted in 2018–19. Students created artistic multimodal works to portray their visions of the ecological university prompted by a language course syllabus and an arts-based methodology. They complemented their creations with concrete activism in their social milieu to contribute to making their university ecological. Combining discourse, content and post-qualitative analyses, findings show that the students envisioned three essential elements to enact the transformative role of their university: a) love for and commitment to others; b) a human rights education foundation; and c) a basis in local activism. Implications for pedagogy are considered, centred on the significance of arts-based pedagogies and methodologies to challenge predominant characterisations of the accountable university in the setting and foster student activism.