Community Arts Education

This edited collection offers global perspectives on the transverse, boundary-blurring possibilities of community arts education.Invoking ‘transversality’ as an overarching theoretical framework and a methodological structure, 55 contributors – community professionals, scholars, artists, educators and activists from sixteen countries – offer studies and practical cases exploring the complexities of community arts education at all levels.Such complexities include challenges created by globalizing phenomena such as the COVID-19 pandemic; ongoing efforts to achieve justice for Indigenous peoples; continuing movement of immigrants and refugees; growing recognition of issues related to equity, diversity and inclusion in the workplace; and the increasing impact of grassroot movements and organizations.Chapters are grouped into four thematic clusters – Connections, Practices, Spaces and Relations – that map these and other intersecting assemblages of transversality. Thinking transversally about community art education not only shifts our understanding of knowledge from a passive construct to an active component of social life but redefines art education as a distinctive practice emerging from the complex relationships that form community.

Ching-Chiu Lin is a research facilitator in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University. Her research interests lie in community art education, digital media and learning through art, and art teacher education.Anita Sinner is an associate professor of art education at Concordia University, Montreal. Her interests include artwork scholarship, teacher culture, international art education and community art education.Rita L. Irwin is a distinguished university scholar and professor of art education at the University of British Columbia, Canada. As a scholar she is best known for her work in a/r/tography, teacher education, curriculum studies and sociocultural concerns.