Understanding the Other Through Art: Fostering Narrative Imagination and Social Justice in Fifth-Grade Students

• In Event: 73.060 - Roundtable Session 31
  In Roundtable Session: 73.060-2 - Imagining the Road Ahead: The Elliot Eisner SIG Inaugural Roundtable

Abstract

This research was conducted in collaboration between a teacher educator and an elementary art teacher in an effort to foster Nussbaum’s notion of narrative imagination among elementary students and build understanding and empathy for the other. After receiving the principal’s approval, we devised and implemented an art curriculum that involved local guests’ storytelling and students’ creating a collaborative mural project. Our research question is: How do fifth grade students understand the other with empathy? The purpose of this study is to explore ways to foster narrative imagination and an understanding of the other among elementary students in an effort to reconceptualize the link between the arts and humanities working toward justice.

Authors

• Jeong-Hee Kim, Texas Tech University

• Anna Wiehe-Beck, Sherwood School District Oregon