The Aesthetic, Reflexive Thoughts, and Sharing (ARtS) Initiative and After-School Curriculum: Creating In-Between Spaces in Urban Education

• In Event: 56.080 - Roundtable Session 23
  In Roundtable Session: 56.080-3 - Creative Approaches to Teacher Preparation and Praxis

Abstract

This paper examines urban children’s understanding of active citizenship and community. The ARtS (Aesthetic, Reflexive thoughts, & Sharing) initiative is an aesthetic-inspired afterschool curriculum promoting children’s democratic citizenship. The authors analyze how children interpret and represent their understanding of active citizenship through poetry, dance, and clay art. Grounded in Greene’s aesthetic theories, this university-community-school partnership provides qualitative data from children who engaged in three sets of the 9-week program. This presentation investigates the ways in which knowledge is connected to action for promoting equal opportunities. Multicultural education literature presents a need for rigorous art-based afterschool curriculum, and this presentation enriches the extant literature by presenting an equity-oriented program using aesthetic-infused pedagogy.

Authors

• Seungho Moon, Loyola University Chicago

• Yeorim Ana Hwang, Oklahoma State University

• Mary Danley

• Jenna Nelson, Loyola University Chicago