Stepping onto fertile ground: urban teachers’ preparation for interdisciplinary inquiry

ABSTRACT

Contextualized by efforts to support arts integration in one of the largest school districts in the United States, this qualitative study examines the experiences of educators as they participate in various arts-centred forms of professional development. Drawing on the work of, the tenets of arts-centered learning, the authors use Mediated Discourse Analysis and Teachers’ Life Histories to account for the social, personal and political processes and activity involved in making meaning and shaping dispositions towards teaching in and through the arts. Findings reveal how arts-centred programming can promote growth in educators’ confidence creating curriculum in the arts and collaborating with artists and other teachers, but suggest that embodied practices within interdisciplinary teams and continued coaching are key as educators prepare for guiding students through interdisciplinary inquiry and implementing arts-centred programming. Three fields of emergence for learning within this study include (1) Enactment of Artist-As-Teacher & Teacher-As-Artist (2) Multimodal Inquiry via Group Art-Making; and (3) Collaborative Curriculum Design. These fields of emergence are considered as interdisciplinary traversals, representing educators’ movements across disciplinary boundaries and between associated identities.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban educators
• arts integration
• arts-centred learning
• embodied learning
• interdisciplinary learning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

Teaching programming was supported by a private foundation.

Notes on contributors

Candance Doerr-Stevens

Candance Doerr-Stevens is assistant professor of literacy education at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Her research interests include the emergent literacy practices and identity work of multimodal composition via digital media and arts integration.

Christine Woywod

Christine Woywod is an Associate Professor of Art Education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her research interests include project based curriculum, arts integration, publicly engaged scholarship, and community partnerships.