Arts integration as school reform: Exploring how teachers experience policy

ABSTRACT

This article reports on the perceptions and experiences of general elementary educators as they engage in a school reform process that requires them to learn and implement an arts infused curriculum intended to raise student achievement on standardized tests in non-arts subjects. This qualitative study reveals not only how one arts-based school reform project plays out in the everyday lives of teachers but also how arts integration practices can become entangled in and complicit with a politically motivated policy agenda. Findings are presented in the form of themes that reflect the teachers' conflicting feelings and realities: on one hand a profound commitment to their challenged students and sincere hope that the reform process will succeed, and on the other, the effects of the significant additional work, stress, and anxiety that the reform process imposed.

KEYWORDS:

• Arts education and academic achievement
• arts education and policy
• school reform