This is an exploratory case study of Creativity Explored (CE), a non-profit art center in San Francisco, California, that serves adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). The purpose of the study is to address the following questions: How does Creativity Explored facilitate personal and professional growth in adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities? Using Creativity Explored as a model, what can we learn about best practices in community-based art programs that serve adults with disabilities? Multiple methods of data collection were utilized, including examination of pertinent literature and documents, visual documentation, observations, and interviews with administrators and staff, who were selected to provide a breadth and depth of knowledge about various aspects of the CE program. Conclusions were drawn about four major areas of the program: its “art community” model; its benefits for participating artists; the values, practices, and strategies that have contributed to its longevity and success; and the challenges that it has confronted as an organization. / text

This case study examines the history and structure of Art from the Streets (AFTS) a community-based art (CBA) program in Austin, Texas that for the past twenty years has offered art classes twice a week to the local homeless community. The purpose of this study is to determine if and how well AFTS integrates essential CBA components that define best practices of CBA programs that serve the homeless into their program. This study combines researcher observations with the firsthand perspective of the AFTS program, volunteers, and participants secured through class observations and interviews conducted to gain knowledge about the inner workings of the AFTS program. / text

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This study documents affective learning during a community-based art museum education program for military and veteran-connected families, which included gallery teaching, art-making, and a final exhibition of participant artwork. A review of literature on public pedagogy, affective learning, museum education, and community-based art education provides the theoretical framework for the study. Narrative ethnography and participant observation were employed by the primary researcher-educator to gather a diverse array of data and construct a holistic narrative of the development of and participant experiences within the art museum program. Data collected includes field notes, personal communications (such as meeting notes and emails), interviews, open-ended survey questions, curriculum artifacts (such as lesson plans and worksheets), and artworks created by military family members. Analysis of the educator goals, participant expressions, and personal interactions informs the final discussion of how affective learning took place within one museum program and how attention to this domain of learning can enrich museum programs for diverse community members.

The purpose of this research was to study the ways in which a content driven after-school art program focused on community-based art projects inspires high school students to create work that are personal and purposeful. This study involved members of the Hempstead High School Art Club. I collected data in various ways including focus groups video recording, journal reflections, and observations with Art club members who meet monthly to discuss the project and biweekly to work on the project. My plan was to gather information on the effectiveness of a content driven after school art club in the teaching and learning of visual art. Through my research I hoped to discover the benefits and drawbacks of an after school art program as compared to a regular art classroom setting and the implementation of content driven art projects. Finally, I hoped to study and analyze the effects such a program would have on a student's understanding of the purpose of creating community-based art.

The purpose of this study was to investigate instructional components that foster meaningful learning for adults with disabilities in a community-based art center. Through narrative analysis and case study methodology, the researcher examined the programmatic content of a single community-based art center--the Arc of the Arts Studio and Gallery (AOA) in Austin, Texas--from 2009 to 2011. Utilizing authentic instruction and constructivism as educational frameworks (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005; Newmann & Wehlage, 1993), the investigator proposed instructional changes to the AOA program that encouraged student-centered learning through discipline-based inquiry, maintaining real-world connections, and the active construction of knowledge. The researcher instituted a structured, arts-based curriculum based upon these educational concepts that infused lessons with illustrative materials, sequential learning, and public promotion of participants' finished art products in order to stimulate creativity and meaningful learning within the art center. This study scrutinized historical literature documenting art and general education for the disability community in order to examine the influence each historical orientation to disability had on art instruction for this population. Coupled with analysis of the programmatic structure of similar art centers around the country, this information facilitated a more full and rich understanding of how and why art education for people with disabilities is currently organized. The process of creating and implementing a structured art curriculum into the AOA studio addressed the ways in which meaningful learning may take place for adults with disabilities at community-based locations, and emphasized the need for further research into the quality, experience, and location of art education for the wide spectrum of people with disabilities. / text

In this study, I illustrate an arts-based service-learning curriculum that utilizes an asset-based, student-centered, critical pedagogy. It is written for use with high school students in a classroom environment, but could be adapted for use with any age group or setting. It utilizes current service-learning research and practices, and community based art education models and adapts them into a practical and concrete curriculum. I use case study and ethnographic methodologies to examine what a community-based art and literacy organization (VOICES), a community-based artist (Lily Yeh and the Barefoot Artists organization), and a service-learning magnet high school can teach about implementing a service-learning program. Through a series of project-based lessons, group activities, and research, students will determine a community organization to partner with in the creation of a collaborative artwork. Youth and community voice are given utmost importance throughout the process to create relevant, reciprocal, authentic partnerships and a cumulative project.

Community arts are potentially valuable tools in building community and regenerating distressed neighbourhoods. Community-based art organizations exist in most major cities across North America and abroad. These groups are concerned with social and environmental community issues (e.g., youth poverty, sustainability, racism) and use art as a medium for social change through community empowerment and personal development. Many of these organizations operate on limited funding and are required to complete program evaluations to demonstrate the merit of their programs. While some program evaluation literature touches on the role of arts-based research methods, very little focuses specifically on using these methods with community-based art organizations—particularly organizations with programming intended for children and youth. This Major Degree Project seeks to address this gap and explore the role of creative, arts-based evaluation methods for community-based art organizations’ program evaluation.

Community arts are potentially valuable tools in building community and regenerating distressed neighbourhoods. Community-based art organizations exist in most major cities across North America and abroad. These groups are concerned with social and environmental community issues (e.g., youth poverty, sustainability, racism) and use art as a medium for social change through community empowerment and personal development. Many of these organizations operate on limited funding and are required to complete program evaluations to demonstrate the merit of their programs. While some program evaluation literature touches on the role of arts-based research methods, very little focuses specifically on using these methods with community-based art organizations—particularly organizations with programming intended for children and youth. This Major Degree Project seeks to address this gap and explore the role of creative, arts-based evaluation methods for community-based art organizations’ program evaluation.

This thesis uses autoethnographic research of the Mexican American art community in Austin, Texas to demonstrate how edgewalkers, people to move between multiple cultural worlds yet retain their own identity, become informal art educators through the process of transculturation. The work describes this cyclical and on-going process that includes curiosity, knowledge gathering, and awareness of self and others and the summation of these elements, which leads to transculturation. For this research, four informal art educators practicing in Austin were interviewed. Each of the collaborators practices art in different media including visual art, curating of exhibitions, performance, and graphic design. The descriptions and analysis of the researcher’s experiences along with those of the informal art educators reveal a third landscape, or an alternative space and identity, where multiple cultural worlds overlap into bicultural, bilingual and/or biconceptual environments. This thesis demonstrates how informal art education, made possible through transcultural experiences, is an effective tool in art education and culturally responsive instruction. / text