Community Arts Education

This edited collection offers global perspectives on the transverse, boundary-blurring possibilities of community arts education. Invoking transversality as an overarching theoretical framework and a methodological structure, 55 contributors community professionals, scholars, artists, educators and activists from sixteen countries offer studies and practical cases exploring the complexities of community arts education at all levels. Such complexities include challenges created by globalizing phenomena such as the COVID-19 pandemic; ongoing efforts to achieve justice for Indigenous peoples; continuing movement of immigrants and refugees; growing recognition of issues related to equity, diversity and inclusion in the workplace; and the increasing impact of grassroot movements and organizations. Chapters are grouped into four thematic clusters Connections, Practices, Spaces and Relations that map these and other intersecting assemblages of transversality. Thinking transversally about community art education not only shifts our understanding of knowledge from a passive construct to an active component of social life but redefines art education as a distinctive practice emerging from the complex relationships that form community.