Enlightened Advocacy: Implications of Research
for Arts Education Policy and Practice
Proceedings of the 1999 Charles Fowler Colloquium
Special Collections in Performing Arts is happy to announce the publication of
Enlightened Advocacy: Implications of Research for Arts Education Policy and Practice, Proceedings of the 1999 Charles Fowler Colloquium on Innovation in Arts Education held April 16-17, 1999 at the University of Maryland.
This fourth in our State-of-the-Arts series includes colloquium moderator Richard Deasey's introductory remarks setting up an opening dialogue on "Enlightened Advocacy" and his concluding summaries of colloquy sessions on "Implications of Research for Arts Education Policy and Practice."
Colloquium papers published here are:
Frances Rauscher: "Current Research on Music, Intelligence, and the Brain"
Dr. Rauscher presented recent international research on the effects of music on the brain. After providing a summary of research suggesting that early music training influences brain development and cognition, Dr. Rauscher discussed the most recent findings
from her ongoing research with kindergartners and Head Start preschoolers regarding music's effect on spatial-temporal abilities.
Elliot W. Eisner: "What Justifies Arts Education: What Research Doesn't Say"
Dr. Eisner addressed the situation which arises when pressures upon arts education become severe: the tendency to justify the arts' existence by extravagant claims that often have little to do with what the arts are about. (The most recent salvo is related towhat research supposedly says about the contributions of the arts to achievement in "academic" subjects.) Dr. Eisner's presentation examined the evidentiary basis for those claims and described how arts education might be constructively viewed in the context of American schools.
James S. Catterall: "The Arts and Human Development: The Status of Research"
This paper expanded on Prof. Catterall's recent monograph titled "Involvement in the Arts and Success in Secondary School." The extended work examines student performance through grade 12; the analysis also explores involvement in music and mathematics achievement, as well as dramatic arts and communications skills.
Liora Bresler: "Agenda for Arts Education Research:Emerging Issues and Directions"
The meaning and possibilities of any art are inseparable from the conditions under which it is generated and experienced. "School art" is no exception. In this paper, Dr. Bresler argued that improvement and effective reform are seldom born of merely goal-setting and standards-raising, but rather of intensive analysis of contexts, problems and experiences of participants, and careful delineation of areas susceptible to improvement. Hence the need to complement the philosophical and experimental arts education literature with research studies of the operational and experienced curricula, examining the micro, meso and macro contexts for arts education, and how they affect students' specific and general skills, achievements, and attitudes. The construction of a knowledge base grounded in school reality will facilitate dissemination to various interested communities and constituencies, including school practitioners and policy makers.
Edited by Marie McCarthy. 86 pages. ISBN 0-9655233-5-7.
To order a copy of Enlightened Advocacy, please send a $12.00 check or money order, along with instructions for mailing, to:
Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library/SCPA
University of Maryland
2511 Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center
College Park, MD 20742
attn. Advocacy order
Maryland residents please add 5% sales tax ($0.60). Make the check payable to The University of Maryland Foundation, Inc.
