Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal

Editorial: Toward Fulfilling the Gap Between Arts Policy and Practice

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Dance Education as Social Studies Education

2025-06-27T14:16:31+02:00

Measurement of formal education success excludes arts education and focuses instead on reading, mathematics and science. In a world filled with differences between people, geography, backgrounds, customs, religions and sense of self, the only subject that approaches this knowledge is social studies. This discipline is not tested in the Programme for International Student Assessment, but is tested tangentially in the United States. In general, consideration of separate subjects in formal schooling does not encourage focus on what creates the holistic human beings who occupy this complex world. Within the United States, social studies emphasises citizenship and participation in democracy. The purpose of this article is to clearly articulate how dance education, a comprehensive education that enables young people to work in and encounter the world around them, can include social studies. An online survey of dance education practitioners results in ideas that cannot be implemented through the efforts of dance education alone, but require education policy decisions to enable implementation.

The Visual Journal as a Way to Strengthen Students’ Ability to Self-Reflect

2025-06-27T15:18:39+02:00

Art allows us to look within ourselves, to learn who we are and what interests us. It connects us to our thoughts, our feelings, our perceptions, and our external reality and experiences. Artistic expression enables students to think about themselves and their feelings, take the perspective of another while evaluating their artworks, set goals and organise the course of their creative work. Therefore, it is not difficult to establish a connection between artistic expression and strengthening social emotional competencies. In a study conducted in the 2023/24 school year, a case study explored whether creating a visual journal in the form of an artist’s book can help students recognise their thoughts, emotions and values. In the case study, we included one class of first-year secondary school students, who participated voluntarily, as well as their teacher. We first presented the CASEL model to the students in connection with the artworks of artists whose works deal with topics related to social and emotional competences. The mentor presented the artist’s book in the form of a visual journal as a special artistic form. The students’ task was to think about themselves, their wellbeing, values and actions, and to make real-time reflections on their day with the help of their own visual journal. In their spare time, the students compiled a visual journal over a few weeks, occasionally consulting with the teacher. Data were collected through an analysis of the resulting visual journals, a questionnaire for students and an interview with the teacher.

The (Im)possibility of Primary Arts Teacher Education

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UNESCO strategies, including the 2006 Road Map for Arts Education, the 2010 Seoul Agenda for Arts Education and the 2024 Framework for Culture and Arts Education, highlight a persistent concern regarding the insufficient emphasis on arts education competencies among pre-service teachers and the challenge of allocating adequate curriculum time in education programmes. In Australia, recent government policies have included the arts as a school curriculum learning area with five subjects: Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Music and Visual Arts. This curriculum aims to ensure that all young Australians experience a comprehensive arts education by providing a framework for teachers to implement sequential learning across the primary school years. Despite these efforts, Australian research tracking the implementation of the arts curriculum within schools and teacher education programmes remains limited, revealing a problematic gap. The present paper examines how an Australian university has attempted to address this gap by providing pre-service teachers with an “Arts Specialism” within a teacher education programme. Using education policy sociology theory, the study explores the contexts of influence, curriculum text production and policy implementation. Critical discourse analysis is used to identify negotiations between influential Australian stakeholders, including university programme leaders who have supported the concept of an arts curriculum specialism. The study addresses themes of arts education content and pedagogy, revealing challenges and opportunities in implementing this specialism and concluding with recommendations for future developments.

Improving the Social-Emotional Well-Being of a Child With Multiple Developmental Disabilities by Incorporating the Performative Drama Model into the Learning Process

2025-06-27T15:46:11+02:00

Self-advocacy is an essential skill for effective and successful integration into the wider social environment and is important for psychological and physiological well-being. The Performative Drama Model Ars Vitae was trialled to improve students’ assertiveness and performance in real life. A 12-year-old boy with learning disabilities and multiple developmental disabilities, who had difficulties expressing himself and participating in class, was trained over a three-month period. The model was integrated into his lessons, with a particular focus on developing self-advocacy skills to help him express himself better and assert himself in groups. The activities carried out by the “actor” supported the development of his self-advocacy, classroom integration and communication skills, and improved his academic performance and general well-being.

Becoming an Engaged Dance Scholar Through Arts-Based Community Engagement Projects

2025-06-27T15:43:43+02:00

Postgraduate dance education students can develop a practice of arts-based, engaged scholarship by applying their disciplinary knowledge in collaboration with community partners to enact projects that benefit local, regional and/or global communities and their own scholarship. The present article analyses seven arts-based research projects required as part of the Studio Seminar course for doctoral dance education students at Teachers College, Columbia University. The specific goals of the research project were (a) to assess the level of community engagement present in seven Studio Seminar projects, (b) to determine whether or not the criteria of “evocation and illumination” were fulfilled in the Studio Seminar projects, and (c) to determine the knowledge gained by the participating students who conducted and reflected upon the Studio Seminar projects. Two cohorts of students participated in the study: Cohort 1 (three participants), who completed the course in 2021, and Cohort 3 (four participants), who completed the course in 2023. The data were collected and analysed based on the arts-based research evaluation criteria of evocation and illumination, and the community engagement criteria of co-creation, co-implementation, co-assessment and co-dissemination. The results of this exploratory study reveal that the community engagement criteria of co-creation, co-implementation and co-assessment were present in all of the projects, but co-dissemination was only possible for the students who completed their projects in the first cohort. In addition, the arts-based research criteria of evocation and illumination were present in all seven projects. Furthermore, the results of a Community Engagement Questionnaire revealed that the projects had a positive impact on the students’ dissertation goals and their plans for future community engagement projects. In conclusion, providing postgraduate dance education students with guidance in developing arts-based, community-engaged projects assists in their development as engaged scholars.

Teachers' and Artists' Collaborative Teaching and Learning

2025-06-27T15:47:44+02:00

The new dimension of a stimulating, open and innovative learning environment in education is recognised in the integrative collaboration of all those involved in the educational process. Such an environment provides children with a variety of contextual experiences to enter the symbolic world of culture and art. Collaboration between artists and teachers has been identified as an essential approach to improving the quality of planned arts practice in kindergartens and schools. In order to improve collaborative teaching between teachers and artists in Slovenian preschools and primary schools, a design-based research methodology was used. The paper presents a snapshot of the pre-intervention situation and the impact of interventions that involved teachers in collaborative work with artists and children’s participation in the educational process. The study involved 116 preschool teachers and 148 primary school teachers. The results showed the importance of involving artists in the educational process. By involving artists in the pedagogical process, teachers can gain information about how children can participate experientially and expressively in artistic experiences, which 1) relieves the burden of predetermined and overstructured curricular practices, 2) enables pupils to participate experientially and expressively in artistic experiences, 3) provides teachers with insight into children’s experiential and expressive capacities/competences, and 4) provides artists with insight into the possibilities of integrating authentic artistic experiences into education.

Teachers’ Views: Using Body Music in Teaching and Learning Primary School Subjects

2025-06-27T14:16:23+02:00

The paper presents research conducted among Turkish primary school classroom teachers regarding their personal and professional views about creating and using KeKeÇa body music games as educational tools. The core principles of the KeKeÇa body music approach – embodiment, play orientation and arts integration – are increasingly recognised as important topics in education today. The research is a phenomenological study with ten young women, primary school teachers who teach at village schools in the mountains. The teachers went through the KeKeÇa training programme, which aims to enable participants to make use of body music in teaching primary school curriculum content. They designed and used body music games for all classroom subjects, especially those that were more difficult to learn in the first place. In order to investigate the teachers’ views, data were collected using an open-ended questionnaire and analysed using MAXQDA software. The results show that the teachers gained more control of the lessons, which became much more fun. They reported improvement in students’ motivation and joy, adding that the learning showed greater long-term retention and became less time consuming. In conclusion, according to the participant teachers, the KeKeÇa body music approach, attitude and practice made remarkable contributions to their professional skills and had a beneficial effect in teaching and learning diverse subjects, and an enriching impact on their students’ motivation, joy and learning quality.

Encouraging Social and Emotional Learning in Preschool Children Through Carrying Out Musical Activities in the Daily Routine

2025-06-27T14:16:20+02:00

In the context of kindergarten, the daily routine includes various activities aimed at the holistic development of children. Carrying out musical activities in the daily routine plays an important role in encouraging social and emotional learning. For the present research, which included preschool children, we developed a plan for implementing elements of the children’s daily routine enriched with musical activities, monitored the effect of this routine on social and emotional skills, and verified the realisation of the planned musical goals. The results of the research confirmed the effect of implementing musical activities regarding (1) self-awareness and self-management – children more often recognised their own emotions, they became aware of their emotions and regulated them, they expressed a feeling of joy, respected the agreed rules, understood what is right or wrong and asked for help if they needed it; and (2) social skills for establishing relationships and social awareness – children more often encouraged other children in the group to participate in activities, they successfully participated in common activities, shared things with other children, and recognised and empathised with the emotions of other children. Most of the children were also successful in achieving the planned musical goals.

Educating Children for Creativity and Democracy Through a Music and Drama Community of Practice

2025-06-27T14:16:18+02:00

The priority of promoting children’s creativity and democracy in education, which includes values such as freedom of expression, competence, respect for diversity, empathy, collaboration, dialogue and the development of critical thinking and curiosity, is strongly supported by communities of practice that foster these values and promote heuristic and sociocultural approaches to music learning and artistic expression. The research explored how children aged 5–10 years (N = 10) used musical and artistic forms for creative expression in music drama activities within a community of practice (music drama studio), and how elements of democratic education were manifested in these activities. An ethnographic case study in early childhood education and care was used to explore children’s culture, experiences and actions through interactional and participatory observation methods. The data were analysed through a written protocol of observation, transcriptions and video recordings. An inductive and deductive thematic analysis was used to better structure and interpret the data, organised into two main themes (categories): Forms of creative artistic expression and Democratic aspects of education. The conclusion emphasises that the integration of music, other arts and process drama within a community of practice, led by a skilled teacher, provides authentic learning opportunities that foster democratic artistic expression, creativity and holistic development, preparing children for active citizenship.

Addressing Violence Against Parents and Peers and Violence in Schools Through the Perspective of Ecological Theory

2025-06-27T14:15:36+02:00

This paper examines violence against parents and peers and violence in schools using Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system theory. We aim to establish connections between these forms of violence, perpetrator characteristics, and conclusions about the influences at different ecological layers. Through in-depth empirical research, we reviewed police, prosecutorial, and court files on child-parent violent crimes. Out of the total closed cases, 46 were included for further analysis, with nine cases addressing violence or misconduct in schools. Our findings highlight the link between violence against parents, early adolescent misbehaviour, and academic problems. Outward manifestations of these issues include discipline problems, truancy, association with problematic peers, substance abuse or addiction, and violent behaviour. Boys exhibit a progression from psychological to physical abuse against their parents and others. These results confirm other conclusions on the early onset and persistent nature of violent and delinquent behaviour. Notably, mental health issues and substance abuse play a significant role at the microsystem level. In conclusion, we recommend policy upgrades with a systematic approach to address youth violence, appropriate care of young people’s mental health and the public delegitimation of various forms of violence.

The Development of Science Process Skills and Content Knowledge with Inquiry Boxes in Early Childhood Education

2025-06-27T14:15:36+02:00

This paper aims to investigate the systematic use of an inquiry-based learning approach in science by using inquiry boxes for preschool children. We prepared four thematic inquiry boxes for the areas of magnetism and buoyancy, separation of substances, weighing objects, and the investigation of substances. The research sample consisted of twenty children aged four to five years. Ten children from the experimental group explored the material using the photo-type instructions on the instructional cards over a period of four weeks. Comparative test results for the control group children show that the experimental group children progressed both in content knowledge and in better-developed science process skills. We find that children develop autonomy in science process skills such as classifying, ordering, and weighing through prepared and guided inquiry with the help of the inquiry boxes. In doing so, children show increasing autonomy within each set of tasks that develop the chosen science process skill. In this manner, science practices with inquiry boxes allow children to build on science content knowledge. They can apply the skills they have learned through inquiry boxes to new knowledge instead of teaching science processes as isolated skills. This approach of individually guided inquiry by children using thematic inquiry boxes is therefore recommended as a proven didactic tool for developing science process skills and content knowledge.

The Educational Paradigms in Tagore’s School Through the Lens of Continental Pedagogy

2025-06-27T14:15:36+02:00

In today’s world, the question of the impact of schooling on various as-pects of the personality of children and adolescents is relevant and not just a question of the most effective teaching and learning process. For Tagore, the ultimate goal of education is the all-round development of the individual to adapt harmoniously to reality. The purpose of this article is therefore to detail Tagore’s concept of comprehensive education and how it is reflected in the functioning of his school in Santiniketan. In addition, a qualitative theoretical analysis is undertaken to determine which of the four identified factors of education in the continental tradition (teacher, content of teaching, child and social environment) is the key medium of education in his school. The systematic analysis of the characteristics of Tagore’s educational process and its requirements and objectives shows that he succeeded in integrating all four pedagogical factors known in the European continental tradition, which cannot be said of any of the European pedagogical theories presented (Herbartianism, humanistic or cultural pedagogy, reform pedagogy and socially critical pedagogy). Moreover, Tagore succeeded in bringing many theoretical concepts that are still relevant today (e.g., experiential learning, student participation, embodied cognition, the concept of a hundred languages) into the operation of the Santiniketan School in a very innovative way.

Robi Kroflič, Sonja Rutar and Bogdana Borota (Eds.), Art in Education in Kindergartens and Schools: The SKUM Project (Slovenian: Umetnost v vzgoji v vrtcih in šolah: projekt SKUM), University of Primorska Press, 2022; 212 pp.: ISBN: 978-961-293-172-8

2025-06-27T14:16:17+02:00