RESEARCH

Case-making and Systems Change for Arts and Cultural Education is presented as a multi-faceted guide that begins with the SELF (individual responsibility), incorporates the FIELD (those around us), and challenges us to influence the SECTOR (the larger context). Throughout each, justice is embedded throughout each. The Annotated Bibliography highlights the theory and practices that enable effective advocacy across these elements.

These ideas were explored in Jeff M. Poulin’s 2021 essay “Embedding Advocacy Into Your Practice” published by the Teaching Artists Guild:

advocacy for self;
advocacy for the field; and
advocacy for the sector.

As practitioners navigate this field and ecosystem, it is essential to ask big, bold questions throughout our journey. These questions can be viewed as lenses, represented visually by an oculus lens graphic that describes concepts meant to enhance our experience and effectiveness as advocates. The eye-like lens is circular in shape, with the ability to expand or narrow in focus. It is continuous, with no defined beginning or end, with flexible and overlapping facets, conveying a message that opportunities for engagement exist at every stage. The broad themes include:

See the larger system and work within a local context
Balance organizational structure and flexibility
Link communications strategies to goals
Build adaptive processes that encourage engagement
Understand the dynamics of systems change
Acknowledge progress at all levels

When we do this, we are able to better understand our role in the ecosystem. Throughout the many ideas shared in this resource, practitioners - like educators, artists, school or community organization leaders, and more - can discover pathways to navigate their way through systems change by effectively making the case. Considering a number of historical factors and analysis of adjacent sectors to arts education, this tool magnifies components of the arts education ecosystem, which can be incorporated into a practitioners advocacy steps. This complex systems, represented at left provides a visual representation of the myriad paths one can take.

Research Publications

Featured

Overview of Documented Knowledge: Case-making and Systems Change in Arts & Cultural Education

In 2021, a collaborative project between Creative Generation and ElevateArtsEd emerged to better understand how practitioners - such as artists, educators, community leaders, and more - can make the case for and also advocate through arts and culture to drive systemic change and address the complex challenges we were facing, such as a global health pandemic, reckoning with racial justice, environmental crisis, threats to public education, and economic recession. This resource serves as a review of current literature on advocacy, case-making, and systems change: it incorporates overarching concepts from the distinct sectors of culture, education, and social justice; and includes bodies of knowledge including in the arts, health, housing, social justice, environment, and economics. The publication establishes the need for intertwining the science of advocacy — building blocks for understanding what effective advocacy looks like — and the art of advocacy with calls for improvisation, adaptability, and generative thinking, all characteristics of art making.

Annotated Bibliography: Case-making and Systems Change in Arts & Cultural Education

In 2021, a collaborative project between Creative Generation and ElevateArtsEd emerged to better understand how practitioners - such as artists, educators, community leaders, and more - can make the case for and also advocate through arts and culture to drive systemic change and address the complex challenges we were facing, such as a global health pandemic, reckoning with racial justice, environmental crisis, threats to public education, and economic recession. This resource serves as an annotated bibliography on advocacy, case-making, and systems change: it incorporates overarching concepts from the distinct sectors of culture, education, and social justice; and includes references from the arts, health, housing, social justice, environment, and economics.