In South Africa, The Siyazama Project enables rural, traditional craftswomen from KwaZulu-Natal to express their concerns about AIDS and all of its complexities through their beautiful cloth dolls and beadwork. The Siyazama Project and its producers communicate and spread awareness of HIV/AIDS through creative workshops, local and international exhibitions, museum collections, publications, and on-going research activities. Kate Wells, the leader of The Siyazama Project, has compiled this attractive, full colour book to illustrate the main collaborators' roles in Siyazama ('we are trying').

Originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, this volume explores how researchers, educators, artists, and scholars can collaborate with, and engage young people in art, creative practice, and research to work towards social justice and political engagement. By critically interrogating the dominant discourses, cultural, and structural obstacles that we all face today, this volume explores the potential of critical arts pedagogies and community-based research projects to empower young people as agents of social change. Chapters offer nuanced analyses of the limits of arts-based social justice collaborations, and grapple with key ethical, practical, and methodological issues that can arise in creative approaches to youth participatory action research. Theoretical contributions are enhanced by Notes from the Field, which highlight prime examples of arts-based youth work occurring across North America. As a whole, the volume powerfully advocates for collaborative creative practices that facilitate young people to build power, hope, agency, and skills through creative social engagement. This volume will be of interest to scholars, researchers, postgraduate students, and scholar-practitioners involved in community- and arts-based research and education, as well as those working with marginalized youth to improve their opportunities and access to a quality education and to deepen their political participation and engagement in intergenerational partnerships aiming to increase the conditions for social justice.

Originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, this volume explores how researchers, educators, artists, and scholars can collaborate with, and engage young people in art, creative practice, and research to work towards social justice and political engagement. By critically interrogating the dominant discourses, cultural, and structural obstacles that we all face today, this volume explores the potential of critical arts pedagogies and community-based research projects to empower young people as agents of social change. Chapters offer nuanced analyses of the limits of arts-based social justice collaborations, and grapple with key ethical, practical, and methodological issues that can arise in creative approaches to youth participatory action research. Theoretical contributions are enhanced by Notes from the Field, which highlight prime examples of arts-based youth work occurring across North America. As a whole, the volume powerfully advocates for collaborative creative practices that facilitate young people to build power, hope, agency, and skills through creative social engagement. This volume will be of interest to scholars, researchers, postgraduate students, and scholar-practitioners involved in community- and arts-based research and education, as well as those working with marginalized youth to improve their opportunities and access to a quality education and to deepen their political participation and engagement in intergenerational partnerships aiming to increase the conditions for social justice.

Teachers Bridging Difference describes how educators can move out of their comfort zones and practice connecting with others across differences to become culturally responsive teachers. Based on a course developed for preservice teachers, the book illustrates how educators can draw on the visual arts as a resource to explore their own identities and those of their students, and how to increase their understanding of the ways our lives intersect across sociocultural differences. Drawing on scholarship from multiple disciplines and from her own experience, Marit Dewhurst identifies four stances designed to help educators connect with students in today's multicultural classrooms. To practice these stances, the book introduces eight arts-based activities that can be used by educators in multiple contexts. Ranging from community maps and conversation portraits to scenario comics and reflection zines, the activities are designed to be accessible to even those with little arts experience and can be executed with a wide variety of materials and media. Unique and timely, Teachers Bridging Difference is an arts-based toolkit for teachers interested in exploring issues of identity and difference as a foundation for creating a more just and equal society.

Expanding on a groundbreaking framework, this revised edition connects activist art education with current campaigns for social justice.   Nearly a decade after Social Justice Art, innovative arts educator Marit Dewhurst returns with a new edition offering further guidance for developing meaningful, justice-centered art programming. Reflecting on a growing interest in the field and its place within larger movements that uses creative strategies to drive social change, Dewhurst brings new research to bear on her interviews with educators, artists, and students to suggest clear, actionable approaches to facilitating the collaborative process of creating art for social change.    In Social Justice Art Education, Dewhurst examines how to teach art-making to address systems of injustice, how to talk about the process, and the role of activist art projects not only in school classrooms but also within museum education, afterschool education, and other youth programming. In a new chapter, she introduces essential steps that prepare educators to engage in this work: recognizing power differentials, identifying community strengths, and nurturing relationships. Through real-world examples, Dewhurst highlights three key learning processes—connecting, questioning, and transforming—and frames a critical arts pedagogy that incorporates collaboration, inquiry-based discussion, and changemaking into arts curricula.    This invigorating work provides common language and concrete support for educators and others who want to expand and refine their practices, empowering students through liberatory education that aims to inspire social change.

Teachers Bridging Difference describes how educators can move out of their comfort zones and practice connecting with others across differences to become culturally responsive teachers. Based on a course developed for preservice teachers, the book illustrates how educators can draw on the visual arts as a resource to explore their own identities and those of their students, and how to increase their understanding of the ways our lives intersect across sociocultural differences. Drawing on scholarship from multiple disciplines and from her own experience, Marit Dewhurst identifies four stances designed to help educators connect with students in today's multicultural classrooms. To practice these stances, the book introduces eight arts-based activities that can be used by educators in multiple contexts. Ranging from community maps and conversation portraits to scenario comics and reflection zines, the activities are designed to be accessible to even those with little arts experience and can be executed with a wide variety of materials and media. Unique and timely, Teachers Bridging Difference is an arts-based toolkit for teachers interested in exploring issues of identity and difference as a foundation for creating a more just and equal society.

In this lively and groundbreaking book, arts educator Marit Dewhurst examines why art is an effective way to engage students in thinking about the role they might play in addressing social injustice. Based on interviews and observations of sixteen highschoolers participating in an activist arts class at a New York City museum, Dewhurst identifies three learning processes common to the act of creating art that have an impact on social justice: connecting, questioning, and translating. Noting that “one of the challenges of social justice art education has been the difficulty of naming effective strategies that can be used across multiple contexts,� Dewhurst outlines core strategies for an “activist arts pedagogy� and offers concrete suggestions for educators seeking to incorporate activist art projects inside or outside formal school settings. Social Justice Art seeks to give common language to educators and others who are looking to expand and refine their practices in an emerging field, whether they work in art education, social justice programming, or youth development.