Art as an Agent for Social Change

The chapters in Art as an Agent for Social Change, presented as snapshots, focus on exploring the power of drama, dance, visual arts, media, music, poetry and film as educative, artistic, imaginative, embodied and relational art forms that are agents of personal and societal change. A range of methods and ontological views are used by the authors in this unique contribution to scholarship, illustrating the comprehensive methodologies and theories that ground arts-based research in Canada, the US, Norway, India, Hong Kong and South Africa.

Weaving together a series of chapters (snapshots) under the themes of community building, collaboration and teaching and pedagogy, this book offers examples of how Art as an Agent for Social Change is of particular relevance for many different and often overlapping groups including community artists, K-university instructors, teachers, students, and arts-based educational researchers interested in using the arts to explore social justice in educative ways. This book provokes us to think critically and creatively about what really matters!

Hala Mreiwed, Ph.D., McGill University, is a child rights education consultant and course lecturer in the Faculty of Education at that university. The focus of her most recent publications and research are child rights education and creative drama.

Mindy R. Carter, Ph.D., University of British Columbia, is an Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at McGill University’s Faculty of Education. She has published books and articles on arts education, teacher education, curriculum and pedagogy.

Claudia Mitchell, Ph.D., University of Alberta, is a Distinguished James McGill Professor in Education at McGill University. She has published extensively on participatory visual methodologies, teacher education and girlhood, including Disrupting Shameful Legacies: Girls and Young Women Speaking back through the Arts to Address Sexual Violence (Brill, 2018).