Supporting the Arts as Disciplines of Learning. A Book Review of The Role of the Arts in Learning: Cultivating Landscapes of Democracy

Abstract

Learning through and in partnership with the arts has the potential to expand experiences beyond what can be measured on any standardized test assessment. The arts may offer sites of reflexive contemplation and engagement, extending learning outward, away from disciplinary silos and toward transdisciplinary action learning—a heuristic device enabling multiple modes or processes of multitextual knowing and becoming. In The Role of the Arts in Learning: Cultivating Landscapes of Democracy, the editors nurture a space of consideration toward democratic learning. By harnessing the historical and pragmatic theories and philosophies of John Dewey and Maxine Greene, in concert with additional scholarly voices, this book seeks to counter the political backdrop of neoliberal interference into educational systems, often rendering them into less-than-democratic sites for learning as a result. The contributing authors reflect on how the philosophies of Dewey and Greene, amid other philosophical voices, aim to navigate the role the arts might play toward positively impacting learning as a democratic process.