By Benjamin Bolden, UNESCO Chair in Arts and Learning, Queen’s University, Canada (March 2024)
In February 2024 the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in collaboration with the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, published a monograph to support arts teaching and learning: Arts for Transformative Education: A Guide for Teachers from the Associated Schools Network. I was the lead author. In this brief article I will describe the conceptual impetus for the document and its genesis.
In the autumn of 2021 I was invited to meet with representatives of the UNESCO Associated Schools Network and the Canadian Commission for UNESCO. These colleagues found resonance with the position I had put forward with Larry O’Farrell – chief architect of the Seoul Agenda: Goals for the Development of Arts Education (UNESCO, 2010) – that the arts must inevitably play a central role in any future educational paradigm. Larry and I advocated for the arts in education by describing their power “to adjust to changing circumstances; to speak to future generations under previously unimagined circumstances; to serve as a model of interactive, learner-directed pedagogy; to promote a deep and lasting development of social and emotional skills; to enhance learners’ well-being; and to foster the kind of creative capacity needed by all those who will be coping with issues and opportunities that cannot yet be foreseen” (O’Farrell & Bolden, 2020, p. 77).
Motivated by a mutual belief in the power and potential of arts education, I worked with UNESCO Paris and UNESCO Canada colleagues to design a multi-phase research project to explore how educators could support UNESCO goals and priorities through arts learning experiences. The Canadian Commission for UNESCO provided funding to hire four graduate student research assistants. The UNESCO Associated Schools Network provided guidance and research access to documents, teachers, schools, and documented practices across the globe.
The research began with gathering and analyzing recently published UNESCO policy documents to ascertain and distil the organization’s key goals and priorities for education. A notable challenge emerged at this point: UNESCO policy makers were in the midst of conceptualizing and branding a new flagship educational policy: ‘Transformative Education’ was to serve as an umbrella initiative encompassing global citizenship education, education for sustainable development, heritage education, education for health and well-being, and other UNESCO education priorities. Essentially, UNESCO was conceptualizing Transformative Education at the same time as our research was trying to figure out how arts learning experiences could support it. Fortunately, UNESCO Paris colleagues were diligent in informing us of unfolding developments, and provided us with relevant policy documents—often in draft form—as soon as they were available.
In addition to examining UNESCO documents, we conducted a scoping review of arts education literature to identify key learning processes and outcomes that connected to UNESCO goals. Findings from both document sources were theoretically categorized and shaped into a first draft of the Arts for Transformative Education model. We envisioned this model as a thinking tool for teachers to help them plan arts learning projects and experiences.
Concurrently, we examined more than 50 examples of arts learning experiences (projects or practices) that had been collected from schools and teachers around the world via UNESCO Associated Schools Network initiatives. We analyzed these arts learning experiences through the lens of the Arts for Transformative Education model, adjusting and refining the model in response to new understandings that emerged as we worked through the analysis process. In other words, the consideration of new projects often allowed us to notice new arts learning features that we then brought in to elaborate our evolving model.
Next, we surveyed and interviewed arts teachers, asking questions related to our developing understanding of how arts learning could support UNESCO goals and priorities. Our desire was to invite perspectives from teachers working in diverse contexts in all regions of the world. Thanks to help from the UNESCO Associated Schools Network in distributing the survey, to the teachers who completed the survey, and to those who volunteered to be interviewed, we gathered input from more than 600 teachers in 39 countries. We used their contributions to refine the Arts for Transformative Education model into the final version presented in the published guide (p 18).
In addition to the Arts for Transformative Education model (a thinking tool for teachers) the guide offers twelve ‘learning experience descriptions’ to illustrate how the model works in real-world learning. Twelve ‘learning experience snapshots’ provide shorter additional examples. We chose these particular examples to represent learning experiences across arts disciplines (music, visual arts, plastic arts, drama, dance, media arts, literary arts) and across world regions (Africa, the Arab States, Asia and the Pacific, Europe and North America, and Latin America and the Caribbean).
The final stage of the project was an extensive review process. The guide was sent out for review by arts education and UNESCO policy experts in over a dozen countries. The generous suggestions and insights of these many reviewers contributed tremendously to the refinement of the final publication.
Along with the many individuals who helped out along the way, I hope this guide may be useful to those seeking to explore and expand the potential and power of arts education.
References
- Bolden, B., Corcoran, S., Kukkonen, T., Newberry, J., & Rickey, N. (2024). Arts for transformative education: A guide for teachers informed by learning experiences from the UNESCO Associated Schools Network. Paris: UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000388701
- O’Farrell, L. and Bolden, B. 2020. Toward a vision for the future of arts education. Humanistic futures of learning: Perspectives from UNESCO Chairs and UNITWIN Networks. UNESCO. Paris, UNESCO, pp. 75–77. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000372577
- UNESCO. (2010). Seoul agenda: Goals for the development of arts education. Paris: UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000190692