Mr. Jeff M. Poulin

Operationalizing Access and Equity in Arts Education

Posted by Mr. Jeff M. Poulin, Apr 04, 2016 0 comments


Mr. Jeff M. Poulin

The term equity has been top of mind in the worlds of arts and education for quite some time now. When we talk about access, we divert to equity. We when talk about diversity, we pivot and discuss equity. When we talk about inclusion, we now talk about equity, too.

With all of this talk, our field has begun to take action. We see success stories around the country of programs using their data to identify issues with the equity in access to arts education. We see school districts take serious the deficiencies in equity and correct them with modified defunding models. We also see individuals, programs, and communities taking steps towards their own knowledge building on the issues of equity.

In this week’s blog salon, we will change the conversation from taking steps towards their own knowledge building on the issues of equity.

In this week’s blog salon, we will change the conversation from being about why we need to take action on equity in arts education to how we take action. Good work has been happening around the country, so we have curated a number of pieces ranging from providing a basic understanding of the issues, to successful models, and collections of steps to take to make a change.

  • Today, we will begin with a conceptual framework, an underlying understanding of issues of access and equity, and a foundational knowledge of the language needed to engage in the week-long conversation.
  • Tuesday and Wednesday, we will look at successful programs that have operationalized these big ideas both in- and out-of-school.
  • Thursday will be all about data. How do we as individuals, programs and communities, use data to inform our conversation and decision making about access and equity in arts education?
  • Finally, on Friday, we will compile our learnings and readers can follow the advice of experts as to what next steps they should take.

Some things to remember as you read blogs this week about access and equity:

  1. All communities are different. Please remember that what is the need or what has worked in one community may be different than you own. Look for similarities and seek to draw parallels between what you are reading and your own work.
  2. Achieving goals in access and equity takes work and everyone is on his or her own journey. Take gems of advice from bloggers, and understand they may not be done with their work just yet.
  3. Operate in a culture of forgiveness. Not everyone is perfect, and dealing in issues of equity can leave people feeling vulnerable; seek to understand the point of view of the writer.
  4. Give the benefit of the doubt.

A special thanks to all of the bloggers for this week and the work they are doing in their community. I encourage all readers to engage on the ARTSblog platform through the comments section.

Happy reading!

Please login to post comments.