AmySue Mertens Director of Public Affairs
Steve Shewfelt
Director of Data & Research
Nicole Upton Director of Partnerships & Professional Learning
Ingenuity The Thinking Behind Arts Learning
Data & Research
Partnerships & Professional Learning
Policy & Advocacy
Chicago Public Schools :
3rd largest school district in the U.S.
20%+ of Illinois’ student population
Using the Creative Schools Initiative towards
equity of access to arts education in schools
CREATIVE SCHOOLS FUND INVESTMENTS 2014-2016
$-
$500,000.00
$1,000,000.00
$1,500,000.00
$2,000,000.00
$2,500,000.00
SchoolYear2013-14
SchoolYear2014-15
SchoolYear2015-16
SchoolProgramGrants $449,854.00 $998,174.00 $1,590,404.00ArtsEssentials $217,000.00 $485,000.00 $812,000.00
Developing a Theory of Action
This project is designed to generate provisional, plausible, and testable answers to the
following questions:
• How does arts education affect students’ socio-emotional development?
• How are the practices that are central to different kinds of arts education (music,
theatre, dance, visual arts, etc.) related to students’ socio-emotional development?
• How do students, parents, educators, and teaching artists view the relationship between
arts education and socio-emotional outcomes?
• How do these stakeholders think about and prioritize among these outcomes?
The project will also speak to (and be informed by) questions about the context in which arts
education occurs:
• How does the context (i.e., the school setting, the neighborhood, the cultural context) in
which arts education is provided affect its role in students’ socio-emotional development?
• What is the relationship between arts education and the culture of a school?
Theory of Action Goals
• A roadmap for practitioners as they look to arts education to facilitate
social and emotional growth among students
• A tool to help arts education advocates articulate ways arts instruction can
affect student outcomes and to discuss reasons arts instruction is an
important part of a quality education
• A touch-stone for future research on the relationship between arts
instruction and development of social and emotional skills
Knowledge Collection
Community Research
Theory Development
Three simultaneous activities creating a “dialogue between ideas
and evidence.” Each activity in the project informs and is informed
by the other activities.
Project Outline