Working towards balance: Arts integration in pre-service teacher education in an era of standardization

Source: Teaching and Teacher Education, Volume 24, Issue 2, February 2008, Pages 343-355Drawing on pre-service teachers’ curriculum, the promises and pitfalls of three orientations to arts integration—making, analyzing, and balancing—are described. While few pre-service teachers create balanced curriculum where students make and analyze art, even fewer implement such lessons as student teachers. By contrast, most pre-service teachers initially approach arts integration by asking students to make or analyze art.

Such patterns imply teacher educators need to identify fieldwork placements supporting arts integration, frame pre-service teachers’ initial arts integration as steps to be nurtured by continuing professional development, and prepare teachers committed to the arts to resist narrow definitions of learning in a climate of standardization.