InsideOut

Thu, 12/11/2008 - 16:09 — KeeganFinberg The Teaching Artist Research Project is the first national study to examine the world and work of teaching artists. 
 
Though teaching artists have played significant roles in our culture and educational systems for a century, they have never been more important.  Significant new research has shown that arts education can
 
transform educational experiences and schools
build communities
contribute to the healthy development of children and youth
build future audiences for the arts 
 
Teaching artists have often been instrumental in designing the programs that have these effects, and they are responsible for doing much of the work.  Yet we know very little about them - their background, their aspirations, their needs, or their potential. 
 
TARP will answer these questions through site studies in twelve diverse communities from Boston to Bakersfield, surveying artists and program managers to collect data. Surveys will be followed by in-depth, key-informant interviews in each study site.  TARP hopes to provide fresh new ideas for sustaining and supporting the development of teaching artists and for maximizing their potential to contribute to making high quality arts education widely available. 
 
TARP will be conducted by a major research center at the University of Chicago, NORC.  Its principal investigator is Nick Rabkin, a founder of the Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education, a contributor to Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning, and author of Putting the Arts in the Picture: Reframing Education in the 21st Century.  He is the former director of the Center for Arts Policy at Columbia College Chicago.  TARP is supported by twenty-five foundations, state, and local arts agencies.  
 
TARP is currently building lists of teaching artists for its survey samples in its twelve study sites.  If you are a teaching artist or if you manage a program that hires teaching artists please register at the study website, http://teachingartists.uchicago.edu. And send this link to other teaching artists and program managers.  TARP will contact registrants when the study goes live in 2009. 
 
Nick Rabkin
Teaching Artist Research Project
NORC at the University of Chicago
1155 E. 60th St.
Chicago, IL 60637
773.256.6026
 

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