Arts education, as well as the presence of art within education, is often expected to be experimental, liberating, and eye opening. Yet those of us working in these fields, much like in other disciplines, sometimes fall into patterns of conformity and stereotypical approaches that need to be challenged. With this issue, we propose a journey through diverse artistic experiences based on research from different geopolitical contexts to invite readers to think about conformity linked to pedagogies of care and the power of community in arts education. 

The Contents of this eBook

This book presents a compilation of nine contributions presented at ECER 2024. Although all of them share research and experiences from different countries and fields, we have decided to group them in three thematic sections with three papers each.

1) In a time of transformative pedagogies centered in care, well-being and cultural diversity, facing digital

technologies from both their potentialities and dangers, in this section, entitled Arts, education and digital world, we find three papers that approach the mentioned issues from different perspectives. From the field of dance in Hungary, Agota Tongori investigates the creation of educational environments in the theoretical courses for dance university students where students feel individually recognized and cared for, promoting mutual care and respect. In addition, she examines how the digital and AI-powered tools applied contribute to dance students’ success in developing their research skills, critical thinking and creativity. Starting from the idea that discourses produce social realities, and taking a non-deterministic perspectiveon technology, Sara Pastore investigates the discourses in digitalisation from educational field. She presents a study in which she uses Critical Discourse Analysis to demonstrate that, although in thedominant educational discourse, digital technologies are used to reinforce competitive, financializedand individualistic models, there is still room for other uses. Thus, she explores the chance to engagewith other discourses of digital education into art and museum education as epistemological andmethodological repertoires to work upon the way we think about and enact digital education. The study unveils a crucial potential of art education linked to the use of digital tools in learning environments. In front of the massification of higher education, which includes low attendance, social isolation,and educator burnout, Sohpie Ward, Teti Dragas, Laura Mazzoli Smith, Kirsty Ross, and Zhijing Miao, investigate the use of Digital Storytelling (DS) as a mode of pedagogy that aligns with an  ethics of care.

Through a study with university students that involved workshops about (DS) and focus groups, they presents the potentialities of this artistic educational tool to promote students’ engagement, social confidence and raising well-being.

2) This second section, entitled Visualities and materiality, groups three papers that reflect in different ways about images and materiality linked to arts education. In the first paper, Margarida Dourado Dias and José Carlos de Paiva, based on [in]visible project’s insights, invite us to enter in the controversial world of visualities in textbooks through anti-colonial and anti-discrimination lenses. From critical perspective, they present a part of the study in which Master students of Illustration, Edition and Print struggle to imagine alternative visualities for some textbooks beyond stereotypes. The study concludeshow powerful these images are, specially for primary school children and, therefore, the responsibility illustrators have to create more inclusive and non stereotyped images. The second paper, based on a research about Agro-Ecological Transition (AET) placed in the little village of Florac in the middle of nowhere in the mountains, involving artists. agronomy engineers’ students and teachers, Corinne Covez explores the potentialities of Documentary Theatre to foster Agro-ecological transition and, also, teachers’ transition in terms of transforming the ways they teach AET to reduce Eco- anxiety in their students. The research brings light in terms of the importance of providing place-based practices and learning experiences at university, both for students who felt more engaged and improved in some emotional and personal dimensions, and for teachers who experienced the educational transitionin a more meaningfull way. In the third paper, Tobias Frenssen examines possible roles of materiality in bridging the gap between arts education research and teaching in a university context. Through practical examples, such as sharedlearning environments and interdisciplinary seminars, the study illustrates how materiality facilitatesinnovative interactions between students, teachers, and researchers. It also addresses challenges such asbalancing practice and theory and managing conflicting needs in shared spaces.

3) This last section, entitled Playing with boundaries, addresses presented papers at ECER 2024 that havein common the fact that authors entangle disciplines and concepts in their research. In the first paper,Mário Azevedo and Paulo Nogueira present an essay about otherness in music, about how we can bendthe boundaries of already known in sound, and they invite us to project it towards the infinite, towards endless sound, towards that which is yet to be known. To do so, they share fragments of a meditativediscourse that includes concepts such as nomadic listening and post-music linked to arts education.Still in the filed of music but from different approach, Ana Luísa Paz and Ana Paula Caetano present acartography of existence of the Portuguese pianist José Vianna da Motta (1868-1948) as a participatory and interdisciplinary proposal under the premises of the History of educational ecologies (HEC). The paper shares the experience of the workshop held in ECER 2024 in which participants created their own interpretations and questions about how the cartographies presented could evolve towards the assemblage of Vianna da Motta as a human piano, and what hecological approach can bring to arts-based research.Finally, Judit Onsès Segarra and Ebba Theorell explore the notions of care in arts education through presenting the results of a workshop carried out. After introducing some research cases, attendants reflected together about the importance of care in arts education and research, what it means and how researchers can foster care in their educational practices and research.

19Proceedings ECER 2024 - NW29

How can children's war play be understood and interpreted by adults? In this article that is based on my doctoral thesis, I move from the specific analysis of movement in war play towards the theoretical concept of kinesthetic musicality. Because physical war play is a phenomenon that engages primarily young boys, my study focused on boys who were three to nine years old. The project was a film–ethnographic study, and what emerged in my early observations was a great physical awareness, embodied intelligence, and, in moments, actual choreographies. Because movement seemed to be one of the most central dimensions in young children's war play, I adopted a dance theoretical framework for my analysis. Six categories of movement were formulated, and they all connect in one core concept: kinesthetic musicality. It is a concept that describes children's embodied musicality, a playful musicality that creates connections to and participation in the world.

Ebba Theorell, Stockholms Universitet, är disputerad i Estetiska ämnens didaktik med inriktning dans och film. Hon har under många år forskat kring de yngsta barnens krigslekar och undrat hur vi som vuxna ska förhålla oss till dem. En av de första iakttagelserna hon gjorde var att barnens intresse för rörelse verkade vara helt central i leken. Därför började hon filma och sedan analysera pojkars krigslek med hjälp av dansteori för att kunna förstå och förklara lekens rörelser på ett mer precist sätt.

I hennes presentation visas filmklipp och bilder från projektet som börjar specifikt i analys av krigslek men som sedan öppnar sig mot mer generella idéer och begrepp kring dans, lärande och rörelse. Och om hur vi som vuxna kan bli mindre dömande och mer intresserade av det nya som nya generationer skapar.

In educational settings, the focus is often on sitting quietly and engaging incognitive activities like discussing various subjects, developing critical thinking skills,and problem-solving using intellect, reading and writing. While these aspects are vital, itis also important to recognize that students are physical beings existing here and now,interacting with others in a specific environment. Our physical presence exposes us to aplethora of experiences, many of which are unpredictable, fleeting, indescribable, andimmediate. Unexpected movement may generate the feeling of losing control over theeducational situation. We will, thus, see that moments of absence play a crucial role inthe processes of growth and learning, and should not be disregarded or ignored. This isespecially considered in aesthetic bildung. Starting with a philosophical, more concretethe bodily phenomenological perspective, this article embarks on an examination ofaesthetic practices for teacher students in dance classes as a basis for aesthetic bildung.

Dansdidaktik kan utgå ifrån att dans är ett sätt att skapa rörelsemedvetenhet och koreografier, men också en möjlighet att dela med sig av kunskap, fantasier, traditioner och livet i stort. Forskning visar hur dans kan skapa meningsfullhet, ökad rörelsemedvetenhet, självkänsla och gruppsammanhållning för elever.

Hur kan vi bemöta små barns (oftast pojkars) krigslekar på fler sätt än att bara automatiskt förbjuda dem och visa vårt ogillande? Föreläsningen utgår från Theorells avhandling Kraft, form, transformationer: om kinestetisk musikalitet ochkroppsvärldande i pojkars krigslek som bygger på många års filmande och observerande av de yngsta barnens fysiska, intensiva och låtsasaggressiva krigslekar. I föreläsningen visas filmklipp och foton både från forskning och praktikutvecklande projekt.