History.- Prelude: History of Education and Arts Education.- Capitalizing Art Education: Mapping International Histories.- Interlude: Arts Education, the Aesthetic and Cultural Studies.- A History of Drama Education: A Search for Substance.- The Teaching and Learning of Music in the Settings of Family, Church, and School: Some Historical Perspectives.- Interlude: History Looking Forward.- Social History and Dance as Education.- The Teaching of English Language Arts as Poetic Language: An Institutionalist View.- Curriculum.- Prelude: Making Sense of Curriculum Research in Arts Education.- Currents of Change in the Music Curriculum.- Experiencing the Visual and Visualizing Experiences.- Interlude: On Learning to Draw and Paint as an Adult.- Proteus, the Giant at the Door: Drama and Theater in the Curriculum.- Narrative as Artful Curriculum Making.- Interlude: Imagining Ms. Eddy Alive; or, the Return of the Arts Teacher and her Personalized Curriculum.- Dance Curriculum Research.- Music (and Arts) Education from the Point of View of Didaktik and Bildung.- Arts Integration in the Curriculum: A Review of Research and Implications for Teaching and Learning.- Artists in the Academy: Curriculum and Instruction.- Assessment and Evaluation.- Prelude: Making Connections in Assessment and Evaluation in Arts Education.- To See and to Share: Evaluating the Dance Experience in Education.- Harmonizing Assessment and Music in the Classroom.- Interlude: Reflections on a Line from Dewey.- Assessing English within the Arts.- Wrestling with Assessment in Drama Education.- Interlude: Assessment and Evaluation in Education and the Arts.- Evaluation Research in Visual Arts Education.- Composition.- Prelude: The Composition Section Composing as Metaphor and Process.- Compositional Process in Music.- Four Metaphors of the Composing Process.- Interlude: Metaphor and the Mission of the Arts.- Composition in Theater: Writing and Devising Performance.- Research in Choreography.- Interlude: Art and Metaphor, Body and Mind.- Composing in Visual Arts.- Appreciation.- Prelude: Locating the Heart of Experience.- Moving into Dance: Dance Appreciation as Dance Literacy.- Appreciation: The Weakest Link in Drama/Theater Education.- Music Appreciation: Exploring Similarity and Difference.- Later "In the Early World": The Changing Role of Poetry and Creative Writing in the K-12 Classroom.- Teaching Toward Appreciation in the Visual Arts.- Interlude: The Arches of Experience.- Interlude: On Reading Maxine's Interlude.- Postcards from "A World Made Possible": Excerpts from Virtual Conversations.- Museums and Cultural Centers.- Prelude: Museums, Cultural Centers, and What We Don't Know.- The Role of Theater in Museums and Historic Sites: Visitors, Audiences, and Learners.- Questions Asked in Art-museum Education Research.- Interlude: Art Information, Arts Learners: The Role of Libraries.- "Private Teaching, Private Learning": An Exploration of Music Instrument Learning in the Private Studio, Junior and Senior Conservatories.- Interlude: Cultural Centers and Strategies of Being: Creativity, Sanctuary, the Public Square, and Contexts for Exchange.- Music Beyond School: Learning through Participation.- Informal Learning.- Prelude: Framing Informality.- In the Beginning: Pleistocene and Infant Aesthetics and 21st-century Education in the Arts.- Interlude: Two or More Forms of Music.- Learning Aesthetic Values in African Musical Worlds.- Interlude: An Ethnomusicological Perspective.- Creative Media Cultures: Making and Learning Beyond the School.- Child Culture.- Prelude: The Arts and Children's Culture.- Children as Agents in Dance: Implications of the Notion of Child Culture for Research and Practice in Dance Education.- Musical Meaning in Children's Cultures.- The Culture of Childhood and the Visual Arts.- Interlude: A Story of Visual Cultural and Pedagogical Webs.- Children's Culture and Mimesis: Representations, Rubrics, and Research.- Social and Cultural Issues.- Prelude: Social and Cultural Perspectives in Arts Education Research.- Research on Drama and Theater for Social Change.- Critical Social Issues in Dance Education Research.- Interlude: The Pulse of Art: What is and What Might be.- Social Issues in Music Education.- Master Narratives and Oppositional Texts: Aesthetics and Black Literature for Youth.- Interlude: War, Violence, and Peace in the Arts.- Conflict and Peace: Challenges for Arts Educators.- Social Issues in Art and Visual/Material Culture Education.- The Body.- Prelude: Moving from Still Life: Emerging Conceptions of the Body in Arts Education.- The Body in a State of Music.- Drama Education and the Body: "I Am, Therefore I Think".- Student Bodies: Dance Pedagogy and the Soma.- Interlude: Astonished by a Stone: Art and the Eloquence of Matter.- Extreme Bodies: The Body as Represented and Experienced through Critical and Popular Visual Culture.- The Body also has a History: A Critical Aesthetics for Arts Education.- Creativity.- Prelude: Provocations in Creativity Research.- Creativity as Research Practice in the Visual Arts.- Routes to Understanding Musical Creativity.- Artistic Creativity, Ethics, and the Authentic Self.- Conceptions of Creativity in Drama Education.- Interlude: The Art of Creativity.- Human Music.- Creativity Research in Dance.- Technology.- Prelude: Knowledge, Skills, Attitudes, and Values: Technology and its Role in Arts Education.- Digital Literacy: What it Means for Arts Education.- Computer-based Technology and Music Teaching and Learning: 2000-2005.- Understanding the Message of the Medium: Media Technologies as an Aesthetic.- Interlude: Technology and Arts Education.- Art Education Avatars in Cyberspace: Research in Computer-based Technology and Visual Arts Education.- Technology in Dance Education.- Spirituality.- Prelude: Plumbing the Depths of Being Fully Alive.- Spirituality in the Musical Experience.- Japanese Spirituality and Music Practice: Art as Self-cultivation.- Interlude: The Force that Rides the Sound.- The Soul Moves: Dance and Spirituality in Educative Practice.- Interlude: Astonishing Wonder: Spirituality and Poetry in Educational Research.- Concerning the Spiritual in Art Education.- Interlude: Education, Spirituality, and the Arts.- Spiritual Ecology in Art Education: A Re-vision of Meaning.

Providing a distillation of knowledge in the various disciplines of arts education (dance, drama, music, literature and poetry and visual arts), this essential handbook synthesizes existing research literature, reflects on the past, and contributes to shaping the future of the respective and integrated disciplines of arts education. While research can at times seem distant from practice, the Handbook aims to maintain connection with the live practice of art and of education, capturing the vibrancy and best thinking in the field of theory and practice. The Handbook is organized into 13 sections, each focusing on a major area or issue in arts education research.