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Abstract
This study focuses on seven urban art teachers and their experiences in disadvantaged schools and examines three questions: How were these art teachers prepared for urban environments? What are the behaviors and attitudes of these urban art teachers? Does art teacher preparation match the behavior and attitude of these urban art teachers? The intent of this research was to focus on art teacher preparation for urban schools, but revealed a series of conditions and agency that hinder urban art teachers from providing high quality art experiences for at-risk studentsconditions and agency that may drive art teachers to abandon at-risk populations. The findings show that agencies designed to assist these urban art teachers, instead, pushed them into the margins. It was found, that each of these teachers, solely created a phenomenon of resilience and dedication while working with little to zero support. Some of these teachers were intimidated by their administrators, and independently sought ways to provide the necessary instructional materials and supplies for their students-- often using personal resources and surrogate materials to deliver art instruction to their at-risk students.This study relied upon Critical Theory and used art-based research to provide data for this study. All administrators would not agree to their art programs being studied, therefore, classroom observations were eliminated from this research. Consequently, this research had to primarily rely upon the narratives of seven art teachers, and narrative poetry created by the researcher. The researcher, also an urban art teacher, included an autoethnography of her experiences growing up at-risk, and working in disadvantaged environments. The U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, and the U.S. Director of School Achievement, Monique Chism, wrote letters to school administrators and state Title I facilitators requesting their support for art teachers in disadvantaged populations all over the country. These letters demonstrate a conflict of attitudes and support for art education in at-risk environmentsironically-- while the data from a longitudinal study by the National Endowment of the Arts (2012) of more than (n=15,000) at-risk students-- validate the benefits of high quality art experiences, as well as the consequences of low art experiences of at-risk students. The urban art teacher is positioned in the center of this struggle which alters their behaviors and their attitude as this study suggests.