A Comparative Case Study of Arts Education Equity: Understanding How Geography and Socioeconomic Status Influence Arts Opportunities in Elementary Schools

Abstract

My dissertation research is a comparative case study that aimed to investigate (in)equity issues in the arts in education across elementary schools in five public school districts in two selected metropolitan areas in the American Southwest. The research was developed out of my own lived experience, my own commitment to equitable and just arts education, and the groundwork laid by two systematic reviews and the mixed methods pilot study. The existing literature has shown that the geographic location of a school plays a significant role in shaping and influencing educational inequalities and disparities (e.g., Engberg & Wolniak, 2010; Greenwald et al., 1996; Rowan-Kenyon et al., 2011; Wayne & Youngs, 2003). Looking at the current American public school system, decades after Brown, in fact, dual segregation by poverty and race still exists, but in more complex and nuanced ways (Goyette, 2014; Goyette & Lareau, 2014; Orfield et al., 2016; Orfield et al., 2012; Orfield, 2001). Preliminary results from the mixed methods pilot study suggested vast inequities and disparities in the arts among elementary schools within a single school district that covered neighborhoods that were not significantly different and shared a common set of educational policies. On the other hand, the two systematic reviews revealed that most research in arts education with a social justice agenda in recent years did not involve quantification but typically used only a single type of qualitative methods. As an art educator and researcher, I then paid more attention to the interconnectedness between geography and education, as a school’s location determines, to some extent, how many resources it receives from the state and local communities to support student learning in the arts. I hoped to further explore how equitable arts education is across different schools, and how arts education plays out in different socioeconomic contexts of the US public school system. In addition, the potential for methodological diversity in the field of arts education served as the second research focus of my dissertation study. I then proposed the following two sets of research questions based on my research interests. 1. Through the lens of arts equity, what differences in arts education can be measured and detected across elementary schools in neighborhoods that are geographically and socioeconomically distinct to each other in the state of Arizona? If differences do exist, why do they occur and what factors contribute to the formation of these contrasts? 2. How do key stakeholders’ understandings of arts equity impact their navigation and performance in these proximate yet distinct contexts of American public-school systems? Drawing on Kraehe’s multidimensional arts equity model (Kraehe et al., 2016), this dissertation project employed a mixed methods explanatory sequential design with a mix of qualitative and quantitative approaches (Creswell et al., 2003; Fetters & Freshwater, 2015; Ivankova et al., 2006; Jääskeläinen et al., 2022; Maleku et al., 2021; Watkins & Gioia, 2015). In my case, the mixed methods explanatory sequential design meant an initial phase of quantitative data collection through selected publicly available datasets, a second phase of school inventory survey using quantitative methods, followed by a final phase of qualitative semi-structured interviews. The data collected from the Phase III individual interviews were used to further interpret the patterns that emerged from the Phase II statistical analysis. Based on the quantitative findings using bivariate correlation analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), I concluded in response to the first set of research questions that (a) when discussing equity issues in public school arts education, factors both inside and outside the school walls should be considered together; (b) the picture in the schools I studied is more complex than the oversimplified dichotomous view of “good (rich) schools” and “bad (poor) schools” that characterizes public schools in the United States; (c) geography-based factors play an important role in explaining equity issues in public school arts education. On the other hand, a striking pattern emerged from the qualitative data: key stakeholders adapted their behaviors to the context - the school system and the surrounding environment that significantly influenced it - in order to make informed and well-planned decisions that best reflected their interests. I define the geographic factors highlighted in this dissertation project as the key parameters that can be used to clarify and illuminate the specific context when discussing equity in arts education in public schools. The influence of geography was woven into the respondents’ accounts in both conscious and unconscious ways, as many of their decisions made in and around a particular school system were in fact based on their personal perceptions and understandings of the context. Simply put, it is the context that shapes key stakeholders’ behavior, performance, decision-making, and best ways to navigate the public school system, not the other way around. By analyzing and integrating the quantitative and qualitative data, the findings of this dissertation research indicated that geography, among other key factors, plays an important role in understanding and interpreting arts education equity in American public schools, as the concept of equity/inequity is indeed reflected and embedded in the variations caused by geographic factors. Negative and inequitable outcomes often result not from conscious and intentionally motivated decisions, but rather from unconscious motivations in unfair systems where inequities are more likely to arise.