“Trust me, this is gonna be something”: Agency Through Un/Learning with Materials in Arts Integration

Abstract

Offering choice is not enough to support student agency, because we co-create with materials (Hood & Kraehe, 2017). This qualitative study used a materialist lens to understand how teaching artists supported agency through material engagement within arts integration. We found teaching artists expanded student agency by 1) facilitating material exploration as a pathway to un/learn material relationships toward perceptual expansion, and 2) using varied practices for reorganizing and troubling time to reshape activity and material relationships.