5-17

• Bresler, Liora

What qualities make for successful integration of the arts and the so-called corecurriculum? Clearly, integration requires more than scheduling changes, and results in substantiallearning well beyond drawing snowflakes in science or singing patriotic songs in social studies. Thispaper presents one case of arts integration in a Texan high school, where the project coordinatorwas the music teacher. I examine those qualities that made it a successful integration, including thecurriculum, the institutional structures, and some of the characteristics and background of theproject coordinator. Based on this and other cases of successful integration of the arts into theacademic curriculum (and as important, cases where such integration failed despite seeminglypromising conditions), I identify some characteristics that are important to arts integration. Thesecharacteristics include: (i) going beyond the traditional disciplinary knowledge to creatively reflectownership and personal commitments; (ii) being able to listen to others and to collaborate in what Irefer to as transformative practice zone (TZP); and (iii) perseverance in a process of experientiallearning of the innovation. These characteristics, I suggest, constitute educational entrepreneurship,with an emphasis on the social and the intellectual.

• Educational sciences

• Art in education

Arts, integration, curriculum, Educational Entrepreneurship, Context of Schooling

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