CHAPTER 25

Visual Arts and Community Well-Being

Lois Hetland and Cathy Kelley

Abstract

This chapter reviews evidence of impact from visual arts experiences on human flourishing in communities: families, centers, neighborhoods, and municipalities. Evidence is increasing from US and international sources that suggests positive impacts of visual arts experiences on community well-being. However, the literature is widely varied in quality, methods, and audiences addressed, and much of it is non-empirical advocacy and theory. Some qualitative and quantitative studies exist, and some of these are methodologically strong. The authors compare a sample of studies to an existing logic model for well-being (Tay, Pawelski, & Keith, 2018) to identify mechanisms that future research designs might employ to increase robustness of evidence about visual arts’ impacts on community well-being.

Key Words: visual arts, community, well-being, human flourishing, review, mechanism, impact, evidence, research design, model

Introduction

The literature on visual arts’ impacts on human flourishing is international, increasing in quantity, and varied in quality, methods used, and audiences addressed. Much of it is non-empirical advocacy and theory, although qualitative and quantitative studies exist, and some are methodologically strong (Staricoff, 2004; Chemi, 2015). Here, we focus on impacts of visual arts experiences on well-being at the community level: families, centers, neighborhoods, and municipalities.

The authors developed a preliminary logic-model (inputs, mechanisms, and outcomes) before conducting searches through the Massachusetts College of Art and Design’s “Search Everything” platform, using synonyms for well-being, visual art, and empirical (truncating all terms). Searches identified about 500 relevant articles, far more than this chapter could address; among them was Tay, Pawelski, and Keith’s conceptual framework for the role of arts and humanities in human flourishing (2018; hereafter, the “original TPK model”). We sorted articles using categories from Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model (1994), selected those in the micro- and macro-levels, and adapted the original TPK model to address group inputs, mechanisms, and outcomes to fit the community visual arts context, highlighting relevant factors for future research designs.

Traditionally, community well-being has been indexed by economic prosperity and numbers of participants at events or programs, but these qualities offer limited information for public and organizational decision-makers. Current research redefines community well-being as improved group capabilities achieved through mechanisms that leverage extant networks of social interaction, rather than improved neighborhood economies through replacement of original populations (Stern & Seifert, 2017). Recently, economic and socio-culturally informed approaches are beginning to align (Murdoch, Grodach, & Foster, 2016).

Challenges to Studying Art in Communities

The central challenge to testing theories about visual arts’ effects on cultural well-being is whether experimental methods must be used or if alternative methods can be developed to determine causality and generalize. Other challenges include lack of arts funding (a low priority in the United States, although other countries have more dedicated resources) despite increasing demand (e.g., vulnerable cultural groups often suffer from social pressures resulting from globalization), and a dominant view among scholars that visual arts are primarily aesthetic objects. Sherman and Morrissey argue convincingly to recast visual art as primarily socio-epistemic, referring to “[art’s] communicative nature, its capacity to increase one’s self-knowledge and encourage personal growth, and its ability to challenge our schemas and preconceptions” (2017, p. 1). Art is a social, meaning-making process, and this focus offers a compelling way to understand art’s role in social change.

State of the Evidence

Searches surfaced many advocacy studies (i.e., assertions without systematic evidence from data), theoretical studies of social capabilities and cohesion, and empirical research using various quantitative and qualitative paradigms. Some advocacy studies correlate art with well-being outcomes, while others offer loosely supported claims (Cleveland, 2011; Frost-Kumpt, 1998). Promising theoretical stances from interdisciplinary models developed by sociologists, political scientists, and economists connect visual arts impacts to designated social groups and could be used in experimental designs (Borrup, 2016; Gaffaney, 2017; Perry & Temple, 2015; Stern & Seifert, 2017). The empirical works, mainly qualitative case studies, often compare shifts in participants’ thinking following arts experiences (e.g., after art-making in specialized settings, singular public events, or festivals) by analyzing patterns of self-reports from surveys and interviews. The best of the qualitative work, an evaluation by the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, rigorously analyzed its programs for quality (McClanahan & Hartmann, 2017).

Quantitative and mixed-methods studies are scarce. Typically, these are secondary analyses of large data sets and not experiments. Several descriptive demographic studies identify numbers and locations of cultural nonprofits as resources for community well-being (Jackson, Kabwasa-Green, & Herranz, 2006; Markusen, Gadwa, Barbour, & Beyers, 2011). Correlational research by Stern and Seifert (2017) at the University of Pennsylvania is well-designed, implemented, and analyzed, and it does not over-claim. The only randomized, experimental study we found was in the Houston Public School District (Bowen & Kisida, 2019); however, it is of limited relevance to visual arts. It reports causal evidence from increased arts experiences in schools, including, but not distinguishing, visual arts; also, although reported impacts easily extrapolate to communities, indicators were of individual well-being (e.g., empathy, aspiration for attending college).

Claims of Community Well-Being Impacts from Visual Arts

The positive impact of visual art on communities has often been cited and celebrated but rarely demonstrated with scientific rigor. Arts generally (not specifically visual arts) are said to (a) improve student performance in the aggregate (Stern & Seifert, 2017), (b) reduce a school community’s need to discipline students (Bowen & Kisida, 2019), (c) help groups cope with trauma (Broach, Pugh, & Smith, 2016), (d) develop a sense of pride, recognition, and human dignity in groups (Cleveland, 2011), and (e) drive revitalization of neighborhoods’ economic prosperity (Grodach, 2011).

The claims, mostly unsubstantiated by demonstrated causal impacts or identified mechanisms, reflect a broad public perception that arts access is an important bonding mechanism in community/group settings. Future studies need to define mechanisms, specify the types of art experiences associated with positive impacts, describe contexts and locations of effective examples, and lay out how arts are implemented (Guetzkow, 2002).

The Original TPK Model Revised for Communities

We modified inputs in the original TPK model (Extensional Definition Objects “What”; and Functional Analysis Subjects “How”). In Table 25.1, we identify community-level inputs from studies identified in the searches to classify group type and participants (Who), type of arts intervention (What and Where), and method of study (How).

Mechanisms and Outcomes: Well-Being of Communities

We mapped elements of the research reviewed onto the community-level modifications we made to the original TPK model, retaining mechanism names (Immersion, Embeddedness, Socialization, and Reflectiveness) with slight changes to definitions and with outcomes shifted to emphasize groups.

Immersion

Definition

In the original TPK model, immersion refers to the immediacy of engagement derived from arts experiences. For communities, immersion describes the sense of immediacy and relatedness that might lead to outcomes such as collective emotional flow states (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2014), increases in average student engagement (Bowen & Kisida, 2019), and positive social outcomes such as improved health, higher levels of schooling, and increased security (Stern & Seifert, 2017). We found only one study to categorize as visual arts immersion at the community level. In that study, an analysis of semi-structured interviews with festival organizers suggests that visual arts experiences at festivals create well-being that bridges social divides and stimulates higher levels of community participation. The well-being effects are said to diffuse into the community via community arts centers, museums, and cultural events (Brownett, 2018).

Table 25.1 Inputs of Community Arts Experience

Who	What / Where	How
Kinship groups: nuclear families	Therapy sessions, group art-making, & discussing images about issues / conducted in homes and clinical centers	Clinical case study
Museum visitors: general public, designated populations	Classes and specialized programs / conducted in museums	Action research; case study
Community organizations for general public, artists, children, youth	Classes and facilitated experiences / conducted in publicly and privately funded art centers, small studio residencies, and after-school community programs (e.g., Boys and Girls Clubs)	Collaborative action research; case study; secondary data analysis; surveys; mixed methods
Designated populations such as immigrants, elderly, aboriginals, at-risk youth, the incarcerated, general public, people with emotional, social, cognitive, and/or physical challenges	Classes, facilitated experiences, and discussion groups / conducted in dedicated art, residential, prison, and/or small centers and settings	Case study; surveys; mixed methods
Schools: children, youth, teachers, curriculum developers	Visual arts and/or arts-integrated instruction in classes, pre-service professional development in arts-based pedagogies, curriculum development using visual arts to teach citizenship and peacebuilding / conducted in PK–12 schools/districts	Mixed methods; curriculum analysis; qualitative observational study; secondary data analysis
Civic participation among general public, artists, designers	Conflict-resolution groups, community art projects (e.g., documentary films), content creation for community media outlets / conducted at art festivals and local community centers	Participant observation case study; secondary data analysis
Communities and neighborhoods including general public, policymakers, entrepreneurs	Research studies of cultural capital/socioeconomic status where arts are cultural assets for revitalizing neighborhoods, long-term, adult well-being assessment tied to early arts education experiences / conducted in community centers, research centers, businesses, and universities	Surveys; longitudinal secondary data analysis

Embeddedness

Definition

In the original TPK model, embeddedness refers to psychological processes that promote positive individual health (e.g., self-efficacy, emotional regulation). For communities, we define embeddedness as the collective, interdependent perspectives, skills, and methods used within groups to promote well-being of the whole. Metaphorically, embeddedness is the “group brain.” Groups achieve efficacy (well-being) through visual arts processes that lead to mastery of an organizational system. These processes include communicating (listening, responding, turn-taking, focused speaking/writing); and sustaining engagement, curiosity, flexibility, and openness (Bowen & Kisida, 2019); planning, scheduling, participating, and choosing among options; sharing resources and ideas; and checking for agreement and unpacking disagreement (Holland, 2015); compromising, committing, synthesizing, and analyzing; and balancing autonomy with relatedness (Sherman & Morrissey, 2017); practicing by turning toward difficulty (Perkins, 2009); understanding error, including accepting, using, and learning from mistakes (Hetland, Winner, Veenema, & Sheridan, 2013); defining goals and purposes; and visualizing meanings (Project Zero & Reggio Children, 2001).

Embeddedness through visual arts functions and is studied differently in small and larger groups. Usually studies by participant observers focus on small groups (e.g., people living and/or working in community arts, the incarcerated, or those in residential settings), while studies of large groups (e.g., neighborhoods and communities) use surveys and secondary data analysis.

Embeddedness with Small Groups

In 1996, Jerome Bruner wrote that culture gives the “mind its shape and scope” (Blatt-Gross, 2010). Claims that learning occurs within and is dependent on cultural contexts, resources, and shared mental representations (Bruner, 1996; Donald, 2006) come from traditions of scholars such as Vygotsky, Dewey, Arnheim, and Langer, among others (Blatt-Gross, 2010). Case studies illustrate how art shifts group perspectives. In one, elementary student groups in Britain better understood the concept of national identity by learning through visual arts–based projects (Collins & Ogier, 2013). The children’s dialogue about images helped them look critically at their preconceptions and form new ideas as a group. Another case study suggests that art in the form of “participatory media” (i.e., communications produced by the community) was transformative; art prompted group dialogue that led to shared meaning in a community that had experienced trauma (Baú, 2018).

Immordino-Yang and Damasio (2007; Immordino-Yang, 2016) use imaging to study how emotions relate to complex decision-making, seeing emotions serving as a rudder to guide transfer from logical reasoning to real world contexts of social decisions. They assert that “ … our brains still bear evidence of their original purpose: to manage our bodies and minds in the service of living, and living happily, in the world with other people” (p.4). Huss (2016) explains that art’s ambiguity presents an opportunity platform for conflict resolution and helps people reframe contentious issues. Humans more easily empathize with others’ thoughts and feelings when these are expressed in images rather than words, possibly because images generate greater cognitive flexibility and alternate possibilities. Such flexibility facilitates integrative complexity (i.e., collaboration, innovation, conflict resolution, knowledge generation, group efficacy, and creativity) and allows individuals to feel empathy and overcome self-protective, rigid, and binary positions (Huss, 2016). Such an approach, Huss believes, stands in contrast to typical language-based processes where participants hold on to personal narratives that promote division.

Ethnographic case studies in smaller groups set visual arts as moderators for collective psychological experiences (i.e., they affect the size of the impact). These small-group studies suggest that visual arts support group flourishing because art making and encounters shift inward-facing tendencies to more empathetic, outward-facing stances. Such shifts increase complex thinking and knowledge about other perspectives, integrating these qualities into the group as shared information (Parsons, Gladstone, Gray, & Kontos, 2017; Huss, 2016; McGovern, Schwittick, & Seepersaud, 2018). In smaller groups, visual arts embeddedness generates co-constructed meaning and shared knowledge through dialogue. Four outcomes of arts-embeddedness in small groups include generation of shared knowledge, integration of multiple perspectives, creative innovations, and developed agency and mastery (Blatt-Gross, 2010; Huss, 2016; Immordino-Yang, Darling-Hammond, & Krone, 2018). Dialogue around visual art is hypothesized to lead to better cognitive processes such as cooperative problem-solving and cross-cultural understanding.

Perspectives, skills, and methods used in visual arts experiences correlate with the development of agency and mastery. Clinical case studies of art therapy suggest that visual arts help families maintain motivation, use positive self-talk, connect with feelings, communicate to feel understood, discuss emotional issues, make the invisible visible, and sustain collaboration toward shared solutions despite frustration (Maliakkal, Hoffman, Ivcevic, & Bracket, 2017). Evidence from vulnerable populations in specialized settings (e.g., low-income youth in after-school programs, arts programs for the incarcerated, museum workshops for the cognitively impaired, accessible studio spaces for individuals with physical impairments) suggests how arts-based programs embed agency and mastery as mechanisms for effective recovery. Such programs help develop high-functioning citizens, increasing the well-being of the society as a whole. Participants report that visual arts programs in these settings helped them build agency and confidence toward advancing their educations, transferring those positive feelings to life after leaving the programs (Betts, 2006; Brewster, 2014; Evans, Bridson, & Minkiewicz, 2013; Overgaard & Sørensen, 2015; Reid & Anderson, 2012).

Embeddedness in Large Groups

Embeddedness for large groups is studied mainly through secondary analyses of large data sets. System processes include tracking national trends of arts participation, correlating early arts engagement with long-term indicators of thriving, and assessing well-being outcomes in neighborhoods. When combined in research syntheses, information from larger samples and multiple sources provides greater understanding of the well-being impacts that result from art (Stern & Seifert, 2017).

Government-sourced data sets and information provided by agencies, businesses, and cultural organizations (Stern & Seifert, 2017) are used by both advocacy groups and university researchers. Projects in several cities monitored well-being and identified indicators; researchers of these studies are seeking agreement about tools for sharing data and the identification, definitions, and indicators for measuring well-being at a community level (Perry & Temple, 2015).

Advocacy groups and scholarly research both use data sets provided by national surveys such as the National Endowment for the Arts, 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (Williams & Keen, 2009). The NEA and other government agencies fund research on the arts, and these data sets then are used to track arts participation across the United States. Government and nongovernmental organizations have cooperated to design surveys (Sarkar, 2019). A secondary analysis correlates arts programs for at-risk youth with greater civic participation as adults in voting, reading newspapers, and political involvement (Catterall, 2009). A 2008 report correlates early access to visual arts education with arts participation as adults (Rabkin & Hedberg, 2011). A central finding of this report is that indicators of cultural vitality, such as adult participation in arts as makers or viewers, drop as funding decreases for arts in schools.

More researchers are beginning to investigate possible connections between visual arts participation and initiatives such as taking action, impacting policy, and determining societal outcomes for entire neighborhoods and cities. As mentioned earlier, researchers used to describe well-being as economic growth, but those promoting neighborhood revitalization, gentrification, and beautification have been criticized for displacing original residents; program benefits accrued to outside visitors or new members of the community instead of to the original residents (Stern & Seifert, 2017). In the last twenty years, a new understanding of cultural ecology has emerged. More research considers needs of extant communities where neighborhood and community development give current residents access to resources that develop capabilities as citizens. Such an approach promotes flourishing of the original residents and the systems that support them (Stern & Seifert, 2017).

Other findings suggest that city-wide arts events and festivals stimulate positive outcomes among those who participate. These outcomes include self-efficacy and increased participation in community events, which are thought to lead to a sense of personal well-being by providing community members opportunities to engage, build skills, and serve greater community causes (Borrup, 2016; Brownett, 2018).

Credible research by the University of Pennsylvania’s Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP) examines culture’s impact on social well-being in an ecology of neighborhoods. Living in clusters of geographically proximal cultural assets (i.e., nonprofit cultural providers, for-profit cultural firms, resident artists, and cultural participants) correlates with positive well-being outcomes, including a 14 percent reduction in the need to investigate child abuse and neglect, a 5 percent reduction in obesity, an 18 percent increase in children and youth scoring in the top stratum on English Language Arts and Math exams, and an 18 percent reduction in the serious crime rate (Stern & Seifert, 2017). The study suggests that social inclusion and access to resources provided by social networks in the cultural sector are mechanisms for community thriving; that is, there is evidence that the interrelatedness of multiple organizations throughout a community acts collectively as a mechanism for well-being. Of course, it could be that populations with those characteristics are drawn to those locations—the evidence is not causal.

In sum, the embeddedness of visual arts treatments in small and large groups may open up questioning within community spaces, providing a necessary rupture to fixed perceptions and inviting broader groups in the community to reconceptualize previously accepted norms (Parsons et al., 2017). As societies face complex problems of the twenty-first century, more studies are suggesting that art’s embeddedness can be a mechanism for integrating multiple points of view, involving diverse groups of people, and finding innovative solutions to emerging challenges.

Socialization

Definition

In the original TPK model, socialization refers to roles and identities assumed by individuals in communities; this mechanism in the original model ties more closely to groups than the other mechanisms. It addresses physical (bodily), psychological (mental), and subjective (felt) well-being. For communities, we translate these perspectives to physical structures and systems in the community, ways sociology judges quality of life in communities, and subjective ways that communities feel about themselves.

Physical Perspective

Case studies document the restoration and revitalization that arts and culture bring to communities that were once run down (Florida, 2012; Frost-Kumpt, 1998). Analysis of past physical improvement through art development projects has sparked interest in defining indicators of cultural well-being and informing urban planning with culturally sound practices. The field has begun to embrace a social perspective on well-being that balances physical indicators of economic well-being with analyses of physical impacts on pre-restoration populations.

Sociological Perspectives

Visual art can function as a mechanism to help communities form social cohesion, widely interpreted as indicating community well-being (Keyes, 1998). Social bonds created by externalizing inner human experience through visual arts build a sense of individual belonging within the group (Huss, 2016; Vallejos et al., 2017).

In addition to promoting belonging, visual arts are also associated with developing personal freedom within communities. Individual dignity and agency come from being noticed, heard, and valued by members of groups (Overgaard & Sørensen, 2015). Additionally, several studies looked specifically at those who may otherwise be marginalized on the basis of race, gender, age (McGovern et al., 2018; Jackson, Kabwasa-Green, & Herranz, 2006), or ability (Brewster, 2014; Reid & Anderson, 2012). Governments, too, have begun to recognize ways in which visual arts and cultural programs enable individuals to identify with each other across political and cultural differences. The creative arts, including visual arts, offer an effective means of encouraging and equipping local people to develop leadership skills and take up new roles and responsibilities in their communities (Stone, Destrempes, Foote, & Jeannotte, 2008).

Public health initiatives have also been effectively implemented through collaborative arts projects. For example, a qualitative study describes how a mental health charity’s Support to Recovery Gallery was a vital addition to the local community. Artists commented that there was “ ‘nothing else like it’ and ‘it has created an artistic community’ ” (Holland, 2015, p. 262). The opportunity for artists to be among other artists and engage in artistic conversations was particularly important for those working on their own, who reported reduced social isolation. Many exhibiting artists also expressed satisfaction in achieving personal goals, increased confidence, and improved self-esteem from exhibiting and selling their artwork in the local community.

It is not only the policies of governing bodies that shape society; people’s commitment, accountability, participation, and understanding of collective life are foundational to citizenship (Parsons et al., 2017; Stanley, 2007). Secondary analyses suggest that arts participation, especially during formative years, correlates with higher civic engagement and social tolerance (Leroux & Bernadska, 2014). Some suggest that visual arts are gaining ground because access, funding, and incorporating arts in schools and across the curriculum are linked with adult participation in civic life (Rabkin & Hedberg, 2011; Zakaras & Lowell, 2008). With calls by the United Nations to use arts education to support resolution of cultural and social challenges (UNESCO Second World Conference on Arts Education, 2010), public schools are exploring the possibility of teaching global citizenship skills with visual art (Cabedo-Mas, Nethsinghe, & Forrest, 2017).

Subjective Perspective

Subjective well-being obtains in a general sense of trust in others and feelings of safety within a population. Such social cohesion increases when groups share and create visual art together about personally meaningful topics (Williams, 1996). Study participants report feeling more fulfilled when they have a sense of belonging and connection in a community. This is evidenced as a sense of group identity and, in some communities, as ethnic pride (Jackson et al., 2006).

Reflectiveness

Definition

In the original TPK model, reflectiveness is a personal process for developing values and worldviews. For communities, we adjust that to consider policy-making as the intentional, socio-cognitive process of developing group or community agreements that align principles and values with intentions and actions. Through visual arts, societies can create, change, and facilitate unifying principles that underlie their governance (Parsons et al., 2017; McGovern et al., 2018).

In prompting people to ask questions, visual arts are mechanisms for reflection, leading to more democratic processes of making meaning (Parsons et al., 2017). Visual arts and culture bring attention to ethical and moral choices and promote policies and programs around equity and inclusion (Stone et al., 2008). Visual arts may also disrupt power through visualizing and activating the voices of vulnerable populations, making their needs and opinions visible in ways that gain attention from decision-makers (Parsons et al., 2017).

A reflective practice that is increasingly common since the 1990s is cultural planning, “an inclusive process for engaging city residents, visitors, and representatives of arts and culture and other sectors to help identify cultural needs, opportunities, and resources and to think strategically about how to use these resources to help a community achieve its goals” (Boston Creates, 2015, paragraph 1). Advocates of cultural planning call for urban planners to use sound cultural policy as their foundation (Borrup, 2016) and argue for the critical need to develop a community’s cultural assets in partnership with local residents. This perspective views the city as an ecosystem composed of interactions among the built environment, economics, and ethical values (Stone et al., 2008).

National governments (e.g., Australia, England, and Canada), too, are recognizing the need to build society on a platform of culturally sensitive policy. Policymakers view arts and culture, including visual arts, as both vehicles (mechanisms) and indicators (outcomes) of well-being; they have also begun to tie the rights of citizens to their artistic expressions, especially for minorities and indigenous peoples who strive to have their cultures recognized, to have representation in cultural decision-making, and to take control over cultural self-determination (Stone et al., 2008).

Conclusion and Future Directions

“In contrast to the many measures we have of neighborhood divisions and deficits, we have relatively few measures of community strengths” (Stern & Seifert, p. I-6). Our review applies a promising model to existing visual arts literature addressing community strengths. Reframing the original TPK model to the community level offers smaller organizations information about how visual arts can help to refine programs and aid negotiation of research and funding partnerships to improve community well-being. Describing visual arts mechanisms that promote community well-being provides criteria to improve study designs (Perry & Temple, 2015). Identifying inputs (who, what, where, and how), mechanisms, and outcomes from a sample of existing studies allows researchers to better design future studies to generalize target concepts of importance beyond samples studied.

Future Directions

How Can Study Design Be Improved?

Most visual arts research on well-being at the community level has not been experimental or longitudinal; studies often are ethnographies of one-time-only events or programs, or they are correlations identified through secondary data analysis. Replications of existing findings using matched-controls in longer, quasi-experimental studies would strengthen confidence in conclusions, even if randomization is seldom feasible. Qualitative and mixed-methods studies could put flesh on the bones of specific quantitative outcomes, iterating toward ever more rigorous and useful findings.

What Are the Challenges of Funding?

Lack of funding limits study quality and longitudinal inquiries; in a competitive funding environment, community organizations out are reluctant to undertake research initiatives whose results may conflict with donors’ values; and community organization leaders worry that research may undermine support for current initiatives (Evans, Bridson, & Minkiewicz, 2013). Past results of well-meant programs that gentrified once diverse areas following arts initiatives displaced residents and homogenized neighborhoods, which raises skepticism and fear of negative impacts among community leaders (Stern & Seifert, 2017). Unequal funding limits access to cultural assets, including schools, which reinforces socioeconomic stratification (Stern & Seifert). Politics and funding by corporations also jeopardize the integrity of arts programs. Although smaller organizations can sometimes operate under the radar of politics and money (Cleveland, 2011), researchers need to partner with communities to reduce the effects of outside policymakers and influencers who use local groups to further their own ends (Stern & Seifert, 2017).

How Can Partnerships Support Quality Research?

Researchers will benefit from engaging with local stakeholders in ongoing reflection and dialogue about how visual arts and culture impact and respond to the well-being of communities. They need to partner with community members, value local expertise, and listen carefully to those who know their neighborhoods best. Positive outcomes consistently result when community arts are supported primarily from within by local organizers, resources, and capacities, and when leaders monitor equitable access and inclusion. Local ownership, participation, and program development correlate with more positive outcomes (Novak, 2019; Stern & Seifert, 2017). Within organizations, management can align institutional goals with those of the broader community (McClanahan & Hartmann, 2017; Overgaard & Sørensen, 2015). Personal relationships with residents developed through the arts lead participants to feel heard and valued. Constructivist approaches, especially visual and dialogic, lead to more sharing of knowledge and a sense of agency that participants report as positive experiences (Collins & Ogier, 2013).

What Can International Studies and Non-Arts Disciplines Offer to Improve Research Quality?

Future research may be informed by seeking models of effective research designs and funding mechanisms from other disciplines and countries. “It is important to distinguish the nature of the event—ongoing or episodic, individual or group, formal or informal, reason for engaging, how does engagement change over time?” (Jackson et al., 2006, p. 4). Excellent examples of high-quality research exist, and the field needs more of these to consolidate a case for the value of visual arts in promoting community well-being.

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