Journal for Learning through the Arts

Arts integration with core subjects has been recognized as improving academic achievement. The current study investigated the mechanisms / principles supporting success by examining artist-reported thoughts during an art-integrated social studies project in which the artist created a diorama about a Native American tribe’s use of corn. The research questions centered on these issues: the ways corn was depicted in the artwork, types of themes emerging from the data, types of interactions present, processes occurring when art and social studies inquiry are combined, and aspects of creativity theory occurring in the final artwork and data. The data for this case study were collected over four months during the creation of the artwork, and consisted of notes of the artist regarding questions, thoughts, feelings, and decisions while working on the art piece. The diorama showcased various scenes of corn’s place in Hopi society such as courtship during corn grinding, corn kachina dancers, perfect “mother” and “father” ears of corn for a newborn, corn petroglyphs, and a small cornfield near a stream. These data were explored by thematic analysis using the constant comparison method, techniques common in art research. Thematic analysis yielded seventeen themes and sixty subthemes, including the finding, from interaction analysis, that artistic inquiry facilitated and guided social studies inquiry and vice-versa. These art-facilitated interactions resulted in new social studies content learning by the artist, along with facilitation of creativity. Data statements showed support for fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration; Torrance’s creative strengths; Piirto’s Seven I’s of Creativity; and Csikszentmihalyi’s flow. Art-driven social studies inquiry could be used by social studies teachers as a motivating educational tool to increase content learning while encouraging students to increase their creativity. Art education can be recognized as an integral partner of social studies. This concrete example not only showed increased motivation and content learning but improved creativity.