Publisher      Education and Urban Society, 33(4)
Page Numbers     354-366
Summary     This article argues that instruction in the arts provides the kinds of opportunities students need to express self, to articulate frustration with an educational system that makes success difficult, and to conceive of alternatives in a society that generally finds adolescent student needs irrelevant, bothersome, and even dangerous. Perhaps most important, participation in the arts has been shown to increase academic achievement, creativity, fluency, and originality in thinking and feelings of self-worth. This article argues that the arts have these effects because they make it possible for children to imagine themselves out of their current identities and to try on new ways of being.