Flávia Bastos is a Distinguished Research Professor in the Arts and Humanities at the University of Cincinnati, USA. Doug Blandy is Professor Emeritus in the College of Design, School of Planning, Public Policy and Management at the University of Oregon, USA.
""This book is an invitation to generate networks of resistance through education through the arts to promote and imagine democracy as a common life project. It aims to prepare children, youth, and adults to be informed citizens able to engage civically in support of democracy. It does not lament and settle into impotence. Instead, it makes evident the role of arts education as a practice of resistance in the face of the current situation of discredited democracy. That is why it is a book for educators and all those who, from institutions related to art and culture, assume the transformative role of the arts."" - Fernando Hernández-Hernández, Emeritus Professor of Cultural Visualities and Arts Education, University of Barcelona, Spain. ""Instructive and compelling, this edited volume brings together ideas, beliefs, and transformative actions from a wide range of artists, arts educators, designers, and activists focused on the advancement of civic engagement within a democratic society. Written in a style and format that is engaging and often drawn from the writers’ personal experience, this book challenges readers to explore deeply the decisive roles artists, art educators, and all citizens can play in confronting our world of pressing social and cultural concerns."" - Dr. Paul E. Bolin, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Department of Art and Art History, The University of Texas at Austin ""This book is an essential light in dark times. Within the pages of Promoting Civic Engagement Through Art and Education, readers will receive both practical wisdom and philosophical food for thought. Framing democracy and civic engagement as “future-oriented acts of being and doing with others,” Bastos, Blandy, and the contributing authors have given us a gift through which we might imagine a democratic future that is inclusive, expansive, creative, and just."" - Kim Cosier, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Art Education, and Founder, Milwaukee Visionaries Project