Community Arts Programs

Community arts programs provide significant out-of-school learning opportunities to engage young people in their neighborhoods and communities of interest through collaborative, creative activities. In many cases, these programs exist in economically disadvantaged communities, focusing on youth not as “at risk” but as competent and creative members of a community. Community arts can be defined as collaborative, activist, arts-producing activities that engage groups of people, including artists and youth, who share a neighborhood or other common interest, in contributing to positive change in creative, artistic ways. In this entry, community arts programs are described in the context of out-of-school arts education and within the larger community arts field. Examples are provided to further illuminate these descriptions.