ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the different processes of professionalization for five different subgroups of arts educators. The first two are (1) full-time and part-time university professors and (2) full-time K-12-certified arts teachers. The last three are different types of community arts educators: (3) those who practice in organizational settings; (4) private, independent arts teachers; and (5) teaching artists. Specifically, this chapter explores the ramifications of their professionalization and how these have been shaped by both policy and different chronologies and characteristics of their field institutionalization. Whereas university professors are considered professionals, the four other types of arts educators are considered semiprofessionals. This chapter finds that it is challenging to discuss the professionalization of arts educators as a single group, as it has been rather siloed among the five different subgroups of arts educators. This chapter also finds that despite the fractures in the field, the four semiprofessional arts educator subgroups have professionalized. More importantly, it finds that professionalization may not be an ultimate destination but a meaningful process for them. These semiprofessional arts educators may professionalize to achieve professionalism rather than a professional status. The ideology of professionalism appeals to semiprofessional arts educators: having expertise and knowledge, the power to define and access potential problems in the field, and having collegial control of the field.
