Art, Community, and Prosocial Behavior

The purpose of this research is to better understand the connection between the arts in social justice, both in pedagogy and activism. Through the paper I hope to contribute my opinion on what makes a successful social justice movement as well as to prove how art is essential to each component. The following are the four elements I believe to aid in the success of a social justice movement: (1) learning about the issue, (2) understanding the issue, (3) uniting under the issue, and (4) acting on behalf of the issue. The research demonstrates how art can intervene in each of these steps to increase the success of a social justice movement, namely, lead to the desired change. To study the role of art in social justice movements I first investigated the various examples of social justice and social justice art, as well as what it means to understand.I then looked to various examples of art and social justice that demonstrated the four phases of learning, understanding, uniting, and acting. Through the research I discovered that art and artists have made contributions to virtually every current social justice movement. Therefore, it is not a question of if there is a connection between the arts and social justice, but rather how the arts interact with social justice movements and why this interaction is important