Cultivating a Meaningful Experience: Art Education for Adults with Disabilities at a Community-based Art Center

This study examines the programmatic content of a single community-based art center?the Arc of the Arts Studio and Gallery in Austin, Texas?in order to investigate the various instructional components that foster meaningful learning for adults with disabilities at community locations. The research scrutinizes historical and contemporary literature documenting art and general education for the disability community in order to provide a more full and rich understanding of how and why art education for people with disabilities is currently organized. The study concludes with the creation and implementation of a structured art curriculum into the Arc of the Arts Studio that encouraged student-centered learning through discipline-based inquiry, maintaining real-world connections, and the active construction of knowledge. Reviewing the effects this structured art curriculum had on the Arc of the Arts Studio sheds light on the ways in which meaningful learning may take place for adults with disabilities at community-based locations.