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Throughout the past decade, the maker movement has become a cultural force, and maker-centered learning has grown in popularity. At the same time, the arts have remained marginalized throughout the educational sphere and limited scholarship recognizes the connections between the maker movement and arts learning. To explore this connection, we conducted a thematic analysis of interviews with maker educators and thought leaders, and we found that these educators rarely used arts and aesthetics-related terminology when speaking about the benefits of maker-centered learning. However, when these terms were used, they fell into three categories: objects, thinking skills and processes, and environments. We suggest that establishing a language of aesthetics in maker-centered learning might help arts and maker educators see themselves reflected in one another's work. Further, making such an aesthetic connection might provide young people with a deeper understanding of the beauty to be found in the made world.

For the past decade, the maker movement--an interest in working with one's hands in interdisciplinary environments that incorporate various tools and technologies--has been on the rise. In recent years, educators, administrators, parents, and policymakers have expressed a heightened interest in maker-centered learning, the incorporation of the practices of the maker movement into education. Although many have argued that maker-centered learning experiences have the capacity to increase students' proficiency and interest in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subjects, others have suggested that maker-centered learning experiences are fertile grounds for STEAM, that is, incorporating the arts into STEM education. In this article, educational researchers Edward P. Clapp and Raquel L. Jimenez review a sample of maker projects from 3 data sources to explore the role of STEM disciplines and the arts in maker-centered learning experiences. They propose that the A in the STEAM acronym may stand for 3 different educational outcomes: arts learning, aesthetic education, and/or creativity, but ultimately conclude that the A in the STEAM acronym--however it is defined--is only loosely incorporated into maker-centered learning experiences. These findings suggest (a) that educators, administrators, and curriculum developers must be intentional about integrating the arts into maker-centered learning experiences in ways that are explicit, and (b) that the loose incorporation of the arts in maker-centered learning experiences may be symptomatic of an overall trend in STEAM learning that centralizes advocacy discourses aimed at driving policy over teaching and learning discourses aimed at supporting practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses topics in the issue, such as art education, the social aspects of art and aesthetics, and the social aspects of technology.

In a letter to the editor, the authors respond to the article "Ten Ways of MAKING" by Robert Sweeny published in the March 2013 issue of the journal, noting that Sweeny failed to make a connection between art-making in art education and the do-it-yourself movement.