Exploring Culturally Sustaining Onto-Epistemologies of Teaching Artists in a Multigenerational Learning Community

Cultivating culturally sustaining practices and beliefs is a complex process. For early-career teaching artists (i.e., professional artists who teach), it raises ontological and epistemological questions about knowledge, art, and identity in the communities where they teach. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate how teaching in a multigenerational, culturally sustaining setting promoted early-career teaching artists’ onto-epistemic explorations about (a) teaching and learning and (b) community engagement. Drawing from conceptual perspectives of culturally sustaining pedagogy and the dynamic systems model of role identity, findings suggest that teaching artists’ onto-epistemic beliefs emerged in dynamic dialogue with the culturally sustaining setting, situated in a broader sociopolitical context. Implications for practice and research on the preparation of culturally sustaining teaching artists are offered.