World Alliance of IDEA ISME InSEA and WDA
International Drama/Theatre and Education Association (IDEA)
International Society for Education through Art (INSEA)
International Society for Music Education (ISME)
World Dance Association (WDA)
WAAE is a strong alliance of four international membership organisations.
IDEA, InSEA, ISME (in 2006) and WDA (from 2007) have joined together to create the World Alliance for Arts Education. UNESCO recognises the unique role that arts education can play in the creation of international understanding, peace, social cohesion and sustainable development and WAAE is committed to working in partnership with UNESCO to help achieve this through arts education.
WAAE has helped shape UNESCO's Roadmap for Arts Education. You can view it here UNESCO's Roadmap for Arts Education
In 2010 the WAAE were invited to UNESCO's Second World Arts Education Conference where UNESCO's Goals for the Development of Arts Education were discussed and shaped.
Arts education helps develop confident, responsible and adaptable citizens with good communication skills, who can think critically and creatively. It helps deepen intercultural understanding and develops social skills and empathy.
We want governments throughout the world to place education in and through the arts and cultural development at the heart of their agendas. However, there is not always the political will to provide ‘arts education for all".
WAAE's global alliance has members in 90 countries. They include arts education organisations, creative and cultural institutions and leading practitioners. and promotes innovative practices in arts education internationally. Through national affiliations and individual memberships, we draw on the experiences of more than one million dedicated and skilled teachers and lecturers, artists/performers, researchers, scholars, community leaders, administrators and policy makers in formal and informal educational settings throughout the world.
Our four organisations are uniquely positioned to advance professional practices and policies in the theatre/drama education, visual arts, music and dance.
WAAE provides:
- effective channels for international communication and the exchange of policy and pedagogical resources;
- national, regional and world forums which debate and disseminate innovative educational theories and practices;
- conceptual and professional structures to preserve tangible and intangible artistic cultures (particularly in the developing world), that are threatened by globalization;
- models of intercultural analysis that explore aspects of traditional and new media and enable diverse pedagogies to be demonstrated and exchanged;
- research into pedagogies for personal and social transformation;
- critical investigation into the educational, socio-economic and cultural impacts of the arts.
Together, as WAAE, these associations will advocate new and appropriate paradigms of education which both transmit and transform culture through the humanizing languages of the arts, and which are founded on principles of cooperation, not competition. WAAE will make its exceptional human and cultural resources available to governments and educational communities across the world.
Collectively the arts offer young people unique opportunities to understand and create their own cultural and personal identities. They stimulate interdisciplinary study and participatory decision-making, and motivate young people to engage in active learning and creative questioning.
Our four organisations have formed an alliance for strategic action based on principled and sustained dialogue. Our primary aim is to accelerate the implementation of arts education policies internationally. We want to collaborate with all governments, networks, educational institutions, communities and individuals who share our vision.
The WAAE Presidential group is currently made up of the Presidents of the four associations. A draft WAAE constitution is being developed at a meeting in Auckland, new Zealand, in February 2011.