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Beginning in 1999, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) launched a global initiative to strengthen arts education. In 2003, Portuguese delegates to the United Nations called for a global conference to address this aim, resulting in the first-ever World Conference on Arts Education. The World Conference brought together 1,200 artists, educators, policy makers, and researchers from over ninety-seven countries in Lisbon, Portugal from March 6-9, 2006.

The annual conference of the International Funders of Indigenous Peoples (IFIP) met for two days at the Ford Foundation and the United Nations in May of 2006. In her opening remarks, Evelyn Arce-White, IFIP executive director, noted that it was rare to have funders, Indigenous Peoples, and NGOs together in the same room and that the value of such a meeting was not to be measured in financial terms but should be considered spiritual in nature. The spirit of this idea was evident throughout the conference.

2005, 158 pages. Arts Education Partnership , One Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20001-1431, 202-336-7016, aep@ccsso.org

The Arts Education Partnership's new book, Third Space: when learning matters, should be required reading for anyone involved in what promises to be a lively and contentious debate around the 2007 reauthorization of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The hallmarks of a just and civil society reflect the values of artistic freedom and the rights of free expression. Increasingly these rights are threatened by the "clearance culture" that is found in most creative industries and assumes that almost no quotation can be used without permission from the owner. Fair Use is an important yet often misunderstood legal right.

2006, 114 pages. Published by the University of Minnesota, Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, Project on Regional and Industrial Economics (PRIE). Funded by the McKnight Foundation and the Fesler-Lampert Chair in Urban and Regional Affairs, University of Minnesota.

These thoughts were sparked by attending the Council on Foundations 57th Annual Conference, "Philanthropy: Investing in the Vision of Progress." I was especially engaged by the plenary remarks of George Soros and Newt Gingrich.

2005, 65 pages. Institute for Innovation in Social Policy, Vassar College, Box 529, Poughkeepsie, NY 12604, 845-452-7332. For copies contact opdycke@earthlink.net

The second in a series based on a national survey (the first was 2002), this report looks at participation in artistic and cultural experiences in the US in quantifiable terms as well as in ways such experiences affect the well-being of participants. One key finding is that 78 percent of respondents "believe that attending art events helped them to see things from other people's perspectives."

A growing number of scholars and writers have been tracing the multiple connections between the arts and economic vitality during the past decade. A recent book by anthropologist Maribel Alvarez, There's Nothing Informal about It: Participatory Arts within the Cultural Ecology of Silicon Valley (2005) has drawn a new set of connections for me and raised the possibility that informal, or participatory, cultural practices may have greater meaning in an economic context than I previously recognized.

2005, 24 pages. Washington State Arts Commission, 711 Capitol Way S. Suite 600, PO Box 42675, Olympia, WA 98504-2675, 360-753-3860, info@arts.wa.gov

America is on the threshold of a significant transformation in cultural life. There have been many cultural shifts in recorded history: Gutenberg's invention of the printing press and the rise of the reading public; the growth of a mercantile class and the birth of private art markets independent of the church and the king; the invention of gas streetlights and the beginning of urban nighttime entertainment. The most recent cultural transformation, still with us today, was set in motion on the threshold of the twentieth century.