Sites of Collision for Arts Education, the Maker Movement, and Neoliberal Agendas in Education

This article draws on a 3-year empirical study of a public library system’s arts-based maker program called Bubbler. In this article, I will introduce the maker movement and review literature on making. I will use discourse analysis of interviews and workshops with public librarians to highlight how neoliberal ideology collides with educational theories incongruent with this economic vision for how and why people learn and make. Finally, I will suggest possible implications for how learning through the arts can be undermined by neoliberal logics. This study contributes to conversations about learning through art making in educational settings across the United States.