CHAPTER 1: Introduction, Origin of the ARTs program, and Overview of the Book

Any education program can be best understood as an amalgam of the personal and the social. That is, whatever decisions a person makes emanates, in part, from her/his personal experiences and the sense s/he makes of them. The sense made is both a personally developed understanding of her/his preferences and desires and encounters with the theory/research/social world within which program designers work. Thus, this chapter and the following chapter on the intellectual research foundations of this program are companion chapters, necessary to each other in order for the reader to understand the character of the program and find her/his position in reference to it.