Art history’s agility: K-12 practices for higher education consideration

Abstract

As policymakers and other stakeholders continue to intensify their questions and critiques of art history’s place in the higher education curriculum in the United States (U.S.), researchers have not pointedly addressed its place in the K-12 curriculum. How has art history been incorporated into K-12 art classrooms in the past, and how is it being incorporated today? Is this more humanistic component of the K-12 art curriculum under the same duress as is art history on college and university campuses? This article examines the place of art history in K-12 art classrooms over time and notes that it has been emphasized during periods of concern for the U.S.’s position in global affairs (1960s and 1980s). At present art history in the K-12 classroom is integrated through field trips, within assessment, and in helping students gain new sociocultural perspectives. As we argue, art history’s agility in the K-12 art curriculum, in the past and present, can provide unique, and potentially insightful, perspectives to the conversations concerning art history’s diminishing significance in higher education and potential ways to align itself for future survival.