Foreword: New Directions for VAR

Abstract

Now in its 41st year, Visual Arts Research (VAR) is the longest-running academic journal based in an art education program, not just in the United States but also in the world. Visual Arts Research was originally titled Review of Research in Visual and Environmental Education, and its first issue was published in 1973. Its initial purpose was to publish critical reviews of empirical research that examined various dimensions of social behavior related to visual arts, as well as environmental design and planning disciplines. These early issues included criticisms of research that might be considered unsparing in relation to the polite conventions of today’s art education discourse. Stuckhardt (1973), for example, describes Eisner’s “Art Attitude Inventory”—a survey tool for measuring individuals’ affective responses to art—as possessing “several weaknesses which limit its usefulness and effectiveness” (p. 9). He further argues that Eisner fails to provide any theoretical basis for the instrument to permit him the chance to make any substantive criticism! Albeit through the positivist lens of its day, Stuckhardt’s critique illustrates the extent to which the founding editors set out to provide a forum through VAR that would strengthen visual arts research. This critical engagement is an important value to uphold today in the art education field, particularly as art education scholars tend to forsake critique of other scholars’ research and sometimes pursue interior monologues. Our hope is to advance the art education field by supporting a critical, shared dialogue that moves beyond oftentimes idiosyncratic and one-time inquiries toward developing bodies of research that unveil new conceptual and practical possibilities for art education. Tyler Denmead, Laura Hetrick, and Jorge Lucero, Editors1