Four Decades of Emerging Scholarship in Visual Arts Education

Abstract

This issue of Visual Arts Research marks our 40th year of publication. These past 40 years, Visual Arts Research has provided a forum for historical, critical, cultural, psychological, educational, and conceptual research in visual arts and aesthetic education. Unusual in its length and breadth, VAR typically publishes 9–12 scholarly papers per issue and remains committed to its original mission to provide a venue for both long-standing research questions and traditions alongside emerging interests and methodologies. Our current issue of the journal showcases scholarly research and insights about emerging creative digital media and sites, studies of the art-making practices of young people, research on art teacher professional development, aspects of our history as a profession, and how our practice as art educators is informed by an ethics of care. “Why Should Computational Work and Aesthetics Be Taught in the Art Classroom?” by Wun-Ting Hsu and Wen-Shu Lai opens this issue of Visual Arts Research. In their philosophical treatise on contemporary digital art forms, Hsu and Lai explain the importance of understanding both social meanings and aesthetic qualities of computer-facilitated art. The following two essays give us intriguing examples. “Assembling Visuality: Social Media, Everyday Imaging, and Critical Thinking in Digital Visual Culture” by Aaron Knochel explores the nature of the confluence of digital imaging and social media. Knochel first describes how a university-level course he taught utilized the social media website Flickr, and then explores how notions of visuality and a participatory culture were exemplified in the work of one of his students. The nature of visual aesthetic experience is further explored in Mary Stokrocki’s “Youth-Created Avatars, Sites, and Role-Playing in the Virtual Game The Sims 2.” Through