Harry Broudy and Discipline-Based Art Education (DBAE)

Abstract

In a 1992 article describing discipline-based art education' to a crafts audience Albert Anderson said, Over the past several years a major philosophical shift in the art education field has initiated what appears to be the early stages of a revolution in the way art is taught in the public schools.2 The impact of discipline-based art education on the field of art education is usually marked by its adoption by the Getty Center for Education in the Arts in 1983. The history of the growing influence of DBAE is often seen as closely allied to the series of Getty projects that followed.3 The first of these projects were in large part grounded in the work of Harry Broudy, though he might find it amusing to be considered the author of an incipient revolution in art(s) education. I will suggest that he deserves either much of the credit or much of the blame, depending upon how one views discipline-based art education and its effects on the teaching of art. This change in paradigm or philosophy for teaching art, like other innovations, did not just suddenly appear. A long series of related events either prepared the way for or contributed to discipline-based art education (DBAE).4 As I survey the development of DBAE and the Broudy role in its formulation and introduction, I find it difficult to construct an accurate picture of how his many writings and activities interconnect in their influence and impact on DBAE. In some instances, changes connected to his work were in the field of general education; in other cases, changes were directly in art or arts education; and in still others, in writings and events paralleling the development of DBAE. I will, of course, be selective as I trace the history of DBAE. The role that Harry Broudy, a preeminent philosopher of education, played in various education and art education histories can be found described in the other essays in this issue. These essays provide a context for this particular history, but what one realizes in reading them is how wide-