Talking, Thinking, Responding and Creating: A Survey of Literature on Talk in Art Education

Abstract

In art education there are many studies that investigate classroom conversations or interactions and analyze the kinds of student/teacher talk found in classrooms. The most common finding is that classroom talk is universally teacher-dominated. However, there is significant literature available in other disciplines which indicates that learning is related to the development of a “discourse community” and that learning to understand a discipline requires learning to talk and think in the discourse of that community. This article is a review of literature related to talk in the art classroom and a discussion of how trends in the study of discourse may have important implications for research in art education.