When You Get What You Want, But Not What You Need

Abstract

The phrase 'When you get what you want, but not what you need...' borrows lyrics from the British band Coldplay to claim that you might miss out on a lot of things if wants and desires take total control. I challenge the established ways of understanding democracy and citizenship prominent in both current policy documents and also within the arts and art education. This text provides examples from research conducted in art educational contexts involving pupils encountering contemporary art and doing contemporary art practice that has dis rupted their notions of what art is and what art practice is. This research has inspired the author to propose a pedagogy of dissen sus, which is an approach to education that is informed by the ambivalent and dissen sual characteristics of art. It makes use of its ability to make a break in the normal order, or what the French philosopher Jacques Rancière would call a division of the sensible. A pedagogy of dissensus is not about fulfilling desires but about offering people what they did not know they needed. When dissensus inspires education, the norms and regular ways of teaching are challenged, and possible disruptions of what is expected are offered.