American Art Education Research Articles

Asian American Critical Pedagogy Framework and Principles in Art Education

In this article, we, as Asian American visual arts and social studies educators, propose an Asian American Critical Pedagogy framework and its four principles. Building on critical race and social theories and pedagogies, we developed the four principles: Asian American critical consciousness, counternarratives and reclamation, heterogeneity and intersectionality, and joy and wellness. The four principles are the outcome of our collective theoretical exploration, autobiographical reflection, and the analysis of contemporary Asian American artists and their works. We hope the principles serve as a theoretical framework for future research and pedagogical exploration to recognize and expand the authentic voices and experiences of Asian American art educators and students and to offer insights for intersectional research with other marginalized communities.

Asian Critical Theory and Counternarratives of Asian American Art Educators in U.S. Higher Education

This article is a collective counternarrative of seven Asian American art educators in higher education in the United States. Critically reflecting on their research and pedagogical practices, we attempt to recognize and address the voices and challenges of Asian Americans in the field of art education. We employed Asian Critical Theory as a theoretical framework, combined with collaborative autoethnography as a research methodology. Confronting racial stereotypes and discrimination against Asian Americans, we underlined the voices of Asian American art educators whose linguistic and cultural values are in stark contrast with those of mainstream American art educators. After reflecting on our shared stories and experiences, we suggest a new pedagogical approach, “Asian Critical Pedagogy,” to redress and transform our experiences to attain the broader goal of racial and social justice in the field of art education.

Pedagogies of Care and Justice: African American High School Art Teachers During the Civil Rights Era in the Segregated South

This study examines the art pedagogies at Southern African American high schools during the civil rights era (1955–1969). I examine three segregated high schools located in South Carolina as a lens to highlight art pedagogies that were practiced; I expose counterstories by three former students, a student teacher, and the wife of an art teacher; I support my findings by reviewing archival data; and I illustrate how several caring African American Art Educators contributed to the agency of African American Students to achieve racial equality and justice. By locating these counterstories alongside an African American care-and-justice framework developed by Siddle Walker and Snarey, I discuss how exemplary art teachers’ pedagogical practices actualize and expand care and racial equality.

Reclaiming the Archives: White Supremacy and Testimonials of Resistance in an Art & Design College

This paper uncovers the white supremacist origins of curriculum and pedagogy in an Art and Design College, while presenting a video testimonial project in which participants speak their truths regarding racialized encounters on campus. Using a Critical Race Theory framework, we trace a lineage from the early Eurocentric formations of American Art and Design higher education to current racial hostility on college campuses. Counternarratives are presented as a methodology of resistance, culture change, and archival reclamation.

Marinella Lentis. Colonized through Art: American Indian Schools and Art Education, 1889–1915.

Marinella Lentis. Colonized through Art: American Indian Schools and Art Education, 1889–1915.

Paul E. Bolin and Ami Kantawala, eds. Revitalizing History: Recognizing the Struggles, Lives, and Achievements of African American and Women Art Educators (Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press, 2017), 210 pp.

Paul E. Bolin and Ami Kantawala, eds. Revitalizing History: Recognizing the Struggles, Lives, and Achievements of African American and Women Art Educators (Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press, 2017), 210 pp.

How Soon Is Now? Post-Conditions in Art Education

This article investigates the concept of change for art education in times when the waning relevancy of postmodernity has brought about a set of competing post-conditions that point to an entanglement between continuity and discontinuity and to where the Now belongs to a future that is not, prima facie, New. This temporal arrangement—the Now without the New—poses a challenge to art education’s historicity of its present practices as well as the ontology of educational thought. The first part of the article explores the temporal conditions for the conceptualization of the Now and the New. Then, visual culture art education is investigated as the latest New thing in North American art education literature that has a particular focus on the Now with an inherent promise for the New. Last, post-Internet art is discussed as a possible example of a Now without a perpetual recourse to the New.

Colonized through Art: American Indian Schools and Art Education, 1889–1915. By Marinella Lentis

Colonized through Art: American Indian Schools and Art Education, 1889–1915. By Marinella Lentis

Marinella Lentis . Colonized through Art: American Indian Schools and Art Education, 1889–1915. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2017. 450 pp.

Marinella Lentis . Colonized through Art: American Indian Schools and Art Education, 1889–1915. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2017. 450 pp.

1960年代におけるエリオット・アイスナー研究 : アメリカの美術教育研究の立役者

1960年代におけるエリオット・アイスナー研究 : アメリカの美術教育研究の立役者

Hunting for Hunster: A Portrait of Thomas Watson Hunster, Art Education Pioneer in the District of Columbia

Published histories of American art education seldom include the stories and accomplishments of Black art educators. There is a need to research, teach, and publish these histories to provide a more inclusive and equitable picture of American art education and to encourage more people of color to consider careers in the field. Using primary and secondary sources analyzed and interpreted through the portraiture method paired with Critical Race Theory as a conceptual lens, this article examines the professional life of Thomas Watson Hunster (1851-1929), founder of art education programs for Black K-16 learners in Washington, DC.

Augusta Savage: Sacrifice, Social Responsibility, and Early African American Art Education

While establishing herself as one of the premier African American sculptors of the 1920s, Augusta Savage began teaching children’s art classes in her basement studio. Later, as the Director of the Harlem Community Art Center, Savage networked with philanthropists, political leaders, and African American artists/performers/writers to discuss how their collective efforts might increase support for artists of color during the Great Depression. Despite challenges associated with racial/gender inequalities, Savage taught some of the most noteworthy African American artists of the 20th century. Although there are numerous studies covering artists of the New Negro Movement, few focus on the concurrent legacy of African American art education. This study discusses the conditions that seemingly hindered Savage as a professional sculptor but defined her as an activist/educator. It additionally examines Savage’s efforts to facilitate opportunities for a future generation with a specific focus on her political agency/social responsibility to African Americans in the 1930s.

Differences between Art and Design Education-or Differences in Conceptions of Creativity?

The principles and techniques of design education have begun to influence art education in the United States, but their effect so far has been modest, primarily because of a gaping divide in beliefs about creativity and how to stimulate it. With K–12 art education on the chopping block of a culture awash with budget cuts and testing fever, this is a particularly a significant time to examine these disparate conceptions. The argument here is that the division that exists today between pre-K–12 art education and design education in the United States is not justified and ignores historical perspective. After describing and comparing the two approaches, we examine how conceptions of creativity in the visual arts may have led to this artificial separation of similar disciplines. Because educators in many countries grapple with defining and implementing creative art education curricula, this article will consider international perspectives that offer insights for American art educators.

‘Don’t Play a Lone Hand’: A century of leadership in American art education, 1840–1940

Abstract Knowledge of the field and visions for the future are vital for transformational leadership in art education, according to current scholars. With the development of common schools and hierarchical bureaucracies in Massachusetts, in a context of belief in artistic genius, early historians of art education told stories of heroes and experts. During the 1870s, Walter Smith (1836–1886) lectured students at Massachusetts Normal Art School that great men demonstrated commitment to work, indomitable courage and persistence in their heroic leadership. In the mid-1890s, Massachusetts’ agent for industrial drawing Henry Turner Bailey (1865–1931) categorized art supervisors as geometric solids: sphere, cube and cylinder. About a decade later, Bailey called for a servant model of leadership, with traits that can be interpreted as stereotypically feminine. Networked leadership emerged in the early twentieth century as administrative progressives worked together to construct a business of art education with engaged stakeholders, distributed leadership and a rationale emphasizing functions of visual arts in everyday life. Royal Bailey Farnum (1884–1967) served as central node for most of the overlapping leadership networks. As Executive Vice President of Rhode Island School of Design during the 1930s and 1940s, he introduced strategic planning that prepared the School for post-war success. Leadership in American art education has changed in response to cultural contexts, social factors, institutional demands, and male and female performances of power. How will art educators play the leadership game in the years to come?

Teaching art where art should not exist: Women’s empowerment in Saudi Arabia

Abstract Saudi Arabia is perhaps the most conservative country in the Middle East. The display of art is not allowed, or extremely limited, under Sharia law. This article explores a three-week adult art education class taught to women at the Al Baylasan Art Center in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia. With the goal of empowering women, it challenged two American art educators to develop and present a curriculum that was respectful of the culture but allowed the students to push the limits of their thinking about what might be possible in their changing cultural context.

Study on the correlation between the American art education for the women artists and their decorative artworks in the late 19th Century's New York and Cincinnati

Study on the correlation between the American art education for the women artists and their decorative artworks in the late 19th Century's New York and Cincinnati

Discursive underground: Re-transcribing the history of art education using critical multicultural education

Abstract This article proposes the application of three primary tenets of critical multicultural education to assist art educators in re-conceptualizing myopic histories of art education currently dominating the field. Traditionally, voices of those from non-dominant groups have rested on the outskirts of most American art education historical narratives. Critical multicultural education provides an alternative framework as it examines the subjugation of certain non-dominant cultural knowledge and voices. Critical multicultural education re-directs investigations of power as it relates to culture construction and maintenance, knowledge creation and culture fluidity. The objective of this article is to challenge art educators to re-evaluate firmly established historical ‘truths’, and encourage them to recognize a broader audience of voices in order to articulate the cultural complexity of the history of art education.

Aaron douglas and Hale Woodruff: African American Art Education, Gallery Work, and Expanded Pedagogy

This analysis of archival materials discovered at Fisk and Atlanta Universities examines the teaching careers of Aaron Douglas and Hale Woodruff, two African American artists who came to prominence during the New Negro Movement in the 1920s and taught at historically Black1 universities in the 1930s and 1940s. These artists had a profound influence on this era of art education in the segregated South. This research specifically focuses on how Douglas and Woodruff asserted themselves and expanded learning opportunities through networks and exhibition programming that challenged racial subjugation. My findings indicate that the limitations of traditional classroom instruction2 disallowed their teaching content which focused upon and empowered African Americans to sustain themselves as mainstream artists in the United States. However, their influence and responsibility to a future generation of African American artists serve as pedagogical content that may instill racial pride otherwise absent in the curriculum.

Chinese Leadership in Arts Education Workshops: A Sino-American Cross-Cultural Exchange

This report compares important aspects of American and Chinese dance education through the lens of the “Chinese Leadership in Arts Education” workshops organized by Brigham Young University in response to requests from Chinese arts educators to observe American arts education in practice as a benchmark for assessing the direction of Chinese arts education reform. The workshops provided Chinese arts educators with an opportunity to observe American arts education and explore the cultural and value-based infuences behind an education model different from their own. Insights arising from in-workshop interactions and post-workshop interviews combine to present the importance of cultural context, the essence of arts education, and the balance between unity and diversity in dance as well as in life.

The Changing Face of Rembrandt: Pedagogy, Politics, and Cultural Values in American Art Education

The Changing Face of Rembrandt: Pedagogy, Politics, and Cultural Values in American Art Education