Arts Education Policy Research Articles

A Letter to Arts Education Policy Review Readers

A Letter to Arts Education Policy Review Readers

Where Are All the Women Choreographers in Ballet?

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Victoria Looseleaf, “A Female Force,” Dance Magazine, vol. 85, no. 3 (March 2011): 26–28, 30, 32. 2. Barbara Crockett, “Regional Dance America: Our Regional Heritage,” Dance Teacher Now, vol. 20, no. 6 (1998): 34, 36. 3. Victoria Morgan, “Deep Background: Theater and Dance Unite: A Voice Is Heard,” Dance/USA Journal, vol. 17, no. 1 (Summer 1999): 10–11, 13. 4. Lea Marshall, “‘Ballet Is Woman’? Not in the Artistic Director's Office,” Dance Magazine, May 4, 2010, http://www.dancemagazine.com/blogs/guest-blog/3349 (accessed December 7, 2011). 5. Judith Mackrell, “The ladies vanish,” The Guardian, May 12, 2009, 24, http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/may/13/dance-sadlers-wells-southbank?INTCMP=SRCH (accessed December 7, 2011). 6. John Martin, “The Dance: Events Ahead,” New York Times, September 27, 1942, X8; Anna Kisselgoff, “Bronislava Nijinska Is Dead at 81,” New York Times, February 23, 1972, 44; Jennifer Dunning, “Harlem Dancers and Diaghilev Days,” New York Times, January 28, 1983, C3; Anna Kisselgoff, “Nijinska, in Her Time, Was a Ballet Avant-Gardist,” New York Times, May 11, 1986, H9. 7. Jennifer Dunning, “Dance,” New York Times, April 4, 1982, TG3; Anna Kisselgoff, “Ballet: Pennsylvanians Open Season,” New York Times, April 7, 1982, C17. 8. Jennifer Dunning, “A Pennsylvanian Night of Dances by Women,” New York Times, April 9, 1982, C4. 9. Jennifer Dunning, “The Emphasis Is on the Avant-Garde,” New York Times, August 30, 1981, 72; Anna Kisselgoff, “Dance That Startles and Challenges Is Coming from Abroad,” New York Times, October 13, 1985, H1. 10. Jennifer Dunning, “Making Ballets, Just the Way Men Do,” New York Times, May 15, 1994, H8. 11. Robin Lakes, “The Messages behind the Methods: The Authoritarian Pedagogical Legacy in Western Concert Dance Technique Training and Rehearsals,” Arts Education Policy Review, vol. 106, no. 5 (2005): 3–18; see also, Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Random House, 1979), 135–69. 12. Alastair Macaulay, “For Ballet, Plots Thicken Or Just Stick?” New York Times, August 8, 2010, AR4. 13. Ibid.; see also, Alexandra Tomalonis, “Did Mrs. Harkness Win?” DanceView, vol. 24, no. 1 (2007): 19–25. 14. See Mindy Aloff, Preface, Agnes de Mille, Leaps in the Dark: Art and the World, ed. Mindy Aloff (Gainsville, Fl.: University Press of Florida, 2011), xiii–xIv. 15. See, for example, Joellen A. Meglin, “Blurring the Boundaries of Genre, Gender, and Geopolitics: Ruth Page and Harald Kreutzberg's Transatlantic Collaboration in the 1930s,” Dance Research Journal, vol. 41, no. 2 (2009): 52–75; Ann Barzel, “A Portrait of Catherine and Dorothie Littlefield,” in Dancing Female: Lives and Issues of Women in Contemporary Dance, ed. Sharon E. Friedler and Susan B. Glazer (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997): 23–44; Frank W. D. Ries, “Albertina Rasch: The Concert Career and the Concept of the American Ballet,” Dance Chronicle, vol. 7, no. 2 (1984): 159–97.

A Sequence Analysis on Contents of School Arts and Culture Education Policy

A Sequence Analysis on Contents of School Arts and Culture Education Policy

A Letter to Arts Education Policy Review Readers

Dear Readers of Arts Education Policy Review, By the time you receive the next issue, Arts Education Policy Review is expected to have a new Editor-in-Chief. After having the honor of fulfilling th...

An Ode to Joy … or the Sounds of Silence? An Exploration of Arts Education Policy in Australian Primary Schools

The arts are an integral and important component of our everyday lives. As such, they need to be a vital part of our children's education. However, this has rarely been the case in Australian state primary schools over the past two hundred years. This article explores the history of the arts in Australian state primary schools since the colonization of Australia to the present day. I examine how arts education has been subject to policy changes and inquiries that have not seemed to significantly benefit the arts in our schools and that have at times seemed to marginalize the arts in primary schools. The article concludes with a challenge to arts educators and other stakeholders to develop and implement a long-term approach to policy and practice to ensure that the arts serve as an “Ode to Joy” rather than dissolving into “Sounds of Silence.”

Professional Development of Experienced Music Teachers: Special Focus Issue

I am pleased to present this special focus issue of Arts Education Policy Review devoted to the professional development of experienced music teachers. In this introduction, I provide a brief overv...

Looking Backwards to Reach Forward: A Strategic Architecture for Professional Development in Music Education

The article analyzes professional development in music education considering the ways in which policy change depends on conditions where renewed practice can become self supporting. The authors situate professional development amid the current politico-educational climate while offering an interpretive framework based on key issues and actions identified by other authors in this issue of Arts Education Policy Review. Further, they suggest a pragmatic policy agenda focused on the notion of a strategic architecture for professional development in music education, arguing that it may bring (1) greater confidence in teacher's capacity to adapt, engender concepts, intervene in instructional patterns, and establish positive feedback loops; and (2) improvement in teacher retention and productivity. The article calls for a professional development agenda that sees teachers as capable change agents and that is jointly incentivized by union leaders, government, and institutions of higher learning.

No Child Left Behind in Art Education Policy: A Review of Key Recommendations for Arts Language Revisions

From bipartisan origins and a laudable intent, the No Child Left Behind (Act) of 2001 has profoundly altered the condition of art education. A historical vantage point and review of literature reveals the current status of pending arts language revisions to the NCLB Act, as well as a pressing need to examine the key recommendations and to consider a blend of the proposals from the National Education Task Force, the Study Group on the Lost Curriculum, and the Arts Education Working Group. This current research possesses significant implications for NCLB arts language and provides the opportunity for a unified message for revisions, leaving no child behind in art education.

A Comparative Approach to Art Education Policy Research

The challenges and opportunities of globalization require art education scholars and practitioners to develop international competencies, but research in the specific field of comparative art education is very limited at present. In this article, I provide a pragmatic framework for studying art education policy as a subfield of comparative cultural policy. Based on a review of literature in comparative cultural policy, I discuss how research in the field has evolved over the past 35 years along three main trajectories, which I call comparative international, cross-national, and transnational. I present major conceptual models used in comparative cultural policy, and conclude with general recommendations for art education policy scholars interested in pursuing international research.

Developing Arts Education Policy at the Federal Level: The First 10 Months of the National Education Taskforce

Three years ago I was asked to become an advisor on education issues to Nancy Pelosi, who at the time was the Congresswoman from San Francisco. I was pleased to agree. Shortly thereafter Ms. Pelosi made history by becoming the first woman House Minority Leader. In November of 2007, when the Democrats won majorities in both chambers of Congress, Leader Pelosi made history again by becoming the first woman Speaker of the House. Two days after the election, with the Speaker-to-be no longer needing my services, I was asked to begin advising Congressman George Miller, Chair of the House Committee on Education and Labor. I agreed under one condition: Given the greater scope of my advising (effectively to the entire House of Representatives through the Committee), I would need a group of educators to advise me. My condition was accepted and the National Education Taskforce (the NET) was born. I began Googling prominent educators, sending each an invitation to join.Nearly everyone I have invited has accepted. As I write this, the NET has about 100 members, two thirds of whom are women. Our membership includes African Americans, Asians, Caucasians, Hispanics, and Native Americans. It reaches from coast to coast with members from about half of the U.S. states and two from Canada.Based on members' expertise and interests, the NET subdivided into three divisions: Educational Policy, Organizational Levels, and Academics. Each division has several committees. The Committee on the Arts falls under Academics. The NET's Advisory Board consists of the committee chairs. The Executive Board consists of the executive director, an associate director, and a secretary.The NET is a child advocacy group. Teachers, administrators, staff, and othet groups within the education field advocate for their interests through their own professional groups. Children, on the other hand, cannot unionize. They cannot lobby. Therefore the NET advocates expressly for children in schools. To keep itself free of undue influence, it is a nonprofit 501c(3) organization. Because children are more effectively served if the NET works with people of all political stripes, it is nonpartisan. Because issues, however serious, come and go but relationships endure, the NET is based on relationships among its members rather than on issues as such.The issue we have grappled with since the NET's inception is the renewal of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Most of the NET's committees have formulated advisory statements that, along with other information, are posted on our website at http://www.natedtaskforce.orgIn July of 2007, three other NET members and I joined four members of the Institute for Language Education and Policy (an English Language Learner advocacy group led by James Crawford, a member of the NET) in Washington, DC. We were there to meet with the offices of Congress members including Representative Miller and Senator Ted Kennedy, Chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Miller and Kennedy are considered the co-authors of NCLB.Over the course of two and a half days, we had meetings in the offices of 12 senators and 18 representatives. OnJuIy 12, Speaker Pelosi invited me to meet privately with her and her chief of staff. My description of the meeting, written with a bit of humor, appeared in the August edition of NETwork, the NET's newsletter, at http://www.natedtaskforce.org/NETwork/07/08_aug/Pelosi%20meeting.htm.At every opportunity in our meetings with Congress members and staff, I argued the case for replacing NCLB's arts education language (which is almost nonexistent) with language that makes clear its importance to children's development. I also left documents summarizing my points. (I should add that the NET has also placed our materials with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. NET member Linda Darling-Hammond advises Senator Obama on education issues. If Mr. Obama becomes president, the NET's influence will extend to include the White House. …

Taking Our Citizenship Seriously

The impetus for this special issue of Studies in Art Education on policy is traceable to Laura Chapman's ongoing critique of the No Child Left Behind Act of 200 1 and its implications for public education generally, and education in the arts specifically. Another motivation for this issue of the journal is Doug Boughton and Kerry Freedman's participation at a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) meeting in the summer of 2005 in which art education professionals were being largely ignored in developing international arts education policy. Artists in the schools programs were being favored without noting the necessity of ongoing art education curricula conceptualized and taught by professional art educators. Associated with each of these is the importance of understanding the implications of policy, the process through which such policy is implemented, and the ways in which art educators can influence policy.In response to the above, Kerry Freedman, Richard Siegesmund, and I facilitated a policy-oriented meeting on March 13, 2007 in New York City, which representatives from most of the major College and University Art Education Programs attended. Two initiatives resulted from this meeting. One is this special issue, and a second is the formation of a Higher Education Policy Committee within the NAEA Higher Education Division.This issue of Studies in Art Education includes six articles and three commentaries by authors who research, critique, review, and/or suggest policy as it relates to art education. Each contributor offers significant insights into the ways in which policy is important to the profession. However, although broadly focused on policy matters, this issue of the journal cannot be considered a comprehensive overview of policy as it relates to education in the arts. It should be read as representative of some of the policy issues that are challenging the field.In my Spring 2008 editorial, I advocated that the field embrace the systemic orientation to the arts and culture, comprising three interdependent sectors - the not-for-profit, for-profit, and volunteer or informal, posited by the American Assembly (2007). Education in the arts and culture is integral to all three sectors. Policy informs, shapes, and sustains this education through the formal and informal codification of values, attitudes, beliefs, and public preferences influencing decisions and defining courses of action around, within, and among these three sectors. Policy informs government, professions, interest groups, and associations, among many other social groups. How decisions are made, and actions taken (i.e., autocratic, consultative, democratic, consensus), impact working relationships and establish authority and credibility. Given the ubiquity of policy, and the profound influence that it exerts on education, it is essential that policy be studied critically and thoroughly as a part of education in the arts.Policy debate, formation, and implementation are a political activity. The policy environment requires people to come together in multiple ways to make decisions about how policy should be formulated, approved, and applied. …

Letter from Vancouver: Practice-Based Arts Education Policies October 2006

ABSTRACT A leading arts educator speaks on practice-based arts education policy in Canada and beyond.

Out There? Looking for Lesbians in British Art — Some Preliminary Observations

AbstractThe article seeks to explore some of the difficulties that may be experienced within higher art education both by the student of art who is lesbian and by researchers focusing on the subject of lesbians and art. For those interested in this area of study there may be particular obstacles which are not present for heterosexual students and which act as a barrier to exclude more readily available information and images. The potential importance and relevance of these exclusions for the lesbian student of art are examined in relation to the political and social oppression which lesbians have experienced, the effects of which can be seen in both historical and contemporary lesbian images and artwork. The article also examines possible issues around ‘coming‐out’ and homophobia for lesbian students and researchers within education generally, the prevalence of assumptions of heterosexuality, and the importance of awareness of these issues for educators of gay students. The conclusion drawn is that there is diversity inherent within any grouping but a more inclusive art education policy would inform the culture of all.

The Impact of Formal Assessment Procedures on Teaching and Learning in Art and Design in Secondary Schools

AbstractAssessment is widely considered to be the most significant issue affecting art and design practice at secondary level. The article begins with an historical overview of developments in and critiques of assessment procedures in England, Wales and Northern Ireland since the inception of GCSE examination. This is followed by a report of an attempt to carry out a systematic review of research on the impact of assessment on the art and design curriculum in secondary schools. Author conclusions and findings from eight studies subjected to in‐depth analysis are discussed together with the implications of the review exercise for art education policy, practice and research.

Wordsworth and the End of the Arts

Editor's note: This essay is the seventh in an occasional series on past treatments of major issues in arts education policy from antiquity through the twentieth century. Future essays will appear as occasion arises.

Preface to The Lyrical Ballads

(2003). Preface to The Lyrical Ballads. Arts Education Policy Review: Vol. 105, No. 2, pp. 33-36.

The Status of Arts Assessment: Examples from Music

(2003). The Status of Arts Assessment: Examples from Music. Arts Education Policy Review: Vol. 105, No. 2, pp. 11-18.

Cal Poly Arts in Education Projects: Changing Pedagogy and Cultivating the Arts in Rural School Districts

(2003). Cal Poly Arts in Education Projects: Changing Pedagogy and Cultivating the Arts in Rural School Districts. Arts Education Policy Review: Vol. 105, No. 2, pp. 3-9.

The Impact of Philanthropy on Arts Education Policy

The Impact of Philanthropy on Arts Education Policy

Quest for Excellence: The Transforming Role of University-Community Collaboration in Music Teaching and Learning

(2003). Quest for Excellence: The Transforming Role of University-Community Collaboration in Music Teaching and Learning. Arts Education Policy Review: Vol. 105, No. 1, pp. 5-12.