Art Educators Research Articles

Autonomous Artists: Second Graders' Perspectives on Their Artwork

In this article, we present the results of a collaborative research venture between Brittany, an art educator of 645 students in a rural K–2 school, and Leslie, an art educator of undergraduate and...

Insights From Three Online Art Educators: Strategies for Instruction, Interaction, and Assessment

At the 34th Annual Distance Teaching and Learning Conference, a presenter of the “ABCs of DE: Avoiding Pitfalls in Online Teaching” session began her talk by asking this question of the audience: “...

Art-based events for conflicted communities: Engaging and educating through art

In the Arctic, environmental conflicts over land use and the exploitation of natural resources cast shadows over communities. Artists’ and art educators’ responses can play a meaningful role in resisting harmful developments. Emerging artistic and pedagogical interventions follow principles of socially and environmentally engaged art and art education. This visual essay describes a contemporary art event that opposed plans for an iron ore mine next to Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park in Finnish Lapland. An art-based action-research strategy was used to develop resources for communities in conflict. It focuses on describing the cyclical nature of art interventions. Analyses of activities show that art-based resources in environmental battles can foster cultural resilience, impact values, enhance hope and allow for campaigning that uses art to communicate environmental concerns. Further research into artistic interventions that open dialogue between parties in conflict is required.

The Flat Earth satire: using science theater to debunk absurd theories

Abstract. Science needs everyone and everything; therefore, art must be used for its understanding. As the popularity of social media grows, absurd theories have been gaining consensus and, even worse, becoming factual truths without any criticism for many. Thus, aiming to find solutions for a better understanding of our scientific theories, the project “The earth is flat! And, now what?” was created. This project uses performing art as the main communicator to spread science. The first step consisted of calling a meeting to promote integration among the project participants and professionals from different areas of expertise such as geophysicists, art educators, artists, astronomers, and clowns. The meeting was also an occasion for planning the show. The second step consisted of developing the dramaturgy along with the creative process, which involved discussions on scenes and lessons about the theme to be presented, and the third step was the performance. The bibliographical review, the equivalent of the “table's work” for artists, was not based on indexed journals, but rather on social networks and classes for understanding the shape of the Earth. The show impacts the audience in a fun way, offering the opportunity for the general population to experience science in a new way.

The suitcase project: Historical inquiry, arts integration and the Holocaust

In this article, we – a history teacher and visual art educator – present a unique, arts-integrated history project that engaged grade eleven history students in creating an installation of suitcase assemblages exploring the lives of young victims of the Holocaust. While we recognize that there exist numerous strategies for teaching about the Holocaust, we assert not only that arts integration is useful in enhancing student learning and engagement in history but also that the curricular approach is ideally suited for the teaching of difficult history such as the history of the Holocaust. In addition to examples of the student artworks produced, we provide evidence of the project’s success in increasing students’ understandings of the assigned historical content as well as its success in complicating two dominant Holocaust narratives. In sharing our own experiences of using an arts-integrated approach to teaching the history of the Holocaust, we hope to inspire both history teachers who are looking for alternative ways to tackle the complex challenge of teaching difficult history as well as art teachers who are looking to integrate sound historical inquiry into their issues-based art projects.

Beyond the “Core”: Preparing Art Educators to Meet the Needs of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students

AbstractClassrooms in English‐dominant countries are increasingly multilingual spaces, and research has called for teacher preparation to focus more specifically on the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) learners. Indeed, efforts have been made to better train pre‐ and in‐service teachers of math, social science, English language arts, and sciences to work with CLD learners. However, we argue that concentrating efforts only in the core content areas is too limited an approach. Specifically, we take the stance that this narrow focus ignores issues of CLD students’ access to arts education (e.g., art, music, dance, theatre, etc.) and also diminishes the value and depth of both the content and language of the arts. In this article, we discuss the need for all teachers to be prepared to support CLD students, describe culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy as a framework for developing art teacher competence, and offer suggestions for policy and practice in pre‐ and in‐service art teacher education.

Apprenticing Ourselves to M. C. Richards: Three Teachings for Art Educators

Apprenticing Ourselves to M. C. Richards: Three Teachings for Art Educators

Art education during the COVID-19 pandemic: the journey across a changing landscape

The field of art education has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in complex ways. Art educators have been challenged with teaching visual arts skills, practices, and concepts, to students in virtual classrooms using non-conventional means. Their principal goal has been to provide quality education in the visual arts for all students. They recognize that having a visual arts education impacts the quality of life of everyone and their ability to understand and communicate in our complex world. In their efforts to provide meaningful and effective education, art educators have had to manage new instructional delivery systems and to ensure the health and safety and social emotional learning of their students and themselves in their educational spaces. They responded by using social media, video conferencing, and other digital technology to deliver instruction. The National Art Education Association provided a wealth of digital resources to support virtual instruction during this time. These resources enabled art educators to successfully address the educational needs of their students. The long-term impact of the pandemic will require research to understand the nature of the impact of the pandemic on education and how educational policy needs to be adjusted to reflect the new post-pandemic educational landscape

Expanding from the Small Screen – Arts Practice for Affective Digital Presence

AbstractResponding to conditions of lockdown and social distancing since March 2020, the Centre for Arts and Learning (CAL) at Goldsmiths is researching how arts practice and creative processes can sustain an affective presence in digital learning environments. In this article I discuss our research into how artist educators and students have adapted to the necessity for online learning, including the difficulties of doing so. I refer to a posthumanist, Deleuzian theoretical map that connects with the different collaborative, practice research assemblages we are working with this year. In discussion is a project for engaging with artists and creatives and their learning developments since March 2020 called Finding Comfort within Discomfort. Participants speak for themselves from Instagram and Linktree. The CAL online recorded events with myself and Francis Gilbert; Heather Barnett and Sarah Christie; Jane Prophet; Kimberley Foster, Karl Foster and Victoria Mitchell are referred to as ‘cultural texts’ in hybrid digital/material/embodied arts practice. This research observes ways of expressing emotive release, expanding embodiment from the small screen, and making connections with others that can be adaptive to their different cultural, localised situations. The research seeks to further transferable, affective creative processes.

To teach creativity (or not) in early childhood arts curriculum: a case study in Chinese Beijing kindergartens

ABSTRACT This paper draws from a cross-cultural study of young children’s arts curricula. The initial phase of the original study consisted of a comparison of the intended arts curriculum for 5–6 year old children in China and Australia. This was followed by a survey in Beijing exploring 88 contemporary early childhood educators’ beliefs about children’s arts education. A case study of the enacted curriculum took place across three kindergartens in Beijing. The data was coded and analysed using grounded theory methodology. The research presented in this paper reported a diverse understanding of children’s creativity among the participant EC educators; it revealed that a pedagogical dilemma of demonstration remains as a challenge to early childhood arts educators. This study provided qualitative descriptions and examples of Chinese Beijing children’s arts education in this era of globalisation. Utilising Foucault’s (1991. “Governmentality.” In The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, edited by G. Burchell, C. Gordon, and P. Miller, translated by R. Braidotti, 87–104. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf) theory of governmentality as a critical lens to view the issues in this field, the study broadened perspectives regarding the education philosophy and practices of early childhood arts curriculum, in particular, for the cultivation of young children’s creativity.

(Re)Active Praxis: What’s in a Name? Language, Identity, and Power in English Education

This article discusses activities and actions for English language arts (ELA) educators to engage in antiracist praxis and humanizing pedagogy through unpacking the common activity of classroom name introductions. The author highlights how learning students’ names can involve honoring nondominant histories of racially minoritized communities. Implications of this (re)active praxis include the potential to sustain marginalized students in ELA classrooms by promoting broader racial and linguistic justice.

Walking the Talk: Three Language Educators Engage in a Walking-Based Art Inquiry for Anti-Racist Education

As language and art educators committed to anti-oppression, we sought to explore how walking and art-making help us reflect, inquire, create, and act, upon new understandings of anti-racist education. Living in three different cities (Edmonton, Vancouver, and Palermo), we collaborated on a walking-based art inquiry for ten weeks in the summer of 2020, combining walking, art-making (photography, painting, mixed-media collage, screenprinting, and poetry), reflecting, and discussing. We were curious to investigate, both individually and collaboratively, what an anti-racist curriculum looks and feels like to us, and what walking and art-making might do in the process of learning and teaching. We situated our project in an arts-based research paradigm (Conrad & Beck, 2015), and we were inspired by Feinberg’s (2016) walking-based pedagogy and Judson’s (2018) walking curriculum. This article presents artistic experiments we created, as well as curricular insights that emerged from our process, for example, that walking and art may serve as dehabituating forces to help us openly feel, question, protest, and reimagine education, from intersecting perspectives of race and language.

Notes From The Couch

As Michel Serres states, “The one who has power is the one who has the source and emission of sound” (1982). The sudden soundlessness of our COVID-19 existence is one of the largest pandemic challenges facing musicians. While some argue that there should be a hiatus on creation, others are embracing music’s adaptations to less traditional forums and formats. As a public high school teacher and conductor-educator with a youth-focused private organization, I am experiencing first-hand the improvisations, challenges, triumphs—and attendant burn-out—of rapidly adapting new spaces in which to keep my musical communities intact. Fellow conductor-educators near and far, working with populations at all ages and stages, are also bravely forging onward, rejecting sound-less and ensemble-less realities by adapting online. This all begs the questions: What does the near future hold for choral singing? And what will singing ensembles look like on the other side of current restrictions? Drawing together personal experience, informal interviews, explorations of the transformations of public and private space, sound and media studies, drift methodology, and the proliferation of recent articles in news and arts media, this essay investigates the novel spaces being created by and for choral arts educators amidst the uncertainties of what new reality awaits us on the other side of the screen-scape.

Hiring Practices and its Connection to the Conceptualization of ‘a Good Teacher’ in Diverse Classrooms

Abstract: This article explores the role of hiring practices in the conceptualization of what makes a teacher ‘a good teacher’, especially in diverse classrooms. It is based on a multiple case study that examined the perceptions of the experience of four high school English language arts educators teaching in diverse classrooms in Alberta, Canada. These practitioners suggest that hiring practices are mostly unreliable as principals’ hiring decisions are often strongly influenced by noticeable teachers’ personal traits and their preconceived perceptions of what a ‘good’ teacher is. During the hiring process, such interpretation often relies on the sole perceptions of the experience of school principals, which are usually not supported by effective hiring practices research. Hiring ‘the most suitable’ teacher to meet the needs of increasingly complex classrooms is key to education. As education strives for responding to the needs of an increasingly diverse community of learners, reflecting on hiring practices is important to improve the quality of the education provided to students. Teachers’ perspectives on hiring practices are important as they could potentially contribute and inform professional development initiatives, teacher preparation programs, and educational policies regarding a possible connection between administrative roles and teacher effectiveness.

Discourses on artistic research in Flanders: non-scholarly perspectives on re-search in the arts

The research presented in this paper collects and analyses a set of documents disseminating discourse on artistic research in Flanders – the Northern, Dutch-speaking region of Belgium. In doing so, it identifies hegemonic constructions structuring the (im)possibility of fostering fruitful interlinkages between the often-dichotomised notions of ‘art’ and ‘science’. Hinged on the officialisation of the first Flemish doctoral degrees in the arts, the study points to earlier, ‘inclusive’ discourses on artistic research that allowed articulating a variety of activities and outcomes as ‘research’. The introduction of the PhD gave way to ‘exclusive’ discourses that restrict artistic research to the higher arts education context. Notably, these ‘exclusive discourses’ – often disseminated by higher art educators – are expressively critical of the research agenda. Highlighting its artificial origins in the Bologna Process, artistic research is normatively constructed as an infringement on the arts’ autonomy. Its potential is not denied altogether, however, but only touched upon in cryptonormative terms that reject current conditions without addressing what it should or could be.

Aesthetics of Romanesque Architecture

AbstractArchitecture is a content area in art education that is not much investigated by art educators. Even less addressed is Romanesque architectural style. Based on direct experiences of visiting hundreds of Romanesque churches in France, Italy, and Spain; many years of teaching design courses; and subsequent research and visual analyses of photos, the author discusses the aesthetic merits of Romanesque architecture through design principles: unity by repetition, variety and contrast, proportion, hierarchical forms, and articulation. Unity, variety, and contrast are found in many modern design books, proportion, less so, but it was very important in the medieval period. Hierarchical forms and articulation are uniquely Romanesque. The author demonstrates that Romanesque builders possessed a great sense of design and creativity.

School-Level Factors Related to Visual Arts Achievement for 4th-Graders: A Longitudinal Analysis

A longitudinal analysis was used to investigate the relationships between school-level factors (poverty, location, size, ratings, and race/ethnicity) and visual arts achievement. Data were collected on 4th-grade students from 34 elementary schools that received Distinguished Arts Program grants in a southeastern state of the United States from 2011 to 2017. Students’ individual multiple-choice visual arts scores were aggregated into school-level scores. The analysis revealed that school-level visual arts scores decreased over time from 2011 to 2017. Visual arts scores appeared to be significantly associated with school ratings, poverty, and race/ethnicity. The findings of the study may inform art educators, school administrators, and policy makers in their program offerings, planning, and targeted interventions around issues of art education.

Conjuring Hands: The Art of Curious Women of Color

The verb “to conjure” is a complex one, for it includes in its standard definition a great range of possible actions or operations, not all of them equivalent, or even compatible. In its most common usage, “to conjure” means to perform an act of magic or to invoke a supernatural force, by casting a spell, say, or performing a particular ritual or rite. But “to conjure” is also to influence, to beg, to command or constrain, to charm, to bewitch, to move or convey, to imagine, to visualize, to call to mind, or to remember. —Rachael DeLue 2012, para 1.When we create with our Brown hands, feminine energy, and full spirits, we conjure. To exist, survive, and thrive in these bodies is a continuous act of conjuring. Our walks conjure. Our smiles conjure. Our tears conjure. Our laughs conjure. Our words conjure. Our artworks are conjurings. We, a Black/Filipina-American woman, a Dominican-American, and a Black-American woman, are guided by our solidarity with one another and all other Black and Brown female identifying persons whose raced and gendered subjectivities exist both inside and outside of colonization, white supremacy, and patriarchy. We bring to life our colored imaginations and curiosities, and share them with the world. We are united by our need for safety, autonomy as beings, dissolution of trauma, and desire to ask, “What would happen if I…?” Imaginative, curious Women of Color (WoC) founded the underground railroad, guided captured Africans and Tainos to the mountains, ignited the Civil Rights Movement, organized laborers and immigrants, birthed the #BlackLivesMatter Movement, conceived the #MeToo Movement, and so much more. Like our kindred counterparts, we have an unrelenting urge to examine, question, wonder, desire, speak to, lead, be curious, and “conjure.” As practicing artists and art educators, our critical arts-based practices are grounded in intersectional feminisms like Womanism, Black Feminist Theory, and Chicana Feminist Theory, which allow us to do these very things.

Modern Approaches to the Development of Imagination in Art Education

Introduction. The article discusses various aspects of imagination and its role in art education. The features of imagination as a cognitive mental process are analyzed, and its connection with emotions is revealed. It is emphasized that the role of imagination in artistic creativity is primarily associated with the emotional saturation of the imagination. Imagination is considered as the most labile cognitive mental process, largely due to the cultural and historical situation. Purpose of the article. Imagination in artistic creativity has various manifestations. First, it is necessary to assess how much imagination is generally involved in the act of artistic creation. This role of imagination depends on artistic traditions, as well as on the General understanding of the nature of creativity among individual artists and art educators. Secondly, the use of various types and separate techniques of imagination is subject to evaluation. Changes in the structure of the imagination also depend on the cultural and historical context. Finally, third, the content that serves as the source material for the creative imagination also changes. In the Postmodern Era, the influence of previously created artistic reality on artistic creativity has significantly increased. Knowledge of these features of the creative imagination is an integral part of art education. Research results. A comprehensive study of the imagination provides a scientifically based construction of the educational process of DAHTiD. Conclusion. The listed aspects of creative imagination and methodological support for the development of imagination on the example of the Children’s Academy of Artistic Creativity and Design are of great importance in art education: on the one hand, their analysis inevitably becomes an important part of educational content, on the other hand, they constantly find real application in everyday practice teacher.

Survival Kit

This action was performed during the InSEA European Regional Congress in Lisbon, 2016, in the opening ceremony. 100 kits were distributed with instruction manuals in Portuguese; Spanish and English. The conception and design of the kit by Maria Jesus Agra Pardiñas; Cristina Trigo; Ana Vidal aimed to point the attention of art educators and researchers from the International Society of Education Through Art, InSEA to the cuts in the arts in the educational public systems of neoliberal governments in Europe, which were and still are trying to reduce or even eliminate the role of the arts and humanities in public education.