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Toward Foundations For A Socially Critical Art Education, Paul Duncum

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

Significant recent developments in Australian art education have moved away from a consideration of the aesthetic value of fine art products to a broad sociological conception of the visual arts which includes folk and popular arts. Many art educators assume a socially functionalist approach which celebrates cultural diversity and attempts to describe the function of cultural artifacts, sometimes in terms of lived experience. While acknowledging the importance of these developments, the author adopts the view that cultural production is part of an unjust society in ferment and is a site of ideological struggle. The view advanced is that to be …