Art Education Commons^™

Innovating Art Education: An Art Education School University Partnership, Tracy Driehaus

Education Faculty Research

No abstract provided.

Social Class, Cultural Capital, And Public School Art Education, Yiwen Wei

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

This article delves into the often-overlooked issue of social class in visual art education. While art education is crucial for sustaining artistic traditions and cultural practices, the validation of certain art forms within educational systems significantly influences students’ perceived values of art and culture. This article explores the intricate interplay between social class, cultural capital, and art education in U.S. public schools. The goal is to enhance class consciousness among art educators, advocating for educational equity and cultural sustainability. The article presents a theoretical framework through a comprehensive review of existing scholarship on social class in U.S. art education. A …

Recovering Motor Skills, Grit, And Social-Emotional Learning Through Art Education: The Lasting Impact Of Covid-19 On Middle School Students Who Were In Kindergarten–Third Grade During The Pandemic, Melissa A. Mckinnon

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted education, and students in early grades missed critical motor and social-emotional skill development. These students are now in middle school, where delays are evident in motor skills and decreased perseverance. This review examines how arts education can help rebuild these losses. The literature reviewed focused on studies published between 2020 and 2024 across the fields of education, psychology, neuroscience, and art therapy. Themes include motor skill development through art, cognitive growth and executive functioning, social-emotional learning, and grit and perseverance through art projects. Art education offers a unique setting for holistic recovery, but this requires educators …

Nature-Based Learning In Visual Arts Education, Ava D. Raisanen

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This literature review and application thesis examines the concerns related to nature-deficit, specifically screen usage, student disengagement, and mental health issues. This review examines how nature-based educational approaches can enhance mental health, improve academic performance, and connect to various topics, including Indigenous culture and interdisciplinary art approaches that integrate multiple subjects. The lesson plans provided in the application are rooted in culturally relevant, nature-based approaches for students in grades K-12, including an Indigenous-inspired lesson for elementary, middle, and high school art.

Exploring Motivation In Visual Arts: Middle School Art Teachers' Perspectives, Eva V. Coker

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore pedagogical strategies and curriculum (media and art projects) that 6th through 8th grade middle school art teachers use to motivate students to participate in the visual arts. Specifically, it examined the instructional strategies, media choices, and art projects that teachers perceived as inspirational and motivational for middle school students. This qualitative study included data from 17 middle school art teachers, collected through interviews, video-recorded nonverbal communication cues, and teacher-submitted artifacts. The findings revealed a range of instructional strategies, media and curricular practices, and flow and affective experiences that teachers believed supported student …

Glitched Humanity: A Digital Media Arts Advocacy Project, Shelly Maloney

Teaching Resource Archive

This lesson includes an original sample project and website that directs students towards learning how to utilize digital glitch art to create advocacy or raise awareness for the social, cultural, environmental, or political issue of their choice. It is designed to engage students in critical thinking skills, cross-curricular connections, reflective writing, digital art making, group discussion, and peer review.

Artists can use video and other media sources to explore the self-destructive tendencies of human nature (i.e. violence/war, consumption, and/or carelessness/environmental neglect) or other social, cultural, or political issues using digital manipulation, layered imagery, sound, and video.

Layers Of Identity, Elizabeth Toffel

Teaching Resource Archive

Students explore identity, specifically that identity is layered, shaped by personal experience, cultural background, community ties, and unique traits. Students conduct interviews with peers, reflect on identity components, both individually and collectively, and create a layer artwork on transparent acetate sheets. When stacked the layers visually showcase the layers of the student’s identity and represent how identity is complex, constructed, and always shaped by multiple influences.

Art Teams Grant Report Year 4, Guy Trainin, Kimberley D'Adamo, Hyeonjin Yoon, Azadeh Hassani, Zohreh Tamimdari, Jiabin Lyu, Michael Nti Ababio, Sarah Trainin

Research and Evaluation in Education, Technology, Art, and Design

Year Four of the Art TEAMs grant was designed to continue the professional learning for cohort two while following cohort one to measure implementation sustainability. Our second cohort of educators is excited about the program. It brings great diversity in art forms, including five ceramics teachers, a digital media teacher, and generalists from career and technical education and family and consumer science. This diversity of teaching domains helps illustrate the versatility and impact of the arts across K-12 curricula. We have revamped our professional learning curriculum and the process of learning from the educators who take part in the program. …

Creating Counternarratives To Heteronormativity In Art Education: Portraits Of The Lives Of Five Gay Art Teachers, Bradley Mckinney

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This study explored ways heteronormativity has been reinforced in art education, drawing from personal experiences and scholarly literature. I reflected on how conformity pressures influence individuals and communities aligning with Foucault's concepts of binary polarities, Butler’s theory of performativity, Sedgwick’s notion of survivor’s responsibility and Warner’s ideas of queer stigma. My research combines autoethnography, ethnography, personal narrative, and therapeutic reflection to create portraits, or in-depth narratives, and snapshots, or brief narratives, of five self-identified gay art teachers from the Midwestern region of the United States. These portraits and snapshots examine ways the participants navigated their identities within educational environments. Creating …

Reimagining The Canvas: Exploring Culturally Responsive Teaching In Art Education, Elice F. Brunnette

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Considering the inequities faced by culturally diverse students inside and outside of art classes, it is crucial to build a greater understanding of the specific challenges they encounter and to creatively implement more effective pedagogical approaches. This thesis seeks to illustrate the links between culturally responsive teaching practices and arts education, in order to foster greater academic and social outcomes for diverse learners within visual arts classes. Art education provides students with specific modes of learning, expression, and connections that differ from what they experience in other educational settings. These experiences lead to impactful culturally responsive teaching strategies that support …

2025 Yearbook, Risd Archives, Center For Student Involvement (Csi), Risd Design Guild

RISD Yearbooks

No abstract provided.

The Chesapeake Pearl: A Proposal For An Environmental Public Art Installation, Samuel I. Reichard

Pitzer Senior Theses

In this thesis, I lay the foundation for an environmental art project along Chesapeake Bay. It includes an analysis of relevant literature and case studies, as well as a proposal for the project. The Chesapeake Pearl (working title) would be a 20-foot spherical aquarium that will visually display the water filtration capacity of eastern oysters and native seagrass, aiming to inspire curiosity around these organisms and the greater Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. The project exists at the intersection of environmental art and environmental education and seeks to promote learning and public engagement through visually demonstrating a scientific process, the water filtration …

The Arts And Student Engagement: Correlational Insights For School Accountability Of Low Income, English Learners, And Foster Youth, Paul Treesuwan

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This quantitative study examined the relationship between students’ engagement in the arts and their engagement in both academic classes and the broader school community within a diverse, urban, public charter high school. Using survey data from 251 students in grades 9–12, analyses explored whether arts engagement was associated with academic and school-community engagement and whether these relationships differed across English Learner (EL), low-income (F/R), and foster-youth subgroups. Results revealed that arts engagement was moderately and positively correlated with both academic engagement and school-community engagement confirming consistent cross-domain associations. ANOVA analyses detected no statistically significant differences in engagement levels by EL, …

The Influence Of Family-School Communication On Junior High School Students’ Academic Success, Stephen Junior Amoah

Masters Theses

This study examines the influence of family-school communication on students' academic success in the context of Ghana, with a particular focus on Junior High School (JHS) students. While existing research emphasizes the importance of family involvement in educational outcomes, limited studies explore how family-school communication directly affects academic success in Ghana. By using a mixed-methods approach, the study combines quantitative and qualitative data collection. The quantitative component includes an online survey distributed to JHS graduates, assessing the frequency, impact, methods, and barriers of communication between families and schools, as well as their perceived effect on academic performance. The survey includes …

Identifying Intangible And Biocultural Heritage Elements Toward Environmental Understanding: Engaging Stakeholders Through Art, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Grounded in a case study in Barbuda in the Caribbean, this research examines sustainability from the perspective of what arts and heritage can contribute to community engagement and local and broader understandings about the environment. This article documents a growing body of literature recognizing the role of arts and culture, including local knowledge and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), in climate change endeavors. Art and TEK present expansive world views. Contextual information situates research done on the island of Barbuda pre- and post-Hurricane Irma. Visual arts workshops engaged community members in mixed methods research. Results documented cultural elements, particularly intangible and …

Hauntings Of Transnational Art Learning And Teaching: A Duo-Ethnography Of Two Asian Art Educators’ Transformative Experiences, Hayon Park, Sohee Koo

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

Reflecting on lived experiences as art learners in South Korea and professional practices in the United States as art educators, the authors draw from Derrida’s (1994) “hauntology” and present how their transnational experiences continue to conjure up and affect the everyday lives of Asian women junior faculty today in the US through duoethnographic approaches. Posing the question “how might personal lived experiences of an educator foster art pedagogy and research?” and interviewing each other on aesthetics, education, and identity, this article seeks to: 1) inform others about how Korean art educators navigate matters of transnational education experience and colonization and …

Fuel To The Fire: Experimenting With Care Ethics In Museum Education, Jenna S. Green

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

This article suggests museum theory and practice needs to shift its ideological foundation from storage, preservation, restoration, exhibition making, and learning, to one of radical care. Responding to the questions posed by the Journal of Social Theory in Art Education and drawing focus around the theme of (re)activating theory to envision an alternative educational model, I engage with Dana Carlisle Kletchka’s (2023) introduction of care ethics to art museum education. I suggest that care ethics, as a growing theory in museums, is interdisciplinary and should include contemplative scholarship and practices to embody its guiding tenants. I then take up Kletchka’s …

From Objects To Relationships: Reviving Connectivity Through Collaborative Artmaking, Carolina Blatt-Gross

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

A shortage of pro-social opportunities during the pandemic brought to the fore a longer, deeper trend toward disconnection. With the broader emphasis on individualized academic achievement compounding pandemic-induced social disenfranchisement, schools and communities are struggling to revive a sense of connectivity and belonging. The arts, on the other hand, have long been associated with social outcomes, historically generating group cohesion and inherently offering participants a sense of unity and synchronicity through collaborative artmaking. Applied to educational settings, pinpointing the concrete aspects of art education that beget social capital and connectedness is a more difficult task. This investigation examines the potential …

Navigating Collapse: Re-Envisioning Educational Structures, Carissa Dicindio

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

No abstract provided.

Jstae V44 Full Issue: Navigating Collapse: Re-Envisioning Educational Structures, Jstae Editor

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

No abstract provided.