Art Education Commons^™

Stigma, Confinement, And Silence : On The Precarious Life And Death Of John Derby, Kevin Tavin, Mira Kallio-Tavin

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

In this commentary, we take seriously the question of what does it mean to be in a precarious position and a precarious subject within educational institutions. Structured around three concepts, Stigma, Confinement, andSilence we discuss the life and death of art education scholar and colleague, John Derby. We attempt to address how John’s scholarship helped other researchers in art education orientate themselves and take a critical stance based on disability studies.

Index Of Dirt: Composing And Composting In Art And Education, Circa 2020, Carol N. Padberg

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

This photo essay presents an abridged version of a performative lecture addressing strategies for regenerative art education and arts-based research. Using an alphabetized compilation of stories, texts, objects and lessons, the index provides examples of how embodied, field-based art education can provide appropriate learning methods for art students of the Anthropocene who bear the burden of the economic, environmental, and emotional precarities of our times.

Stickiness As Methodological Condition, Cala Coats

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

Stickiness is introduced as a cultural concept, affective condition, and performative practice. The author suggests a process of methodological conditioning rooted in responsiveness and attunement in response to shared vulnerability embedded in precarity. Drawing from Felix Guattari’s ethico-aesthetic paradigm, new materialisms, and affect theory, the author invites readers to engage with a narrative score as an aesthetic pedagogical exercise. The score and additional provocations act as creative material for connective and collective performances tracing and creating encounters across time and space.

Translingual Public Pedagogy, Precarity And Inquiry: Learned Limits And Limitlessness Through Memoir, Melisa Cahnmann Taylor, Sharon Nuruddin, Tairan Qiu

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

In this paper we document the precarity of translingual pedagogies (Canagarajah, 2013), those occurring when languages are in contact and mutually influencing each other with emergent meanings and grammars. Sharing translingual art and literature during a public Lunar New Year Celebration, we turn to memoir methodologies for understanding “trans” practices: those that transgress singular codes, modalities, human/nonhuman cultures, and personal-scientific boundaries. Our findings (and lost things) identify the challenges and possibilities of working in the liminal space of fractured social and linguistic identities.

Precarity In Feminism And Feminist Art Education: Decentering Whiteness Through Reproductive Justice Activism, Michelle Bae-Dimitriadis, Olga Ivashkevich

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

The article addresses precarity in mainstream feminism and feminist art education as a systemic dismissal and exclusion of the critical concerns and voices by disenfranchised women of color from its narratives and agendas. It draws on a case of the reproductive justice feminist activism to illustrate how the mainstream pro-choice feminist movement neglected the urgent and often life threatening reproductive concerns by Black, Brown, Indigenous and immigrant women, which led to an establishment of the reproductive justice coalitions by activists of color. The reproductive justice movement is an important call to action to challenge and decenter Whiteness in mainstream feminism …

Don’T Call This World Adorable & Other Salvaged Stories, Brooke A. Hofsess

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

In this contribution to the special issue on Precarity, the author builds salvaged stories that touch ecological precarities related to place-based discourses within art education. Tsing’s (2015) attentiveness to precarity and Alaimo’s (2012; 2016) suspicion of sustainability cascade upon the author’s thinking/living/writing with Ecologies of Girlhood, an interdisciplinary, intersectional, intergenerational arts program considering living feminist lives co-creatively with place (Ahmed, 2017). New material feminism moves alongside an Indigenous ontology of land-based pedagogies creating “inter-theoretic conversations” (Rosiek, Snyder, & Pratt, 2019) about sustainability and place. These accounts are simply told and cultivated from everyday practices that explore a craftsmanship of attention …

Cissexism And Precarity Perform Trans Subjectivities, Kevin Jenkins

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

Precarity is not experienced by all. Rather, as Judith Butler (2009) notes, it is the extreme state of precariousness—a heightened exposure to institutional and social violence imposed on marginalized populations such as people of color, non-white immigrants, people of non-Christian faiths, and LGBTQ+ people. Nor does precarity impact the people in these groups evenly.

The three digital artworks in this series highlight some of the ways in which trans people navigate precarity and are performed by it. The lifetime suicide attempt rate for trans and gender non-conforming people averages at 41% with the highest rate at 46% reported by trans …

Diversification As A Strategy: A Research-Based Plan To Cultivate New Audiences At The Richmond Symphony, James A. Perkins Jr, C Keith Claassen, Frank G. Weber, Verona D. Wilborn

Doctor of Education Capstones

Building a more inclusive audience is not a far-fetched idea; system diversification by its very nature is a performance strategy, not a performance goal. Changing audience demographics requires well laid out plans, achievable goals, effective processes, and a total organizational commitment to diversification. This report was created to provide perspectives that inform executive leaders in arts organizations who plan to attract diverse audiences. It highlights nine research-based recommendations for audience diversification. Our report is unique in that it layers four approaches that, if used simultaneously, have the potential to both increase the likelihood of success and decrease the amount of …

Encounters With Care: Mentoring Beginning Art Teachers Amid The Pre[Care]Ious Conditions Of Neoliberalism, Christina Hanawalt

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

Arguing that significant encounters with care often go unnoticed in a United States’ educational system largely defined by a neoliberal agenda, in this article I undertake a deep investigation of encounters with care that emerged in my experiences mentoring beginning art teachers. I approach these encounters as provocative disturbances that might reveal the nuances and intricacies of the entanglements at work. Through this exploration, I aim to show that these caring entanglements are, in consequential ways, run through with precarity—not only as an existential condition of life, but as a specific set of social, cultural, political, and material relations …

Sensory Substitution, Key To Inclusive Learning, Fathima Z. Zahir

Theses and Dissertations

Visually impaired students, in primary education, encounter unique challenges while learning creative skills, exploring artistic expression and developing problem-solving skills, because so much instructional content is delivered visually. Sensory substitution—an approach that replaces visual information with feedback from other intact senses like touch, sound, taste or smell—provides an opportunity to address those challenges.

Through the use of sensory substitution, this thesis proposes concrete ways to capitalize on the enhanced abilities of visually impaired primary school students. The research outcome of this thesis is a system of templates that puts these enhanced abilities to work for visually impaired students, to support …

The Program, Aaron Douglas Estrada

Theses and Dissertations

In my work, I explore the engineering of identity and socioeconomics that are programed into Black and Brown communities. I refer to this as “The Program”. The Program validates, breaks, codes, and critiques the system that divided us. The Program is identifying with the struggle of growing up in a system that is programmed to see you fail. So if you get caught up in that system it’s a natural death within the program. But you can break and make your own program. If you stick to the program.

The paper's use of language is coded. Text has been written …

Staying Gold: How A Group Of University Students Created Intergenerational Connections Through Art Museum Programming And Community Collaboration, Eli Burke, Carissa Dicindio Ph.D

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

In this article, we examine ways in which an intergenerational art program, Stay Gold, helped build relationships between queer youth and elders in an art museum to combat loneliness, isolation, and disconnection. This museum program was initially designed by university students in a graduate art education course to help form connections between queer youth and elders through art-making, sharing stories, and conversations about art. Participants play a large role in shaping the direction of the program, and the program continues to grow and evolve to include more opportunities for collaboration between youth and elders through group projects and dialogue. Although …

Inverse Inclusion: Transforming Dispositions Of Disability And Inclusion, Angela M. Laporte

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

Inverse inclusion, a novel pedagogy, transforms preservice teachers’ dispositions about disability and inclusion during an action research study of two university intercession service learning course collaborations with a community-based art program for disabled adults (clients). In this approach, university students (preservice teachers) rotate and reflect on roles as student, teacher, teacher’s assistant, and observer within an inclusive art class. Among these rotations, the student position relinquishes their hierarchical perspective as teacher, assistant, and observer, and situates them as a collaborative learner, conducive to building egalitarian relationships with clients. Based on qualitative data from university student participants in the form …

Building Relationships: Art Making And Empty Bowls, Susan R. Whiteland

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

How can collaborative art making foster relationship building for those involved? A Problem Based Learning project that investigated food insecurity and the creation of clay soup bowls provided an answer for a number of students, and various community members. This article follows the story of a university professor’s involvement with her students in a partnership with a local intermediate school when they pursued an initiative to include art in their STEAM based curriculum dedicated to meeting a local need. Older adults, elementary students, and a variety of other interested individuals joined the effort and demonstrated how art can build relationships.

Intergenerational Collaboration: A Professional Journey Begins, Camilla Mccomb, Bonnie Capling, Kristyn Demint, Courtney Miller, Jane Montero

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

No abstract provided.

Connecting Through Creative Collaborations, Pamela H. Lawton

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

No abstract provided.

Discarded: Exploring Material Stories And Movements Through Participatory, Public Art Interventions, Kira Hegeman

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

Drawing on DeCerteau’s (1984) philosophy of tactics, which subvert dominant ways of being through creative appropriations of space and behavior, and New Materialist philosophies that offer vitality and agency to non-human objects (Barad, 2007; Bennett, 2004; 2010), this paper explores a three-part series of participatory, public art interventions related to waste, consumption and material relationships. The three installations were distinct but connected, situated in public spaces and corridors as a means of disrupting daily moments while encouraging moments of pause to be with discarded, material objects in playful and creative ways (de Certeau, 1984; Debord, 1956). With these installations we …

Troubling The “We” In Art Education: Slam Poetry As Subversive Duoethnography, Gloria J. Wilson, Sara Scott Shields

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

Scholarly dialogues are filled with discussions of teacher’s personal perspectives, experiences, and challenges - but rarely do these dialogues include the narratives that lie beneath the surface. The subversive tales confronting stories of microagressions, alternate histories, and institutionalized norms that shape the educational landscape we navigate daily. This paper is focused on bringing to the surface a call and response lament of two social justice-oriented art educators--one Black, the other White. Using the dialogic methodology of duoethnography and the performative aspects of slam poetry, we share our racialized-teaching accounts as a multisensory experience, where text and performative orality share a …

Public School Art Teacher Autonomy In A Segregated City: Affordances And Contradictions, Albert Stabler, Jorge R. Lucero

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

Over the past two decades, the Chicago Public Schools have seen a lot of change. First there was the opening of magnet schools, and other gestures at reform, followed by school closures and the flourishing of charter schools. In this essay, two former Chicago art teachers, one who taught in a prominent college prep magnet high school on the north side, and one who taught in an under-resourced neighborhood high school on the south side, examine the commonalities of their otherwise divergent experiences, particularly with regard to the freedom allotted to both them and their students by the administrative affordances …

Losting + Founding Poetry: Sub/Versive Academic Love Letters, Mindi J. Rhoades, Vittoria S. Daiello

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

No abstract provided.

Sub/Versing Mentoring Expectations: Duration, Discernment, Diffraction, Natalie Leblanc, Valerie Triggs, Rita Irwin

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

The three of us have shared co-mentoring relationships over the last decade. Rita was the PhD supervisor for both Natalie and Valerie and while working with them and other PhD students, came to believe that goals are reciprocal in many ways. In this article, we attend to the concept of co-mentoring, an exchange that includes three qualities guiding ongoing artistic, professional and scholarly work. These subversive qualities are described as: a) duration, b) discernment, and c) diffraction. From a practice-based, new materialist lens, we take turns describing how each quality is important to co-mentoring relationships and we provide theoretical …

Exploring Public Space: Interventionist Artworks And The Creative Disruption Of The Everyday, Jack Watson

High School Resources

1. Attempting to bridge a gap between artist and spectator while also challenging the elitism and preciousness associated with art, artists have long sought ways to blend the art experience into the everyday. From the ephemeral performances and “social sculptures” of 20th century conceptual art to the culture-jamming interventions of contemporary street art, there is a rich historical context for engaging directly with the spectator in public spaces. Taking artwork into public spaces in the form of actions rather than objects – actions which involve the participation of the spectator – bypasses the negotiations and mediations that take place when a …

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Jane Addams, Hull-House, And The “Danger” Of Women’S Work, Melanie L. Buffington, Courtnie N. Wolfgang, Pamela G. Taylor

The Melanie Buffington Papers

In this paper, we investigate the work of Jane Addams and Hull-House, through Cornel West’s (1999) ideas of prophetic pragmatism. In accordance with West’s writings, we consider the importance of investigating the historical underpinnings of what we believe to be true, while at the same time questioning existing practices, and considering where and from whose work these practices originate. Addams and Hull-House were revolutionary during their time and their work resulted in major neighborhood and community reform. Additionally, through the open forums and frequent visitors to Hull-House, the work there influenced many of Addams’ contemporaries, including John Dewey. Yet, historically, …

Mother/Artist/Teacher: The Labor Of Becoming, Miranda L. Clayton

Theses and Dissertations

This paper explores possible applications of the experiential knowledge of motherhood in the field of art education through self-portraiture, a methodology which blends a/r/tography with elements of portraiture. A review of relevant literature situates the study within the scope of mothering pedagogy and arts-based research. Employing artistic practice and anecdotal journaling as the primary methods of inquiry, the researcher examines her experiences as a mother in a preservice art education program and the intersections of her roles as mother/artist/teacher. The researcher identifies resonant metaphors, including labor, separation, the umbilical cord, circles, the ovum, and pretending; offers parallels between mothering and …

Drawing As Language, Rebecca B. Whitson

Theses and Dissertations

All too often, the “I can’t draw” sentiment is believed by both the frustrated adolescent and adult alike. This is especially evident within the school environment. This paper aims to discuss how visual art --specifically drawing-- is structured, formed and expressed as a type of language, similar to a verbal, written, or physical one. This may give hope to even the most reluctant drawer that they can learn how to draw, opening another means of communication. An individual attains fluency when they are adept at drawing through the use of expression, technical, and observational skills, through practice and motivation, and …

An Autoethnographic Journey Through Craftivism: Making With/For Meaning, Virginia H. Brinn

Theses and Dissertations

Through this dissertation, I set out to investigate how craftivism as a way of making with/for meaning might foster transformative experiences within the discipline of art education. My motivating questions for this research project as I began my qualitative process follow. In what ways does my art-making inform my teaching practice? How do both my art and teaching practice inform my research practice? In what ways does my feminist identity impact these practices, ways of thinking and knowing, and the process of becoming who I am? And why is this research relevant to the field of art education? Given the …

Cultivating A Democratic Community In The Elementary Art Classroom, Kelly Fergus

Theses and Dissertations

Cultivating a more socially just, democratic classroom community is a best pedagogical practices qualitative case study. This study is designed to explore how three Virginia elementary art teachers define and create a democratic classroom community, inside their art rooms, through the implementation of various instructional strategies within the physical, social-cultural, and pedagogical spaces of their classrooms. Such instructional strategies may include a shift in power dynamics, student-centered art, choice-based art, and a big idea/real-world issue-orientated curriculum (ex: visual culture, social justice, democratic pedagogies). Each of the three selected participants were interviewed and asked to describe their classroom practices as well …

Teaching About Racially Diverse Artists And Cultures, Hannah Sions

Theses and Dissertations

Art education scholars have redefined multicultural teaching practices to include a need for addressing social inequities. To understand art educators’ multicultural teaching practices, it is important to measure the extent to which they present cultural diversity in the classroom and present a racially diverse pool of artists. The purpose of this this quantitative, nonexperimental study was to measure the extent to which practicing K–12 art educators who are members of the National Art Education Association (NAEA) engage students with racially diverse artists and cultures within their curricula. The study aimed to measure the extent that educators address racial and cultural …

The Unity Mural: Bridging Communities Through Artmaking, Margaret A. Walker

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

A visual essay of a community based art education mural between two universities and a local community, following a tragic hate crime.

Older Artists And Acknowledging Ageism, Liz Langdon

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

Intergenerational (IG) learning has the potential to reinforce ageist ideas, through the culturally produced binary of old and young which often describes IG learning. This research with older artists revealed implicit age bias associated with a modernist tradition in art education which minimized the value of art production viewed as feminine. Language associated with ageism shares the descriptors of the feminine and seep into our perceptions. Cooperative action research with multi-age participants facilitated personal growth and through critical reflection, implicit ageism revealed in the researcher’s prior perspective is revealed.