Arts, Humanities and Social Studies Group
Research Focus Areas
These are the initial draft explorations of specific research focus areas in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Studies branch of the Ph.D. in Urban Education proposal. The various areas should be read as part of a larger interdisciplinary context that refers back to the overview statement for the AHSS Group.
Art Education Research
Museums as brokers of cultural resources
Challenges to the traditional museum structure, function, purpose and mission.
Access and diverse perspectives.
Changing conceptions of human growth and development
Examining the role of the senses, emotions, intellect and culture in artistic development.
How they are basic to the design and implementation of the visual art curriculum.
Comparative education: international perspectives in art education
Underlying beliefs, values and practices that have influenced art pedagogy in various societies.
The artist as teacherthe teacher as artist
Lessons from the studio: the practices and processes, and the tools, materials and skills needed for creating and communicating; portfolios.
The invisible made visible: alternative perspectives; multiple solutions; taking risks; working with ambiguities, metaphors and symbols; improvisation and imagination; interpretations.
Variations on a theme, encounter with self, encounters in teaching.
Joint inquiry-collaborative themes: working with others.
Approaches to interdisciplinary teaching and learning
Developing authentic connections between and among the arts, as well as the other disciplines.
Content in visual arts education: emphases and balance
Art history, art criticism and aesthetics - versus the studio component.
Discipline-based art education: critique and counter-critique.
Aesthetics and connections to moral, civic and political values.
Mandates for standards, accountability and assessment: the impact on art education
Connecting the art world to the art classroom
New forms, new materials, media and technology.
Shifting categories: popular culture, crafts, folk art, outsider art.
Post Modernism: challenging expectations.
Pushing boundaries-blurring boundaries-extending the frontiers of art and teaching.
The inclusive curriculum in art: redefining and expanding categories
The gifted and talented, children at risk and children with special needs.
Issues of identity, class, race and gender.
The arts and society: revolution, repression and social change
Freedom of expression: limits and censorship.
The artist as social critic and as visionary for change and utopia.
The urban context: the city as construct and as a stage
Special precincts, global spaces and interrelationships.
Cityscapes, landscapes and mindscapes.
Space as a fundamental ordering system; a center for a discourse of purpose and possibility, for the public and the private connections.
Research Topics
Moving from theory to practice
How have issues of cultural diversity affected practices in art history, aesthetics criticism and the studio.
How does one become fluent in a culture?
How does one address the aesthetics that are unique to a particular culture?
Art education in the United States
Modes of historical inquiry
Philosophies and movements that have shaped the art curriculum in the schools.
Approaches to creativity, imagination and self expression
Redefining skill, ability and attitudes.
Theoretical frameworks: implications for teaching and learning.
Seminars. Frameworks for Research and Curriculum Design
I. How process, form and meaning interact.
Students will chose a concentration in a major studio area such as painting, sculpture or photography. This offers students the opportunity to enrich and extend their own professional competence as artists and will inform their teaching in the creative arts.
II. Connections to the art communities: collaborations, partnerships and cooperative ventures. Schools, museums, alternative and non-traditional sites as well as various other cultural institutions
Opportunities to observe, participate and to help implement change in art education.
III. Philosophy, art history, aesthetics and art criticism
Upper level courses offering opportunities for in -depth study in selected research areas in their discipline. Selections should include contemporary art, American architecture and urbanism, and non-Western art.
Bibliography
Arnheim, Rudolf. (1969). Visual Thinking. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Danto, Arthur. (1981). The Transfiguration of the Commonplace: A Philosophy of Art. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and Education. New York: Collier Books.
Dissanayake, E. (1992). Homo aestheticus: Where Art Come From and Why. New York: Free Press.
Efland, Arthur. (1990). A History of Art Education: Intellectual and Social Currents in Teaching the Visual Arts. New York: Teachers College Press.
Eisner, Elliot. (1998). The Enlightened Eye: Qualitative Inquiry and the Enhancement of Educational Practice. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc..
Goodman, Nelson. (1976). Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Greene, Maxine. (1995). Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts, and Social Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Maquet, Jacques. (1988). The Aesthetic Experience: An Anthropologist Looks at the Visual Arts. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Osborne, Harold. (1970). Aesthetics and Art Theory: A Historical Introduction. New York: E.P. Dutton.
Sack, Robert D. (1980). Conceptions of Space in Social Thought: A Geographic Perspective. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Smith, Ralph A. (1995). Excellence II: The continuing Quest in Art Education. Reston, VA: The National Art Education Association.
Winner, Ellen. (1982). Invented Worlds: The Psychology of the Arts. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Journals
Art Education, The National Art Education Association
Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, the American Society for Aesthetics
Journal of Aesthetic Education, University of Illinois Press
Journal of Multicultural and Cross-Cultural Research in Art Education, Untied States Society for Education through Art
Studies in Art Education: A Journal of Issues and Research in Art Education, The National Art Education Association
Visual Art Research, University of Illinois
Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, Wolfson Institute