In this article, the author discusses the combined artistry of third, fourth, and fifth graders as they illuminate a formerly dark corner of their school's entry plaza with a sparkling mosaic mural. The students worked in small groups to form the letters of the alphabet on 12" x 15" (30.5 x 38 cm) panels of cement board decorated with flat-backed…

This article discusses the development and implementation of a district-wide mural project that would highlight the strength of the arts and encourage collaboration between all the art teachers, students of multiple ages, and the community. Over 350 students, exhibited their talents and skills by collaborating on a three-paneled ceramic mural that…

This article reports how corporations and local businesses can be considered as motivators for the art programs that art teachers create. This industry can provide resources for the implementation of unique artistic endeavors. The art competition sponsored by the Huffines Auto Dealerships to middle and high school students in Denton, Lewisville,…

"From Good to Great--Stevenson Grows Wild" was an art and ecology project created by the teachers, students, and staff at Robert Louis Stevenson Elementary School in Grandview Heights, Ohio, in Spring 2002. This schoolyard habitat redevelopment was organized by the school librarian, three fourth-grade teachers, a graduate student, and the author…

The question at the heart of this reflection on the Brown v. Board of Education decision is one proposed by the author's former professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, William Watkins. He asked graduate students to keep their attention on "Who's got the biscuits?" And, by extension, to remember to ask, "Who's getting the crumbs?" It…

Hauntology refers to spectral traces, phantom voices, and palimpsestic discourses that help construct a way of understanding ourselves and acting in the world. This essay explores the hauntological shifts within art education's struggle over popular (visual) culture through a review of positions that view popular culture as an embodiment of…

Art museums in the United States have undergone profound changes since the 1980s. Have the qualifications and professional preparation of art museum educators changed as well? This article focuses on these qualifications from five points of view: a) the changing context of art museums in transition from object-centered to visitor-centered…

This is an exploratory, design-based study of the development and implementation of an online art unit designed to teach for transfer. Secondary art teachers implemented a traditional and then a revised Web version of the unit. Four kinds of knowledge (content, procedural, strategic, and dispositional) provide the structure for reporting: a)…

In this article, I portray the status of visual art education in United States public elementary schools between 1997 and 2004. I report on trends in state policies and interpret data from a national survey of elementary principals, visual art specialists, and classroom teachers. I also provide information on public opinion about arts education,…

This article is based on nearly 25 years of working with and studying folk art and folk artists. While certified art educators and their university teachers may think they are inclusive in their understandings about art and learning processes, generally speaking, they are either unaware or tend to ignore folk artists' ways of understanding the…

This cross-site, collaborative study focused on the instructional practices of three middle school art teachers from Arizona, Indiana, and New York. The researchers found similarities as well as differences among the teachers' strategies. At all three sites, emphasis was on curriculum related to their students' lives, developing technical skills,…

The author argues that "substantive" art integration harmonizes with contemporary postmodern thought in art education and represents a strategy for teaching art in a postmodern way. Bringing together theories from cognitive science and metaphor theory (specifically connection and projection), the author shows how substantive integration promotes…

In this response to Arthur Efland's article, "The Entwined Nature of the Aesthetic: A Discourse of Visual Culture" ("Studies in Art Education," 2004, 45(3), 234-251), the author acknowledges that Efland's attempt to find a middle ground between two rival versions of art education--aesthetic education and visual culture--is both welcome and needed.…

The Bauhaus Vorkurs (Foundation Course) is discussed as a versatile, enduring prototype for combining art, design, and architectural studio education in the American K-12 curriculum. The history of the Vorkurs is reviewed, from its pedagogical roots in Froebelian ideas, to its establishment and modifications between 1919 and 1933, to the…

In this article, I use data collected from research conducted in the summer of 2001 at the Grass Roots Arts and Community Effort (GRACE) in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. I present case studies of artists with developmental disabilities, who along with other isolated groups, are considered to be Outsider Artists. I begin the article by defining…