In this article, we explore changing definitions of kitsch and simultaneously examine the relevance of kitsch to contemporary society. Using a number of examples, including a focus on kitsch related to September 11, 2001, we explore the current popularity of kitsch in society. We analyze the growth and influence of kitsch in everyday life and in…

At the same time as the postmodern call to reexamine traditional notions of scholarship blazed new paths through many disciplines, art museum education was a field in transition. From the 1970s through the mid 1990s, the writings of art museum educators revealed changing and contested beliefs regarding their pedagogical purposes. This study…

This article explores home decorating magazines as gendered pedagogical sites that are especially concerned with art education. First, it describes the wider economic conditions in which these magazines fulfill functions of promoting longing and consumption related to the home. Then, it considers learner/teacher relations and the kinds of…

This article examines the relationship between globalization and postmodern multicultural art education. The questions that drive my investigation are: What is the role of postmodern multiculturalism in this current phase of globalization and what challenges does globalization pose for multiculturalism? I explore the shifts in the field of art…

This article is based on five case studies of art teaching in Israel in a situation of constant violent conflict. It presents the art teachers' practices and beliefs about coping with their students' experiences of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Three approaches to art education in this context are identified: a) art creation as an act of…

This article examines the process of graphic representational development in paint in the context of the theoretical assumptions of traditional developmental stage theory. Consistent with current theory and research in art education and cognitive psychology, a model of painting development is proposed that is multidimensional rather than unitary,…

This lecture is based on a dozen articles that Enid Zimmerman had published in Studies in Art Education as author and co-author from 1977 to the present as well as several articles that are in-progress. She makes an analogy of this body of research to a body of work produced by a practicing artist. She also refers to the intellectual climate in…

This article examines positions in favor of the inclusion of popular culture in an education curricula by Vincent Lanier, June King McFee, Laura Chapman, and Brent and Marjory Wilson. It is argued that their work, both individually and collectively, focused on the realm of the everyday and helped posit popular cultural images as legitimate objects…

Room 13 is a Scottish primary school art group that is largely pupil managed, where learners have a designated "drop-in" space (Room 13) with artists-in-residence and make art that is engaged with contemporary practices. Using this example, I argue that this is an artist-teacher and artist-learner configuration that represents emerging resistance…

Spirituality is becoming an increasingly significant aspect of contemporary art education theory. The manner in which one conceives of holistic art education curricula is partially shaped by one's understanding of a more spiritual approach to reflective thinking and practice in teacher education. Definitions of reflective practice and…

In the West we are accustomed to thinking of knowledge largely on the basis of vision, which is distant and objective, a perspective that posits the separation of mind and body. In contrast, theories of touch pose a proximinal understanding of knowledge production. It informs how we experience body knowledge as encounters between beings. Body…

This article reflects on the reading and writing of an art education curriculum for teacher education centred on the biographical and social reconstruction of childhood. The foundations of this curriculum interconnect ideas from different fields like postmodern childhood studies, visual studies, and the performance of subjectivity and memory. This…

The issue raised by the authors in this article question why studio art continues to be ignored as a site and source for research in art education. The necessity of the field to be able to participate within the research community in addressing cultural, social, educational and political concerns is acknowledged. It is argued, however, that the…

This article will begin by seeking to define the notion of learning "by, through" and "from" experience. A linkage will then be established between these notions of experiences and gestalt theory. This will be explored within a subject specific context of graphic design. Links will be highlighted between the inherent nature of graphic design and…

This article based on my doctoral thesis examines the Basic Arts Education system in Finland, focusing on Basic Crafts Education and its description through action concepts. The main task of the study was to create a concept model. In the first part of the study a concept map was created from the practice of Basic Crafts Education. The aim of the…