The Education Departments of Tate Modern and Goldsmiths College collaborated with a group of teachers to find out what they understood by the term "contemporary art" and to discover the conditions that enable contemporary art practices in the classroom. We explored questions with eleven teachers, from both primary and secondary schools, during the…

There is a perception in British universities and art colleges that art students are not very good at writing, that they don't want to write, and furthermore, that writing gets in the way of the real business of making art. These perceptions are reinforced in much of the literature that has been produced about, and in support of, undergraduate art…

In 1999, the Italian Arte Povera artist Michelangelo Pistoletto and other artists laid the foundations of The University of Ideas (UNIDEE), an exceptional international artist-in-residence programme with a strong ideological foundation. As a sociologist of culture I had the opportunity to do research in the huge organization for a month by doing…

This article examines how education could support the formation and establishment of identities. It focuses on museum education and in particular artist interrogations of museum narratives. These interventions into museum pedagogy are critical reworkings of the presentation of cultural histories in dominant narratives. The aim of this research is…

This article takes the subject of visual arts in Sweden as the point of departure in a discussion of how, with the help of portfolios, assessments may extend to include both the unpredictable and the ambiguous. The notion that assessments of learning outcomes must be either limited to superficial knowledge or completely arbitrary is shown to be a…

With the National Foundation for Educational Research concluding that schools which include Contemporary Art Practice (CAP) in their curriculum add significant value to their students' art experience, and at a time when much of the discussion around contemporary art questions the value of the art object itself, this article addresses the question:…

Interior design, as a field of study, is a rapidly growing area of interest--particularly for teenagers in the United States. Part of this interest stems from the proliferation of design-related reality shows available through television media. Some art educators and curriculum specialists in the nation perceive the study of interior spaces as a…

This paper explores and examines a case study based at Ivy Bank Business and Enterprise College, The Imperial War Museum North, and Liverpool John Moores University. This collaboration took place from November 2004 until February 2005 culminating in an exhibition of children's artwork as part of the "Moving Minds" project at the IWM North. This…

This article is about the ways in which young people who have disengaged from learning in school can find a way back through leadership activities in art. It is based on a project which was funded by a small grant from the Wallenberg Foundation. The project explored the potential of an approach to developing positive leadership qualities in pupils…

This article presents the findings from a small scale qualitative study which focused on pupils' perceptions of competence and motivation towards art experienced in school. These are considered as very important in shaping learning and teaching processes. In particular, the article focuses on the role that perceptions of competence play on pupils'…

In this article, the author describes why he teaches art. He explains that he never planned on teaching art, but he enjoys interacting with students and getting to know them. He says that art is unique because students are allowed to talk while still learning. Whether they have pencils or scissors, charcoal or paintbrushes in their hands, or…

In this article, the author discusses the art of memory-based drawing. Memory-based drawing represents but one part of a broad range of activities used in drawing instruction. Other sources involve the use of fantasy, doodling, problem-solving, and illustrating. Other ways of working from one's personal history involve keeping illustrated…

Going to the movies or watching Saturday morning cartoons has become a fixture of contemporary American life, but have you ever stopped to contemplate how those "moving" images on film are conveyed to our eyes and brain? The movement that we see on film is actually a series of still images, every image separated from the next by brief spaces of…

In this article, the author discusses how because of its simple and pure form, folk art appeals to younger students because they identify with its whimsical qualities. She tells the story of how her students enjoyed learning about folk art in her own art class. Projects completed by the students are described in detail in this article.

Spring Grove Public School is the center of a small, rural community, where most activities revolve around or take place in the school. With this idea in mind, the author of this article describes how, as an art teacher, she set out to create a project that would bring this to the attention of not only the students creating it, but also to the…