Volume 1, No. 2, of "Studies in Art Education," appearing in spring 1960, included an article by Viktor Lowenfeld titled "Creative Intelligence." Here, he highlighted his belief in the importance of creative intelligence to human functioning, linking it to creative practice as represented most purely in the artworks of children and untutored…

This essay argues for a fundamental change in the direction of art, its education and research that draws on Alain Badiou's notion of "inaesthetics" and negative affirmation as well as Deleuze's reorientation of "aesthetics." I draw on the inspiration of Vincent Lanier's critical spirit and Irwin Kaufmann's ideas on art, creativity, and research…

Arts-based researchers distinguish themselves from other qualitative researchers on the grounds that they use artistic processes and practices in their inquiries and in the communication of their research outcomes. Like artists, they operate out of a particular community of practice, with its own distinctive history of emergence, set of…

"Eternal return" is a condition that characterizes the world of art education and its scholarship, though it seems that the phenomenon goes largely unnoticed by many writing in the field today. The failure to name our work as part of an existing family of ideas, with themes that may date back to the years 1950-1970 or earlier, has implications not…

Reconceptualizing contemporary notions about creativity in visual arts education should be an important issue in art education today. Currently, creativity may not be a primary focus at National Art Education Association conferences or in its publications. There are recent indications that art education is a site where creativity can be developed…

In this commentary, I argue that Kevin Tavin's (2008) use of Lacan's "objet a" in his "Studies in Art Education" commentary "The Magical Quality of Aesthetics" is not a helpful analogy or solution for art education's search for the role of aesthetics. I offer that a pragmatist and dialogic viewpoint may be more useful and, because it describes the…

This article focuses on issues of childhood identity and urban environment. It discusses how a performance art pedagogy inspired by nomadic and relational aesthetics can provide a framework to promote creative learning experiences that address migratory conditions and forms of public alienation lived by young people today. As Lefebvre (1991)…

Postmodern street art operates under a set of references that requires art educators and researchers to adopt alternative analytical frameworks in order to understand its meanings. In this article, we describe social semiotics, critical discourse analysis, and postmodern street performance as well as the relevance of the former two in interpreting…

Research has shown that the study of children's drawings can shed light on certain problems, allowing many invisible sides of children's school life to emerge. Based on the results of that research, this article will study whether the use of drawings, and art in general, could lead to the reduction of social and academic marginalization and to the…

Historically, the majority of studies on children's image making have emphasized the appraisal of children's graphic development and/or the artistic qualities of children's pictures, thereby assigning them the status of self-contained visual artifacts and objects of analysis in their own right. However, such a product-oriented paradigm of inquiry…

This article reports on a study of creativity in art education, and more particularly, what teaching and learning to be creative implies. The study employs Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of the habitus, symbolic capital, and misrecognition. These concepts are demonstrably relevant for understanding creativity as a kind of social reasoning that is…

Drawing upon Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, neuroscience brain research, and the practices of contemporary artists Ann Hamilton, Jasper Johns, Elizabeth Murray, and Oliver Herring, this article argues for the relevance of conscious and unconscious knowledge in artistic practice. Parallels drawn between Lacanian psychoanalytic clinical practice…

This article is a philosophical argument that seeks to contribute to the field of art education by contributing toward and justifying a different aesthetic philosophy to support the use of visual culture in art education. Using the theoretical changes in art history and cultural theory as a backdrop, an aesthetic theory is constructed and labeled…

This article examines the culture wars in the United States and considers their impact on the field of art education. Stretching across virtually ever facet of contemporary culture, these ideologically charged battles over opposing moral values and fundamental belief systems are an intrinsic part of the ongoing struggle to define and control U.S.…

Studying imagery, irrespective of the kind, must focus equally upon its aesthetic attractiveness, its sensory lures, and its oftentimes dubious social ideology. The terms "aesthetic" and "ideology" are addressed as problematic and are defined in current, ordinary language terms: aesthetics as visual appearances and their effects and ideology as a…