With increasing emphasis on multicultural art education and integrative pedagogy, educators have incorporated community resources, such as cultural artifacts exhibited in art museums, to enrich their programs. Cultural artifacts are human-made objects which generally reveal historic information about cultural values, beliefs, and traditions.…

Art educators, like many other educators born or socialized within the main-stream culture of a society, seldom have an opportunity to identify, question, and challenge their cultural values, beliefs, assumptions, and perspectives because school culture typically reinforces those they learn at home and in their communities (Bush & Simmons, 1990).…

An art curriculum is a composite of cultural expressions, the values and experiences that students and teachers bring with them into the classroom, and the social contexts of the learning environment (Kraehe, 2010). In developing art curricular materials, educators are encouraged to integrate a diversity of cultural perspectives. The contemporary…

In this article, the author explores how the growing interest in creativity and entrepreneurialism, argued as primary 21st-century skills (Florida, 2002), encourages a focus on the competitive individual and a belief in scarcity. She proposes that we de-emphasize market-based success characterized by individuality, competition, and efficiency to…

Cultural understanding is essential to contemporary art education practice, however, there is much confusion about the various lenses through which one should consider the intersection between culture and education. Davenport (2000) distinguishes among four approaches to culture and education that include international-comparative, global,…

Today's art education in East Asia focuses on Western ethnocentric or European ethnocentric art education. These practices reflect the tremendous effect American and European culture has had upon the art education of East Asia, including Korea. Globalization and the information-oriented society in which we live have changed the world. Like many…

For many North Americans, tattoos reflect hopes, values, or beliefs and act as vehicles to communicate those beliefs to others. For some, tattoos offer a means to reclaim a sense of ownership and control over their body. Tattoos are particularly popular with teenagers who explore their identity through experimentation with their outward…

Describes a "critical pedagogy" that encourages reflective self-examination of attitudes, values, and beliefs within historical and cultural critique. Highlights an art lesson for preservice teachers that illustrates the use of a critical pedagogy of representation, focusing on self-portraits by Frida Kahlo and Leonora Carrington. Discusses the…

Kevin Tavin has boldly gone where few would dare--to challenge the usefulness of one of the most cherished ideas in art education, that of aesthetics. The author believes that three of Tavin's arguments are completely sound: What is often offered as an entirely unproblematic idea is deeply implicated in historical repression, art education's…

Considers neopragmatism's use-value for art educators as they inspect the magic words, images, and practices that influence curriculum and instruction. Explains that neopragmatism offers art educators three concepts (contingency, demystification, and recontextualization) as tools to interpret educational beliefs and classroom practices. (CMK)

Considers concepts and terminologies that focus on generalizations concerning traditional African art and cultures. Argues that alternative concepts and terminologies should be used in developing curriculum and in teaching non-Western art. Discusses traditional African religious beliefs, primitivism, and the function of African art objects. (KM)