Discusses hosting a Dia de Los Muertos, or a Day of the Dead, procession and festival to remember victims of school or community violence. Traditionally, the festival is a means for life embracing death and of honoring the dead. Describes the procession and festival and addresses the making of altars. (CMK)

Focuses on the questionnaire results and class discussion with Acadia High School (Scottsdale, Arizona) students, aged 16 to 19 years old, exploring the aesthetic values present at shopping malls. Explains that students were also invited to meet in the mall to locate and photograph examples. (CMK)

Comments on the article, "The Unexplored: Art Education Historians' Failure to Consider the Southwest" (Peter Smith). Discusses art education sources on historical research that were omitted from the article. Addresses the difficulties in the value placed on historical research in the southwestern United States. (CMK)

Reports on insights about sociocultural influences on Brazilian children's drawings, using visual anthropology to examine children's drawings that depicted what they like to do. Discusses visual anthropology, provides information on Brazilian educational influences, and presents the context and findings of the study. (CMK)

The purpose of this study is to describe, analyze, and interpret through participant observation the teaching of art to Amish eighth graders in a public school. The description of what and how art is taught by a non-Amish art teacher raises questions of appropriate content, patterning of instruction, strategies for developing perceptual awareness…

Classroom teachers have stereotypes and myths about art education that seem to arise for various reasons including a range of backgrounds, interests, and lack of art experiences; diversity and contradiction of preferences; expectations for an easy course and high grades; and preconceptions about art and art teaching. This latter category includes…

The paper describes a participant observation study of a 3 week summer art program for Apache middle school students on the White Mountain Reservation. Computer art skills, specifically animation using a menu-driven computer paint program, were the focus of the investigation. Because it was in the context of a summer program, instruction was…

This paper looks at how a Brazilian educator implemented Paolo Freire's notion of critical pedagogy. The study describes Brazil's historical background, previous educational conditions, Freire's educational ideas translated into art education, and preservice education. Through participant observation, the study documents the practice of an art…

This participant observation study describes how one beginning, bi-lingual, Puerto Rican, elementary art teacher instructs a class of Puerto Rican, inner-city children. The study concentrates on the types and frequency of teaching behaviors that occur for a beginning teacher; cultural perspectives that affect instruction, content selection, and…

Maintains that storytelling is an ancient instructional method that can be used effectively by contemporary art educators. Presents a narrative by a six-year-old Navajo girl that describes a typical school day. Includes suggestions for using the story to teach about cultural differences and cultural change. (CFR)

Educational assessment is more than measurement, rubrics, and grades. Its real focus needs to be on learning. Art educators need to pay attention to the assessment of daily learning as well. Everyday assessment of classroom learning is crucial because it provides feedback directly to students in the process of their learning, more than mere…

The experiences of 11 gifted and talented adolescents who participated in a two-week summer microcomputer graphics course at Indiana University are described based on course observations by the author. Focus is on technical and aesthetic course expectations and on psychological and contextual considerations of the teacher and the students. (RM)

Explores the problems of teaching art to preadolescents by taking into account the experiences and reflections of the teachers, students, and the researcher. Uses cross-site analysis and categorizes the problems into three groups: (1) contradictions in student behaviors; (2) instructional demands; and (3) institutional contingencies. Includes…

This paper describes a microethnographic pilot study describing, analyzing, and interpreting how culture is transmitted and retained in one Navajo public school system. The study is both historically and educationally significant because it presents a portrait of the everyday realities of art teaching and learning in a school system during a…

Briefly discusses the role that rites of passage play in traditional cultures and considers the possibilities inherent in incorporating this social concept into middle school art projects. Defines middle school as a transitional stage in adolescent development characterized by institutional and personal separation that lends itself to these…