Discipline-based art education (DBAE) can best be understood as a curriculum construct if it is seen in the context of traditional, major curriculum orientations. The three major curriculum orientations are child-centered orientation, society-centered orientation, and subject-centered orientation. DBAE is a contemporary construct of the subject-centered orientation. Its focus is on developing students' capacities for improving skills in art making activities and improved understanding of related studies including aesthetics, art criticism, and art history. Critics of DBAE have charged that it excludes child-centered or society-centered curriculum orientations. This booklet responds that viewed as a curriculum construct, DBAE is coherent, but not always complete. DBAE can take its place beside child-centered and society-centered orientations to art education. The history behind the emergences of DBAE is discussed in detail. Considerable attention is paid to how DBAE (and other curriculum perspectives) address the main components of the art curriculum--content, student, teacher, and setting. (DB)