No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has changed the face of education in America. Now that the law is coming up for renewal, it is time to deal with the problems and inequities it has created. In this article, the author discusses the two factors at work that NCLB has failed to address: the student and the parent. She also discusses how art can help in…

Education is never a passive, autonomous, or static activity. It manipulates, as much as it is manipulated, and reflects specific contexts. Education histories document continuities and changes over time, and are able to throw light on and inform contemporary practice. Prompted by perspectives on curriculum as a social and cultural construction,…

The discourse of aesthetics appears repeatedly throughout literature in art education and is employed frequently through K-12 classroom practice. This article discusses the use and uselessness of the discourse of aesthetics in art education. Discourse, as used in this article, refers to the specific term "aesthetics," and all the individual and…

Art educators have acknowledged for a long time the importance of the study of images and visual elements in the lives of children and the field of art education. This is even more evident today as the discipline moves to embrace notions of "visual culture," which emphasize exploring and studying all the things that visibly shape lives. In spite…

This article addresses the issue of Caribbean cultural under-representation in school art departments. It argues that diasporic subjects are not seen and their cultures not recognised precisely because their contributions to the way we live are indivisible from the mainstream. This in contradistinction to some groups whose cultures and heritages…

The author maintains that art is a social product and that, in the teaching of or about the arts, the social setting in which the arts exist must be acknowledged. She discusses British developments in the sociology of art. (Paper presented at the Aesthetic Education Conference, London, September 1980.) (Editor/SJL)

Relying solely on explanations of an art object's characteristics as a basis for judging its value is educationally misleading. Students also need to understand that value judgments are bestowed by people and that these justifications of "good" art are conditioned by the viewer's social milieu and beliefs about art. (Author/SJL)

Responsive evaluation offers a perspective in which evaluation is reframed from the assessment of program interventions on the basis of policy makers' goals to an engagement with and among all stakeholders about the value and meaning of their practice. Responsive evaluators have to be extra sensitive to power relations given the deliberate…

Tracing the changing concept of child art from the theories of Rousseau to the present, the author expounds the view that the interpretation of child art and the content of art education are functions of the social issues surrounding adult art in a given culture. (Author/SJL)

Argues that developments over the past twenty-five years in feminist art, art criticism, and action have allowed insights into the work of women artists. Explores feminist artwork, feminist context(s), and the author's personal development as a woman, artist, teacher, and participant in the communities that affected her development. (DSK)

Addresses the teaching of color symbolism and asserts that racism is embodied and perpetuated through conventional notions of black and white symbolism. Discusses a project with two eighth grade classes, focusing on the discussion of color symbolism in school and popular culture. Considers the importance of analyzing contemporary languages of…

Provides background information on the effects of innovations in art materials on artists and their artwork. Introduces the 2003-2004 Clip and Save Art Prints that focus on innovative uses of art materials. Includes examples by artists such as Alfonso Ossorio. (CMK)

Evaluates the report "The Quiet Evolution: Changing the Face of Arts Education," which documents the results from the evaluation of the Regional Institute Grants. Examines the evaluation protocol. Asserts that the report should have addressed forward-looking reappraisals. Addresses the influence on arts education of emergent models of cultural and…

At present, art-educational research seems locked into a number of unexamined assumptions--largely derived from European Romantic ideology--about artistic productiveness as a desirable psychological trait. We need to know more about other cultural patterns of artistic behavior and the historic and social factors that influence them. (Author/SJL)

Discusses television's influence on today's youth culture and examines measures that may be taken to limit or change the nature of that influence. Warns that efforts to control television programing will continue to fail until educators understand that television is an integral part of the youth culture, not just an influence.(KO)