Describes different systems of art education for different student populations, professional art training, historical changes in art education, art education research, aesthetic education, and art education as it is currently practiced in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (RK)

This paper focuses on the cognitive and social functions of art and the role that art plays in communicating social and personal values. It shows how art criticism can play an important part in the education of all students by fostering critical thinking related to art history, art production, and aesthetics. (Author/JDH)

Examines the recent emphasis on aesthetics, which goes beyond the scope of a didactics of art education, stating that it is a symptom of the German cultural-historical situation. Sketches tentative approaches to research questions on aesthetic education. Questions whether aesthetic education must be conceived in the form of reflections on…

Examines the role of the National Endowment for the Arts in determining art education policy, stating that the organization has become increasingly political and has failed to realize its early promise. Argues that the arts should be regarded and taught as a humanity. Advocates an "excellence curriculum" for secondary art education. (GEA)

The author critiques Smith's assertions that (1) there is such a thing as elitism in an educational context, (2) artwork can engender a heightened experience and (3) the careful choosing of exemplary pieces of art as instructional materials for art education is necessary to help students achieve the aesthetic experience. (RM)

Official policy in many developing nations includes making "national culture" the central force for unifying support for the government and getting rid of foreign influences in the arts. But qualitative criteria, not ideology, should be used in the formation of educational policy concerning what will be taught in the arts. (RM)

This paper contends that visual aesthetic education (VAE) is intended for all and ought to be granted to adolescents capable of autonomous criticism and vocational clarification by the age of 15. The paper introduces VAE's essential concepts and historical developments. The paper identifies and elaborates nine challenges facing VAE. Contains a…

Art education should be concerned with five categories of behavior: starting, orienting, assimilating, symbolizing and completing. Through these behaviors man develops his intuitive structures of comprehension, awareness, openness, and emotion. The author develops a more comprehensive model in rationale than the six models he examines. (VW)

The focus of this special issue is how art facilitates the cognitive maturation of the child. In the last 20 years, the copious research conducted in the field of children's art and artistic development underscores that children's intellectual, as well as emotional development, is of long-standing and continuing interest. (RM)

Education through art or any other subject will not automatically humanize anyone. The effect that art and art education can have on individuals and on society depends to a large extent upon the social responsibility or the moral stance of the teacher, the parent, and the artist. (Author)

In this keynote address to the 1980 National Art Education Association National Convention, the author suggests a redirection of art education. He proposes a redefinition of the scope and purpose of art education, outlines a dialog curriculum for aesthetic literacy, and considers ways of dealing with the arts bureaucracy. (SJL)

Capitulation to the view that arts education is not the school's responsibility will remove from the school what it needs most: activities and problems that stimulate the imagination, tasks that celebrate ambiguity, prize sensitivity, and encourage children to take intellectual risks. (Author)

The task of this project was to evaluate a course which was more practical than intellectual, more involved with processes than with products, more diversified in student activities than usual, and less explicit than usual in its assessment criteria. The evaluation concentrated on the students' view of the course. (Author/CTM)

Identification of gifted students and the planning and operation of an arts program are discussed, as well as teacher characteristics and teaching methods for working with the gifted. (PHR)

Explores how art education can enhance the mental abilities and educational needs of older adults. Maintains that the postformal operations development stage may be helpful in art studies. Suggests that older adults could study the meaning of their life experience as well as their place in culture. (KM)