Focusing on Lichtwark's concept of museology, this article shows what role he envisaged for art in public life at a time when the rise of mass consumption and popular culture created new lifestyles. Lichtwark's concept of artistic and aesthetic education did not only extend to museums and classrooms but also to dilettantism as a basis for…

How can museum educators create dialogical experiences with European decorative arts? This question frames my essay and stems from the challenges I have faced introducing objects whose original functions seem to overshadow their aesthetic and interpretive value. Repeated efforts to spark rich dialogue and collective interpretation around pieces of…

We investigated the impact of inquiry instruction within a well-established, yearlong, studio-focused high school student program based at a contemporary art museum in the southwestern United States. The pretest and posttest focused students' attention on the work of two different contemporary artists and used the same prompts to solicit student…

This article describes the development and implementation of a program at the Jewish Museum in Vienna, "Einfach so? So Einfach" (It's that easy? Yes!), in which students are asked to photograph works that interest them, either because they like the works or because they do not. The works selected by the students make up the discussion…

Professional guidelines for English language arts call for the integration of multimodal literacy in the curriculum (National Council of Teachers of English, 2005). These guidelines are grounded in the belief that all meaning-making systems (e.g., visual, linguistic, spatial) are equally valuable. Each has unique potential that, when used…

We consider the phenomenon of social interactions within the art museum, arguing that even the bare possibility of meeting others or intruding into their gaze can have a profoundly detrimental effect on art experience. This is done by tracing a finding from our previous studies in which we considered three museum galleries--each with the same…

Nowadays Mobile technologies in Museums and especially in Art Museums are a popular way of communication with their audiences. These kinds of technologies have a high communicative potential and also could be a tool for marketing, information, engagement and learning as well. However with regards how these resources explain the meaning of works of…

When one walks into an art gallery in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, one sees a predominantly non-Ugandan audience. Visitors to homes of Ugandans, even those wealthy enough to afford art, find typically bare walls. This begs broader questions: (1) What is it about the education and presentation of contemporary art that excludes local…

In this article, we use two studies conducted in art museum settings as a means to discuss some of the opportunities and challenges for the field of informal art education. The first study explores artmaking processes that take place in a children's museum, highlighting the need to consider the social nature of learning in informal environments.…

This paper examines the progressive understanding of art advanced by Albert Barnes, and asks how the educational vision for his large collection of art might be preserved as it has now moves from its location in the idyllic suburban setting in Merion, PA to the hustle and bustle of central Philadelphia. I submit that the vision will be endangered…

The visual arts can be an important and rich domain of learning for young children. In PreK education, The Task Force on Children's Learning and the Arts: Birth to Age Eight ("Young children and the arts: Making creative connections", Washington, DC: Arts Education Partnership, 1998) recommends that art experiences for young children…

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.…

In this article, the author describes the learning her students gained from their field trip to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Chicago. On their trip to MCA, her fourth-grade students discovered new and surprising ways to approach the work of artist Dan Flavin.

Article discusses the photography of Paul Strand and describes an exhibition of some abstract expressionists. (GB)

Discusses the founding, development, and issues surrounding the Barnes Foundation and its art collection, specifically designed for art education. Also discusses myths about Albert C. Barnes, the Barnes Foundation, and its relationship to the ideas of John Dewey. (CFR)