The way archaeologists use tools and draw inferences about them to disembed meaning from artworks is examined. The prehistoric rock paintings of the Lower Pecos River (Texas) are used to illustrate these ideas. An overview of this rock art, specifically the Amistad reservoir, is provided. The deductions of archaeologists about the semi-nomadic…

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)

Explores the sources of art criticism and reviews some extant pedagogical models. Outlines the content skills to be developed and the role of art criticism in a discipline-based teacher training curriculum. Recommends that art criticism should incorporate pedagogy and other disciplines of art. (KM)

Presents six position statements for developing a multicultural arts curriculum. Suggests strategies for implementing curricula and resources for gathering community information. Provides examples of implementation, including a sample interview to use with artists and sample questions to ask students when analyzing works of art. (KM)

Reviews two curriculum frameworks--one developed by Elliot Eisner and Elizabeth Vallance and the second by Henry A. Giroux, Anthony N. Penna, and William F. Pinar--as a context for reconsidering conflicting notions about nature and purpose of art teaching. Discusses discipline-based art education (DBAE), suggesting that controversies over…

Questions whether art educators are using outmoded, traditional methods in a nontraditional world. Contends that teachers must be appreciative of art's eclectic nature and its ability to help students understand contemporary society. Asserts that the relationship between the art teacher and the student must be both active and reflective. (CFR)

Strategies for organizing and sequencing peace education programs in art education are explored. First, the concept of peace and the development of peace education are examined. The affirmation of peace as life, justice, and freedom contains four areas of study for art education: (1) human relations; (2) cultural diversity; (3) the environment;…

This ERIC digest explores aspects of post-modernism in art and art education. The adoption of post-modern attitudes by art educators must result in the generation of different, but no less difficult questions about the nature of formal education. Support for this argument comes from recent art education publications supplemented by relevant, but…

This report documents the proceedings from the second series of regional roundtable discussions sponsored by the Getty Center for Education in the Arts. These roundtables were established to provide a forum in which people could discuss aspects of Discipline-Based Art Education (DBAE). The topics of these roundtables were as follows: Roundtable I…

The character of art criticism, both how it naturally occurs and how it is academically constructed, is reflective of social and aesthetic value orientations--much as the art object itself has been found to be a clue to the values of the society in which it is practiced, used, and appreciated. The belief that the art object possesses…

Reviews various curriculum materials and approaches to art instruction considered to be the antecedents of discipline-based art education (DBAE). Focuses on the recent history of art education in the United States, reviewing the principal curriculum projects and ideas of influential art educators. Concludes with recommendations for furthering…

Proposes an art curriculum framework that reduces aesthetics to three theories of art: imitationalist, formalist, and emotionalist. Fits each theory into the curriculum at the appropriate developmental stage of the student. Applies these theories to art criticism, art history, and studio production. (LS)

Written by teachers from the United States and Canada, these lesson plans focus on integrating the teaching of history and art history. Seventeen lesson plans cover the topics of (1) Slavery, Henry Ossawa Tanner, and His Family--Grades: Elementary; (2) Chinese Landscape Painting--Grades: Elementary; (3) Regionalism: American Art of the Great…

This document provides art information with a range of applications for Arizona preschool teachers, administrators, and parents to guide them in their development of an appropriate, preschool art curriculum. Three primary goals are endorsed: (1) making art; (2) looking at and talking about art; and (3) art in culture and history. Instruction in…

The study of Native American rock art should be more fully incorporated into art education and art history curricula, especially at the precollege level. Rock art is a sensitive reflection of the culture from which it sprang, it provides one of the most direct links with ancient lifeways and ideas recorded by early ancestors, and as a form of…