International Journal of Education Through Art - Volume 3, Issue 1, 2007

Art history process can provide multiple opportunities for primary and secondary school children to experience interdisciplinary learning. Children, like art historians, can express ideas about works of art that go far beyond simple description when they have access to knowledge from multiple fields. In this article I discuss the results of a project conducted in Salvador, Brazil. The aim was to see if Brazilian children, provided with a gateway to exploring a series of Ndop statues from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, were able to experience interdisciplinary learning though the use of art history process combined with computer technology. The results indicate that these children were able to express ideas about the political, historical, cultural and aesthetic signif icance of Ndop statues.

This article describes and interprets an ancient Angolan cultural tradition called Kkl (Kyanda ritual) and explains why researching it was important. Whereas Angola has embarked on school reform policies aimed at ensuring art curricula reflect the culture of the local communities, primary school teachers do not have a working knowledge of local indigenous knowledge systems. In addition, there are very few published materials available. The discussion is based on the belief that ritual could be a rich resource for the Angolan art curriculum and the ethnographic method used for the research could be adapted for this purpose also.

The interaction between art and science was explored in science lessons. A group of undergraduate students studying chemical engineering at the Autonomous University of Yucatan learned genetics through art. They made contemporary artwork about DNA and created personal visions of it from genetic data using scientific and artistic knowledge. The students welcomed this unconventional exercise that developed the creative and abstract thinking capacities needed in both subjects.

This article reports on research into visual communication in art education. At a theoretical level, it examines the typical features and use of the genre of family photography as well as its origins and development in the light of earlier research and literature. Four installations, or visual-pedagogical productions, were designed on the basis of the theoretical framework and exhibited. This set up dialogues between the productions and the viewers whose open-ended responses were studied to ascertain the kinds of exchanges that took place. A new model for analysing the genre of family photography was developed that could be a useful tool in art and education and for future research.

This article reports a classroom investigation into how a group of American junior high-school students understand, interpret and act upon a social issues-based art curriculum designed to explore issues of media violence. Using critical pedagogy, the research goals were to establish students' attitudes, values, creative skills, learned concepts, and/or opinions on media violence; and to illuminate and evaluate the issues-based curriculum approach. The study took place in the art workshop of a Saturday Art School programme at a midwestern university in the United States. A finding was that the young participants' attitudes towards media violence coincided with some of the views of postmodern educators concerning protectionist approaches to media education. Some challenges for implementing a social issues-based curriculum orientation were identified, for example the complexity involved in examining a given social issue.

This article discusses the relationship between art education and the applied arts in the context of the So Paulo Professional School for Women, inaugurated in 1911. In order to understand the significance of female professional training within the Brazilian educational scenario at the beginning of the twentieth century, it was necessary to examine gender relationships and values in education, arts and industry and manual crafts. In line with Ana Mae Barbosa's ideas, we understand historical revisionism as fundamental to understanding the origins of specific kinds of educational practices, concepts and preconceptions present in art education today.

Visual Culture in the Art Class: Case Studies, Paul Duncum (ed.), (2006) Urbana, IL: National Art Education Association, 194 pp., ISBN 1890160334 (pbk), US25

Issues in Arts Education in Latin America, Rachel Mason and Larry O'Farrell (eds), (2004) Kingston, Ontario: Queen's University, 101 pp., ISBN 1553390814