International Journal of Education Through Art - Volume 5, Issue 2-3, 2009

This article explores a spatial model of culture and the intercultural gaze. It is informed by action research carried out with 40 pre-service and practising non-specialist teachers in the Czech Republic. Personal and cultural identities were examined through discursive encounters with various forms of others. The authors use the Japanese term nora inu, which refers to a stray dog constantly on the move, as a multi-layered metaphor for moving beyond narrative pedagogy towards a spatial view of cultural identity. The research was conducted as part of an education programme devised for Shmei Tmatsu's exhibition Skin of the Nation at Galerie Rudolfinum in Prague in 2007. Our analysis of the discursive spaces created by the participants reveals cross-cultural challenges and supports the idea that culture is an interactive field in which intertextual space is co-inhabited by intersections and border crossings between and through all others.

Two US arts educators explore their experiences in cultural tourism; retracing the historical foundations of heritage tourism in the United States and those craft and economic development initiatives that have exploited both natural resources and the public imagination regarding regional populations' expressions and cultural representations. Focusing on Appalachian and Ozark mountain peoples, they offer recommendations for approaches to studying heritage tourism and suggest questions that might guide arts educators to embark on such inquiry.

This study, which was qualitative in nature, investigated what school children in Ghana had to say about their drawings. Observation and in-depth interviews were used to examine links between art and emotion. Parents' views about art lessons were investigated also. The aim of this article is to transmit what we found out about the value of art for enhancing these children's learning. The data analysis revealed that art facilitated expression of emotion and experience. Theory in the literature suggests that learning is most effective when it links with emotional experience; thus, we put forward an argument for effective learning in the context of art lessons. Art can also be used as a form of therapy or preventive medicine to contribute to children's psychological well-being and subsequently prepare them for learning.

Representations of the body present valuable resources for questioning how historical, political and social conditions function to shape attitudes and identities. Viewed within a framework of discourses about power, domination, pleasure and subordination, the explicit representation of bodies and acts does not have to be delimited as pornographic exposure. In this article I suggest a strategy for viewing Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs which demonstrate their potential as a resource for engaging students with discourses of sexuality and race as a part of the secondary art curriculum. I focus my discussion on two particular photographs: Joe (1978) from Mapplethorpe's sadomasochism series and Ajitto (1981) from his series of black male nudes. I demonstrate that these, sometimes problematic, artworks can offer students a point of intervention into contemporary cultural debates about sexuality, race and subjecthood.

This article presents a multidisciplinary pedagogy that integrates art education and ecological studies toward the goal of fostering affection for the landscape. This approach to designing art curriculum was based on ecological and outdoor education Expeditionary Principles. Learning objectives that are common to art education and Expeditionary Principles are discussed. A model for teaching environmental education through art was incorporated in the design of a graduate professional development course for teachers. Environment was utilized as context and content, highlighting art-making from natural materials, multidisciplinary connections and multiple perspectives. The outcomes, lessons learned from moving beyond the classroom into the landscape are reviewed. Finally, utilization of materials from the natural environment and, perhaps more significantly, sustaining the environment through purposeful use of resources in the curriculum, are discussed.

This study investigated benefits for pre-service teachers of participating in a community art education project called A Street in Hong Kong. The study was part of a collaborative project involving the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd), schools and artists between 2007 and 2008. The data for the study was collected by means of questionnaires, individual and focus group interviews and classroom observation. Feedback was also obtained from the school principals, artists, school art teachers and primary-school pupils. The study found that the pre-service teachers benefited in several ways: they learned ceramic-making skills from the artists they could teach in primary schools and how to design art lessons through teamwork with peers and about classroom teaching from schoolteachers. They also learned how to find resources for community-based art lessons; and to help them organize a group exhibition; and were pleased to receive financial support for the project.

Social media represent a paradigmatic shift in the use of digital technologies, and provide new possibilities for art educational application, implementation and interrogation. These technologies also challenge notions of authenticity, authorship and authority that have been central to the modernist core of the field. Individuals who are using social media as a medium challenge the authenticity of the art object, the authorship of the artist and the authority of the museum/gallery system. This article first provides an overview of three forms of interaction of social media: tagging, the mash-up and simulated environments. These forms then provide a context for discussion of the potential uses for social media within the field of art education, as well as pointing to the limitations of such technologies. Then there is a consideration of the pedagogical possibilities and problems inherent to three specific aspects of social media: Flickr and the hyperlinked image; YouTube and the moving image; and Second Life and the immersive image. This examination of social media may help other art educators to understand the importance of networked digital technologies in the lives of individuals and groups worldwide. More importantly, they may see pedagogical implications in the visualities such technologies produce, the identities formed in virtual environments and the epistemologies that develop from networked social media.

This article describes and evaluates the curricular design and learning outcomes of History and Practice of Photography. This is an undergraduate course that integrates creative and theoretical components, which are traditionally taught separately, and often in different departments, in the study of the history of photography. Through interrogating contemporary visual culture with their eyes, words and cameras, students simultaneously study history and theory, examine divergent representational strategies through photographic assignments and deploy digital technologies as crucial tools for effecting personal, cultural and socio-political change. As such, the course offers a pedagogical shift away from the conventional delivery of art history surveys, in which lectures, examinations and research papers tend to predominate. This integrated approach sets out to create a multifaceted learning experience that fosters students' visual literacy, critical thinking, creative exploration and technological proficiency, all in the context of one class. The author proposes this curricular design as a template that could be extrapolated from, and applied to, other areas of visual studies in higher education.

This article refers a university course that integrates environmental arts with education and suggests that it serves as a model for educators at all levels using art-making as a tool for social action. Specifically, it describes a media art remix project in which artwork is inspired by an image that an individual responds to strongly, then revises and reflects on the transformation. The project could help any teacher incorporate art into the study of social issues aimed at raising levels of awareness, helping students to think critically, and encouraging responsible action. It utilizes digital tools and educational technology in order to attract broad audiences and extend the social action component. This article describes the steps involved in carrying out the project and suggests methods of raising public awareness and consciousness, such as posting artworks on class blogs and creating art exhibitions for the general public.

In this study interactive technologies were used to promote cultural awareness. A series of five interactive art lessons was developed and carried out with 47 primary students at a private school in Turkey. The lessons included use of the Internet, asynchronous video conferencing, e-mail chatting. The students participated in an interactive learning experience with peers in Canada over a period of three weeks in which they exchanged cultural images and an instructional CD. They were interviewed later to examine their impressions. Most students stated that the interactive art lessons involving audio-visual technologies had encouraged learning and promoted higher levels of understanding. A considerable number had changed their views about culture. They liked learning about student viewpoints from other countries and mentioned that combining traditional and new technologies this way increases cross-cultural interaction.

This essay is the result of a case study that I conducted at a National Design Museum in the USA. Specifically, I reviewed collaboration between this museum and the public educational system intended to enhance K-12 students' understanding of design and improve overall quality of art education. The focus is on identification of educational practice specifically geared toward maximizing the effectiveness of education in design in a design museum. It is significant to note that design museums help to engender appreciation of ordinary objects and enhance understanding of how both they and mass-produced images have been used to effect social, political and technological change. This case study analyses a summer institute programme at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City and explores the role and importance of design-based learning. The finding overall was that design education is useful for K-12 students in terms of developing thinking processes. When they engage in the process of designing, they learn to observe, identify needs, seek and frame problems, work collaboratively, explore solutions, weigh alternatives and communicate their ideas verbally and visually. The design process offers opportunities for self-assessment, critiquing work in progress, revision and reflection.

The engagement of art educators with art practice, research and teaching is increasingly under debate. In New Zealand, as in many western countries, the emphasis has historically been upon teaching and learning. Perhaps influenced by Eisner's enlightened approaches (1979, 1991) to educational connoisseurship and criticism, art/s educators began, in the late 1970s, to explore theoretical concepts that lay behind practice. Since then, emerging visions have been identified that support the argument for broadening research practice. Examination of the arts-based and practitioner-based forms of inquiry being advocated now prompted me, within the context of art education in New Zealand, to engage in an approach to A/R/T in which art practice, research and teaching interconnect in an ever-continuing cycle.

NeoCraft: Modernity and the Crafts, Sandra Alfoldy (ed.), (2007) Halifax, Nova Scotia: The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design, 273pp., ISBN 978-0-919616-47-953995, Paperback, $39.95The Craftsman, Richard Sennett, (2009) London: Penguin, 336 pp., ISBN: 9780141022093, Paperback, 9.99Clay in the Primary School, Peter Clough, (2007) London: A&C Black, 112 pp., ISBN 978-0-7136-8819-1, Paperback, 12.99Thinking Through Craft, Glen Adamson, (2007) Oxford: Berg, 209 pp., ISBN 9781845206475, Paperback, 15.99