Nov 19th Session 2A

Presentation 1: The History and Future of Art Education Associations in Korea,  Jaehan Bae & EunJung Chang

This paper investigates the history of four art education associations in South Korea: Korea Art Education Association (KAEA), Korean Elementary Art Education Association (KEAEA), Korean Society of Education through Art (KoSEA), and Society for Art Education of Korea (SAEK). Aims of the paper are to provide suggestions to Korean art associations for shaping a better future in the field of art education at large. Historical decoding of information and events of these four associations is significant as it allows us to be aware of how the field of art education in Korea began and evolved. Data sources include formal and informal interviews with professors, lecturers of art education, and elementary and secondary teachers; journal articles, conference papers, and proceedings; and websites of the four art associations. Finally, this paper provides critical remarks and thoughtful suggestions for an improved art education association in South Korea that includes: one unified art education association; recruitment of members of studio areas, art historians, art museum educators, art critics, aestheticians from departments of art and education, pre-, in-service, and retired elementary and secondary teachers, administrators, and full-time visual artists, and curriculum developers; conducting more workshops of theory and practice for school teachers; reducing the number of Korean art education peer-reviewed research journals in order to improve the quality of articles and attain enough time for a rigorous review and revision process; and providing an international art education journal in English.

Presentation 2: Visual Art and Media Education in Sweden, Discourses and Traditions, Annika Hellman

The aim of this paper is to investigate the complex relation between discourse and tradition within Visual Art and Media education in upper secondary school in Sweden. Furthermore these traditions and discourses make visible a gendered history of Art education. Shifting discourses actualizes conflicts about what should be the guiding objectives and motivation for training in Visual art education, as well as the view on knowledge and learning within the school subject Art Education. The study combines post-structural theory and methodology in curriculum research, including discourse analysis and visual policy ethnography. Historical knowledge can also be made visible through its presence or absence in contemporary pedagogical practices. The empirical material includes public curricula documents as well as ethnographic material including fieldnotes, photographs and interviews carried out during the fall 2014.

Art education as a subject in Swedish school has undergone many changes. Initially (in the 1900th century) technical drawing was considered important in vocational training in the areas of engineering and natural sciences, which were mainly male professions. With industrialization and the turn of the century, the focus moved to consumer qualification, educating the taste of the people, as consumer goods were mass-produced. The book Education through Art by Herbert Read influenced art education immensely with the idea of free creative expression. Especially younger children should have the possibility to express their emotions through creative work. This was a break with the tradition of linear drawing and depicting, creating a different discourse still dominant in art education. In this discourse the prominent features were learning different techniques and materials (Lind, Hasselberg, & Kühlhorn, 1992; Nordström, 1994; Åsén, 2006; Lind, 2010/2012; Wikberg, 2014). Through this change the school subject Art can be said to gradually have become more “feminine” as it turned to expressionism and romantic, modernist ideals (Dalton, 2001). During the 1970:ies visual communication was emphasized in art education, it meant working with popular culture and new media as well as the fine arts. Tavin (2005) defines a palimpsestic discourse as a text that is: “…written, then partially erased and written over again” (s. 5). Looking at art education with this concept, the wide range of historical traditions has created a palimpsestic discourse that both retains and erases the past, while adding new layers of meaning (Tavin, 2005, see also Åsén, 2006). Recent research demonstrates that girls outperform boys especially in art classes in school, and that art education is perceived as something female and a pause from more important schoolwork among pupils (Marner, Örtegren & Segerholm, 2005; Wikberg, 2014). The notion of Art as a subject for expressing emotions makes the subject appear as feminine to the pupils (Öhman-Gullberg, 2008; Wikberg, 2014).

Presentation 3: Memories of Art Education in West-Germany after 1945 - My Mother’s Art Teacher: Otto Holz (1907-1988), Jesse Jagtiani

The history of art and art education as a subject forms the basis for the aims we pursue in art education today. Before 1933, the art education movement in Germany exerted crucial influence on various areas of school education within the framework of progressive education. Drawing and painting were geared to the forms of experience typical of the stages of childhood development. Moreover, the emphasis on the fine arts became a principle of education in general. However, the Nazis‘ education policy abused art education just as it abused many other fields and subjects of school education by subordinating these to the fundamentals of national socialist ideology. (Historical Aspects » BDK e.V. n.d) Consequently, educational policy of the 1920s was revived and refined under the term of art education in the Federal Republic of Germany after 1945. The revival of this form of art education was a challenging experience to the researcher's mother, Ursula Jagtiani, who was born in 1937 during the period of National Socialism. Guided by Jagtiani’s memories of her art education, this paper presents a portrait of the researcher's mother's art educator Otto Holz that may lead to a greater understanding of art education in West Germany after 1945.