Nov 20th Session 6C

Presentation 1: Art Education’s Past: Studies in Art Education 1959-1968 and its Relevance Today, Libba Willcox, Sam Goss, Chris Grodoski

Studies in Art Education, a journal of issues and research published by the National Art Education Association (NAEA), worked in the first ten years of its publications to propose, establish, and distinguish the field of Art Education.  This groundwork, while seemingly outdated and often overlooked, can provide insights not only as how our research developed, but also to the topics discussed and methods used today.  By examining the historical context surrounding the first ten years of Studies in Art Education, we argue that while the social context is different today, the lingering questions posed when establishing the discipline are still relevant and need to be examined.   Thus, in this presentation we provide an analysis of the first ten years of Studies of Art Education and question its implications for the field of Art Education.

By being unfamiliar with the past research in the field, we hinder the progress of art educators and art education.  Lansing, in 1963, references this problem in art education when he stated:

Year after year we return to a discussion of the same subjects, which is not necessarily a bad thing to do. The most unfortunate part of it is that we always begin at the same place. No progress in thinking is made from year to year; no one profits from the mistakes made or from the ideas expressed in previous years... Few of us seem to be aware of the lack of progress in our discussions. Thus, if we look for someone to blame, I'm afraid that we have no one to blame but ourselves. (Lansing, 1963, p. 1)

This reoccurring problem, over 50 years later, is explicated by Mary Hafali (2009) in her argument that while we are a small field, our habit of  “not explicitly acknowledging, connecting to, and building upon the work of other art education scholars, particularly those from the more-than-recent-decade past, results in a fragmented, incoherent disciplinary knowledge base—a condition that ultimately may slow the deepening of our collective insight and deter substantive refinements to the field’s evolving theories and practices of art teaching and learning” (p. 370).  This fragmentation and slow growth leads to the question, what can be done so that we can begin in a different place and can move beyond our past research? By doing a content analysis of the first ten years of Studies in Art Education, we analyzed the first twenty issues published and documented our interpretation of the topics discussed, methodology used, research questions implied, findings provided, and population of interest indicated using a collaborative website.  From this analysis, we explore the relationship between topics of the publications and research questions to explore the historical conversations around the following lingering questions:1.  Is art education a discipline?; 2.  What is the role of art education?; and 3.  What research is needed in art education?

Presentation 2: Reinterpretation of the 1976 Arts and Aesthetic Education Conference, Mary A. Zahner

The 1976 conference, “The Arts and Aesthetics: An Agenda for the Future,” held in Aspen, Colorado, was developed as a national agenda for research and development in arts education.  Proceedings of the conference addressed the history of arts and aesthetic research, as well as methodological and researchable issues.  This paper reexamines background conference methodological papers by Arthur W. Foshay and Harry S. Broudy, and researchable conference background papers by Howard Gardner, Kathryn Bloom, and Elliot Eisner.  The framework for analysis of the five selected papers is based on Hans-Georg Gadamer’s theory of interpretation, namely, dialectical hermeneutics.  Since the five selected papers presented diverse research perspectives on the arts and aesthetics, it became evident that there was little possibility of coming to an agreement about the substance of an agenda within the aegis of the conference.  This unresolved dialogue, now revisited, considers the possibility of finding a common aesthetic element within the back-and-forth movement of the various research stances.  Thus, dialectic has the capacity for an interpreter to find similarities and hence find the truth of the issue.  Perhaps knowing this element might have made a solution to the conference dilemma possible.