INTRODUCTION: “Toward a Socially Progressive Conception of Art Education”

Given the range and subtlety of our cultural conditioning, art education must, of necessity, become critical. It must place critical cultural literacy in the heart of its theory and practice. Cultural literacy does indeed open the way to personal and social emancipation. It brings in its enlightening wake the preconditions of emancipation, knowledge and freedom: knowledge and freedom to think, feel, and perceive as human individual and not as manipulated social products; knowledge and freedom to experience and create forms of visual culture which are liberating rather than enslaving; knowledge and freedom to conceptualize and build toward a more aesthetic, humane, and democratic culture and society; knowledge and freedom to develop an art education which would be an agent of critical understanding and progressive social change

For Cultural Democracy: A Critique of Elitism in Art Education

After reading a good deal about the Reagan administration’s proposed arts policy, I was a bit shaken to discover a strikingly Reagan-like art education policy espoused in the front pages of the July, 1981 issue of Art Education. Was it possible that the nationwide rise of political and cultural conservatism was finding its way into the ranks of our own profession? Over the years, I had come to know art educators as persons of generally liberal persuasion, but here was philosophy and rhetoric to match the best of the Reagan arts advisors. The article causing my surprise was Elitism Versus Populism: A Question of Quality. The writer was Ralph A. Smith, Executive Secretary of the Council for Policy Studies in Art Education, a group which seeks to promulgate and assess policy for the profession

Reviews and Responses: Bersson Responds

Citing the mandate of The Journal of Social Theory in art Education “to encourage debate and discussion, Michael Emme, the JSTAE Editor, invited me to respond to the review of my book, Worlds of Art, in the current edition. For this opportunity, I thank him and hope that what follows will raise issues of general importance for Social Theory Caucus members

Why Art Education Lacks Social Relevance: A Contextual Analysis

Contemporary art education is individual - focused (i.e. self-centered) to the almost complete exclusion of larger social concerns. This is true whether the art education is child-centered, discipline-centered, Rockfeller (Coming to Our Senses) - centered, or competency-based. The primary concern, notwithstanding differences, is on individual artistic productivity and, to a lesser degree, on personal aesthetic response. The enormous untapped potential of art education - and ninety-nine percent of us will be viewers and consumers, not artists - is in the social dimension. Critical understanding of the dominant visual culture - often dehumanizing in its effect, multicultural understanding through art, and the democratization of our visual culture (i.e. culture of, by, and for all of the people are major social goals largely ignored by art educators

The Gallery

Images related to Social Action from nine artists

The Gallery

Images related to the Eco-Techno theme from nine artists