Developing an Intercultural Eye for Art: The University of Chicago’s Laboratory Schools and Hiroshima University’s Affiliated High School 2019 collaborative action research
This paper serves as the report on the 2019 collaborative action research conducted by the University of Chicago’s Laboratory Schools and Hiroshima University’s Affiliated High School aimed at cultivating middle and high school students’ intercultural eye for art. An intercultural eye for art means perceiving and sympathizing with a worldview expressed in artwork from other cultures, and to foster the growth of this competency, an intercultural eye for art curriculum was designed and implemented through collaboration between the two schools. The educational effects of the designed curriculum were surveyed by administering pre- and post-questionnaires, and selected case studies demonstrated how individual students were able to establish intercultural communication through the language of art in the classroom. The research findings demonstrate that the designed curriculum was effective in broadening and deepening the students’ intercultural eye for art and their interests in further study. Furthermore, competency in an intercultural eye for art is likely to evolve in coordination with affective and cognitive responses to artwork
