Social Perspectives on Art Education in the U.S.: Teaching Visual Culture in a Democracy

Abstract

This article is an overview of social perspectives on art education. These perspectives include a concern with issues and interactions of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, special ability, and other body identities and cultures; socioeconomics, political conditions, communities, and natural and humanly-made environments, including virtual environments. I focus here on the common ground among these perspectives which is based on the conviction that the visual arts are vital to all societies and that representations of an in education should seek to reveal its complexity, diversity, and integral cultural location. These perspectives represent the lived meanings of an and arts communities through, for example, change in curriculum, collaborative instructional methods, and community action. Social reconstructionist versions of these perspectives are also founded on the belief that an education can make a difference in student understanding of and action in the world and that, that difference can enrich and improve social life.