Academic literature on the topic 'Art theory'

Through this research study my aim was to critically examine the ways in which multimodal, autoethnographic art can enhance and expand educational experiences in general education art classrooms. The study investigates how participants’ perceptions of self and others within culture transform over a semester-long qualitative arts-based study. The study’s goal was to uncover teaching and learning strategies that help to disrupt traditional academic boundaries using autoethnography to create an engaged, cooperative university classroom environment. The participants for this study included 77 students in a general education art and culture course and myself as the co-teacher and researcher. Autoethnographic data were collected throughout the course in the forms of art research journals, pre-and post course questionnaires, researcher field notes, recorded class discussions, on-line discussion boards, notes from one-on-one student/researcher communications and field notes from participants’ final multimodal, autoethnographic art pieces and presentations. The methods used for the study were a modified version of arts-based and grounded theoretical research models. A heavy emphasis was placed on the participants art-making and sharing their work with others in the study. The findings from the study indicated most of, many of participants experienced advancement in their understanding of self within culture and developments of new insights into the experiences and perceptions of others in the study. Results from the study confirm a steady growth in participant engagement and development of cooperative class environment throughout the semester. This study contributes to existing scholarship on the generation of new knowledge from arts-based research models, multimodal autoethnograpy as method, teacher/student relationships in academia, and risk-taking in teacher professional development. The findings from the study might provide support and encouragement for meaningful discussions about the significance of exploring self through art making and art sharing in academic settings. By highlighting the achievements of the use of autoethnography as a method of inquiry, this study will add to the larger discussion of teacher and student identity in art education classrooms.

This qualitative action research study examines how critical theory defined and guided my practice as an art teacher educator while I provided inclusion training for seven preservice art teachers during their student teaching. Sources of data included a personal journal, the inclusion curriculum I created for the preservice teachers and questionnaires and interviews. Primary findings indicated that critical theory had a substantive impact on the evolving development of my teaching philosophy, in particular my attention to issues of power redistribution in the classroom and my developing notion of teaching as form of artistry. The findings of this study also indicate that the primary impact of critical theory upon the preservice teachers was the articulation of their personal narratives and its relation to the development of their teaching identities. Further, mentoring these preservice art teachers in critical theory increased their competence in solving educational dilemmas. A primary finding of this study was how significant of a role the supervising or mentor teacher plays in developing preservice teachers' identity. As this is acknowledged, valued and utilized, more collaborative relationships among these stakeholders in the education of the preservice art teacher can be forged. The study provides implications for art teacher educators as they provide inclusion training to preservice teachers. These include honoring narratives, articulating a broader notion of inclusion, and using context-specific instructional tools while preservice teachers are completing fieldwork with students with disabilities. One suggestion for future research is to conduct longitudinal studies which explore and validate the impact of critical theory upon art teacher educators and preservice art teachers during the student teaching semester and several years beyond.

George Dickie’s Institutional Theory of Art satisfies necessary and sufficient conditions for definition, but by leaving evaluation open cannot address artistic capacities to outstrip the usefulness of the theory for appreciating the concept of art comprehensively or meaningfully. Artworks that are known to members of the central and peripheral artworld seep into the general purview of the population at large as known “great works” of art. Upon examination of works that garner significant cultural influence, works broadly appreciated as great works, we find that their resistance to Dickie’s concept of “the artworld” and its associated behaviors is that which makes them conspicuously significant.