Vol. 14 No. 2 (2018)

					View Vol. 14 No. 2 (2018)

EDITORIAL

Anita Sinner, Rita L. Irwin and Nadine M. Kalin

pp. 141–43

 

 

ARTICLES

 

Young children’s experiences with contemporary art

David Bell, Helen Bell, Lyn Collins and Alicia Spencer

pp. 145–59

 

This ethnographic study describes how an in-depth preschool learning pathway developed around children’s investigations into a contemporary artist. It found that learning with Yayoi Kusama’s art favoured habits of exploration, reflection, revisitation and development of ideas, and enriched children’s visual awareness, inclusive art learning conversations and their learning in mathematics, literacy and visual art. It argues that sustained learning pathways, scaffolded media investigations, first-hand engagements with real artworks and well-informed teachers can enhance curiosities, independent inventive dispositions and confident art experiences in the early years.

 

 

Paradox of ‘pictorial turn’: Reconsidering the interaction between drawing and linguistic activity

Kazuhiro Ishizaki and Wenchun Wang

pp. 161–77

 

A paradox of ‘pictorial turn’ seems to be occurring, as we are struggling to cope with the gap between the wealth of visual images and our ability to handle the experience relevantly. This study aims to investigate the relationship between drawing and linguistic activities in a process of appreciating artworks, and to discuss the significance of developing one’s abilities. A longitudinal study was conducted to integrate

drawing, narrative writing and short essays for four years starting in the fourth grade. There is a significant correlation among those activities, and the correlation increases as the grade advances. The interaction has facilitated the students’ development, and provided the means to be familiar with imagery recollection and observation. Most importantly, a well-functioned interaction gives them opportunities to generate flexible thinking and metaphoric cognition. In preadolescence, when drawing activity slows and linguistic activity intensifies, facilitating the interaction is significant to tackle the issue of updated competencies.

 

An analysis of creative effect on interdisciplinary practices in art education

Hyungsook Kim

pp. 179–96

 

The conventional belief that arts education is individual-based and pure no longer holds any meaning. An interdisciplinary approach in this field is becoming more widespread. The consilience between the arts, humanities and social sciences, the arts and the natural sciences, and the arts and art education is recognized as enabling more creativity and thinking skills that are more integrated. Thus, art education has emerged as a core pillar in producing future talents. This study emphasizes the need for interdisciplinary practices for ensuring the creativity enhancement of the learner through art education, which aims to produce creative talents. Therefore, we developed and deployed interdisciplinary practices designed for sixth graders from August 2013 to January 2014. We assessed the learner’s creativity before and after

using Language A and figures from the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) in order to verify its effect on the correlation among five lower creativity factors. The results of the research questions showed a significant effect of interdisciplinary practices on the development of learners’ creativity. Figure A of the TTCT Type A language consisted of five lower factors of creativity: fluency, originality, abstractness

of the title, delicacy and premature closure. The five resistance causes to these factors demonstrated a significant difference. Finally, this study maintained that the interdisciplinary practice of an art-based curriculum could promote students’ capacity by fostering creativity and providing the basis for an assessment method in contemporary art education.

 

Why am I here? A self-study of an international art education student lost in transition

Seonjeong Yi

pp. 197–210

 

This article is an arts-based inquiry into the often overlooked stories of international graduate students (IGSs) in art education. In this case, I draw on my experiences as a Korean graduate student in Canada, rendered through visuals and text. As part of my ongoing reflective process, I approached this project through life writing and drawing as a means to articulate my understandings of the moments within my first

year in the programme. The questions that guided my research include the following: What kind of academic adaptation issues do IGSs experience? Does a personal story provide useful insight into the phenomena of the academic adaptation process? And how do visual narratives as arts-based educational research (ABER) provide a rendering of the experience of an IGS? With this intent, this article examines diverse ways that help to broaden and deepen the discourses of international students in educational studies.

 

Experiencing and understanding the arts as a compulsory final examination subject in the Netherlands: Purpose, problems, revision and effects

Diederik Schonau

pp. 211–19

 

The Netherlands is probably the only country in the world where all students in secondary education have to take a compulsory final exam in experiencing and understanding of the arts. This exam, named Cultural and Artistic Education (CKV), concentrates on the active experience and appreciation of live professional performances, presentations and public presence of the arts. After its introduction, in 1999, this exam subject faced some serious problems and was almost removed from the exam system. Thanks to a strong lobby of art teachers, art institutions and art organizations, the subject was saved from annihilation, but only on the condition the examination programme was completely revised and made acceptable to the national Parliament and Ministry. This article informs about the goals of this subject exam (CKV) and the ways these goals should or could be met, the history of its introduction, the difficulties arising after its implementation, the way these difficulties have been addressed by the Ministry and community of arts teachers, and the new examination programme that has become effective as of August 2017. The article also gives information about research done on the impact of CKV on student learning and on the participation of former students in cultural activities after they left school.

 

Virgin in the art classroom: Finnish pre-service teachers reconfiguring devotional images

Asta Kuusinen

pp. 221–37

 

The purpose of this article is to present art education projects at the University of Eastern Finland that have applied phenomenon-based approach to learning. Phenomenon-based pedagogy (learning by topics) serves as the founding principle for the current national core curriculum for basic education in Finland.1 With two

Virgin Mary images as a source of inspiration, the art projects aimed at encouraging Finnish pre-service teachers to engage with and critically reflect upon the ways that different religious cultures encode their values and belief systems through the images they idolize. The article suggests that pre-service teachers, while generally open-minded and interested in knowing more about other cultures, simultaneously tend

to reaffirm conventional national narratives and values through their artworks and essays. The topic is controversial but should not be excluded from art education since in increasingly multicultural societies like Finland, teachers need a better understanding of religious visual practices and their diverse meanings. The art projects show an example of how phenomenon-based art education can respond to this need

by enriching students’ learning experiences across cultural differences and disciplinary borders.

 

 

VISUAL ESSAYS

 

Image ecologies: Infrastructures of visual art education in Sweden and Estonia

Ingrid Forsler

pp. 239–46

 

This essay is a visual interpretation of the media ecologies of visual art education in Sweden and Estonia. As the title of the article suggests, an ecology of visual art education means infrastructures for accessing, producing, showing and sharing images. The study is empirically informed by social network analysis conducted in online communities and by interviews with teachers who are active in those communities.

Graphs of activity and connectedness in online communities are included in a media ecology model, based on the teacher interviews. The model visually relates online collaboration with material technologies,

such as classroom computers or cameras, and different forms of governance, such as curricula.

The essay attempts to contribute to the existing literature regarding the relation between technologies and educational practice by combining digital methods with media ecology and infrastructure theory, and methodologically by using visual methods for interpretation.

 

In the context of public pedagogy: Transit

Nurhayat Gunes

pp. 247–56

 

I came to Vancouver, Canada as a visiting Ph.D. student to study a/r/tography at the University of British Columbia (UBC). The multinational and multicultural nature of the city of Vancouver became an unexpected learning resource during my stay. I soon became consumed by my own everyday learning and in time, I began to understand the power of public pedagogy, or in other words, those informal learning

opportunities outside institutional forms of learning. In this visual essay, I examine the concept of transit as one dimension of public pedagogy. This concept emerged from photographs and anecdotes taken during my everyday use of public transit. I used a/r/tography as a practice-based art education research methodology to guide my work. Transit became a bodied and embodied form of living inquiry as I investigated the very nature of public transit as public pedagogy.

 

 

BOOK REVIEWS

 

Drawing as Language: Celebrating the Work of Bob Steele, Marni J. Binder and Sylvia Kind (eds) (2017)

Vanessa Barnett

pp. 257–59


Künstlerische Bildung: Theorie und Praxis einer künstlerischen Kunstpädagogik, Carl-Peter Buschkühle (2017)

Diederik Schönau

pp. 260–64


Arts Education and Curriculum Studies: The Contributions of Rita L. Irwin, Mindy R. Carter

and Valerie Triggs (eds) (2018)

Jill Smith

pp. 264–66

Published: 2018-08-14