Art Education in the United States refers to the practice of teaching art in American public schools. Before the democratization of education, particularly as promoted by educational philosopher John Dewey, apprenticeship was the traditional route for attaining an education in art. Alongside John Dewey, Elliot Eisner was a leading advocate for the inclusion of art in modern curriculum. Since the first introduction of art in public schooling in 1821, art education in the United States has faced many changes and many stages of growth.[1]
Art education was first introduced to public schooling in 1821 as a result of the need for architectural designers during the Industrial Revolution.[2] As public schooling began to grow nationwide, so did subjective interest in art instruction. In the 1870's, some states began to provide funds to their public schools in pursuit of developing art curriculum. Around this time, art materials, like paint and paper, began to improve in quality, allowing art instruction to expand beyond classic methods.[1]
Art apprenticeships began to lose commonality in the 19th century, and independent art schools became the main path for pursuing a career in art.[2]
Picture study movement, before World War II
Art appreciation in America accelerated with the "picture study movement" in the late 19th century. Picture study was an important part of the art education curriculum. Attention to aesthetics in the classroom led to public interest in beautifying the school, home, and community, which was known as “Art in Daily Living”. The idea was to bring culture to the child to in turn change the parents.[3]
Picture study was made possible by the improved technologies of reproduction of images, growing public interest in art, the Progressive Movement in education, and growing numbers of immigrant children who were more visually literate than they were in English. The type of art included in the curriculum was from the Renaissance onward, but nothing considered “modern art” was taught. Often, teachers selected pictures that had a moral message. This is because a major factor in the development in aesthetics as a subject was its relationship to the moral education of the new citizens due to the influx of immigrants during the period. Aesthetics and art masterpieces were part of the popular idea of self culture, and the moralistic response to an artwork was within the capabilities of the teacher, who often did not have the artistic training to discuss the formal qualities of the artwork.
A typical Picture Study lesson was as follows: Teachers purchased materials from the Perry Picture Series, for example. This is similar to the prepackaged curriculum we have today. These materials included a teacher's picture that was larger for the class to look at together, and then smaller reproduction approximately 2 ¾” by 2” for each child to look at. These were generally in black and white or sepia tone. Children would often collect these cards and trade them much like modern day baseball cards. The teacher would give the students a certain amount of information about the picture and the artist who created it, such as the picture's representational content, artist's vital statistics, and a few biographical details about the artist. These were all included in the materials so an unskilled teacher could still present the information to his or her class. Then the teacher would ask a few discussion questions. Sometimes suggestions for language arts projects or studio activities were included in the materials.
The picture study movement died out at the end of the 1920s as a result of new ideas regarding learning art appreciation through studio work became more popular in the United States.[3]
Since World War II
Since World War II, artist training has become the charge of colleges and universities and contemporary art has become an increasingly academic and intellectual field. Prior to World War II an artist did not need a college degree. Since that time the Bachelor of Fine Arts and then the Master of Fine Arts became recommended degrees to be a professional artist. This change was facilitated by the passage of the G.I. Bill in 1944, which allowed many World War II veterans to attend school, art school included.
With the expansion of university art departments, independent art schools began to lose popularity. Students pursuing a career in art began enrolling at universities, rather than independent art schools, such as the Art Students League, known for artists like Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. By the 1960s, the School of Visual Arts, Pratt Institute, Cooper Union, Princeton and Yale had emerged as leading American art universities.
Currently, the PhD in studio art is under debate as the new standard for a degree in professional art. Although, as of 2008, there are only two United States programs offering a PhD in studio art, PhDs in art are commonplace in the UK, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands.[4] As James Elkins, the chair of the department of art history, theory and criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as well as the chair of the department of art history at the University of Cork in Ireland wrote in Art in America, "By the 1960s the MFA was ubiquitous. Now the MFA is commonplace and the PhD is coming to take its place as the baseline requirement for teaching jobs".[4] This is in reference to teaching positions for studio art at the college level. The PhD has been a standard requirement to be a professor of art education for many years. In his forthcoming book, Artists with PhD's, James Elkins presents the opinion the PhD will become the new standard, and offers the book as a resource for assessing these programs and for structuring future programs. However, the College Art Association still recognizes the MFA as the terminal degree, stating "At this time, few institutions in the United States offer a PhD degree in studio art, and it does not appear to be a trend that will continue or grow, or that the PhD will replace the MFA".[5]
Discipline-based art education in the early 1980s
Discipline-based art education (DBAE) is an educational program formulated by the J. Paul Getty Trust in the early 1980s. DBAE supports a diminished emphasis on studio instruction, and instead promotes education across four disciplines within the arts: aesthetics, art criticism, art history and art production. It does retain a strong tie to studio instruction with an emphasis on technique.[6]
Among the objectives of DBAE are to make arts education more parallel to other academic disciplines, and to create a standardized framework for evaluation. It was developed specifically for grades K-12 but has been instituted at other levels of education. DBAE advocates that art should be taught by certified teachers, and that "art education is for all students, not just those who demonstrate talent in making art".[7]
Criticism of DBAE is voiced from postmodern theorists who advocate for a more pluralistic view of the arts, and inclusion of a diverse range of viewpoints that may not be included in a standardized curriculum.
Art education since the 2000s
Current art education widely varies from state to state. As of 2018, 29 of the 50 states consider art a core academic subject.[8] 41 states, however, require that art classes be offered at the elementary, middle, and high school levels.[8] Art magnet schools, common in larger communities, use art(s) as a core or underlying theme to attract those students motivated by personal interest or with the intention of becoming a professional or commercial artist.
Despite state requirements, budget cuts and increasing test-based assessments of children, as required by the federal government's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act, are credited for the reported loss of art instruction time in schools.[9] The NCLB retains the arts as part of the "core curriculum" for all schools, but it does not require reporting any instruction time or assessment data for arts education content or performance standards, which is reason often cited for the decline of arts education in American public schools. Although the number of art educators stayed the same, fewer art classes were taught because art educators were required to teach other subjects such as language arts and math.[10]
History of art education provisions
In the 1970s, provisions for arts in education were limited, at the discretion of individual states. Local schools, school boards, and districts were the main actors in deciding whether arts education was provided. Where art education was offered, it consisted of exposure-based experiences with cultural organizations outside of the school and was not integrated into the classroom curriculum. In the next couple of decades, budget cuts as a result of fiscal crises heavily stripped school budgets to the point where positions for art teachers were essentially eliminated in order to retain core subjects. At this time, the arts were seen as nonessential to the development of critical thinking and there did not exist a standard curriculum for teaching art in public schools. As such, provisions were scarce if at all present in the 1980s and 1990s.[11]
However, the significance of an arts education emerged as data found academic performance improvements and socio-emotional and socio-cultural benefits, among other positive effects, stemming from the stimulative nature of the arts. Key players in advocating for and providing art education included a blend of public entities (schools, government agencies, etc.), private organizations, and community centers.[11]
This emerging acknowledgment of the importance of art education was matched by a decline in provisions at the beginning of the 21st century. With the implementation of NCLB, public schools prioritized meeting Academic Performance Index (API) growth targets, downgrading the emphasis on non-core subjects. For example, in California public schools, while enrollment increased by 5.8% from 1999 to 2004, music education decreased by 50% in the same 5-year period.[12] On a national level, data from the Surveys of Public Participation in the Arts (SPAAs) showed that in 2008, 18-24-year-olds were less likely to have had an arts education than in 1982. Low-income and low-performing public schools disproportionately struggled with this decline, and African-American and Latino students are generally less able to access the arts when compared to their White counterparts.[13]
These findings of drastic declines in art education provisions spurred efforts for reinvestment. The NEA declared goals including maximizing investment impact, collaboration with local education across levels of government, and offering guidance and leadership support for art education.[14]
Today, funding for education in the United States comes from three levels; local level, state level, and federal level. The whole system of education is kept in the hands of the public sector for control and to avoid any mishandling.[15] Recently, the U.S. Department of Education began awarding Arts in Education Model Development and Dissemination grants to support organizations with art expertise in their development of artistic curricula that helps students to better understand and retain academic information. One such model of education was created in 2006 by the Storytellers Inc. and ArtsTech (formerly Pan-Educational Institute). The curricula and method of learning is titled AXIS.[16]
National organizations
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is one of the many nationally recognized organizations promoting arts education in the United States.[17] Since its formation in 1965, the NEA has led efforts in integrating the arts as a part of the core education for all K-12 students. These efforts include collaborating in state, federal, and public-private partnerships to solicit and provide funding and grants for programs in arts education. During the 2008 fiscal year, the NEA awarded over 200 grants totaling $6.7 million to programs that allow students to engage and participate in learning with skilled artists and teachers. The NEA has initiated a number of other arts education partnerships and initiatives, which include:
The Arts Education Partnership (AEP)[18]AEP convenes forums to discuss topics in arts education, publishes research materials supporting the role of arts education in schools, and is a clearinghouse for arts education resource materials.
The Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP)[19] is an ongoing, online survey system will collect, track, and disseminate data on alumni, and will help institutions to better understand how students use arts training in their careers and other aspects of their lives.
The NEA Education Leaders Institute (ELI)[20]convenes key decision makers to enhance the quality and quantity of arts education at the state level. Each institute gathers teams of school leaders, legislators, policymakers, educators, professional artists, consultants, and scholars from up to five states to discuss a shared arts education challenge and engage in strategic planning to advance arts education in their respective states.
There are a variety of other National organizations promoting arts education in the United States. These include Americans for the Arts[21] which features major projects such as The Arts. Ask For More.[22] national arts education public awareness campaign, Association for the Advancement of Arts Education, College Art Association;[23] and National Art Education Association.[24]
Arts integration is another and/or alternative way for the arts to be taught within schools. Arts integration is the combining of the visual and/or performing arts and incorporating them into the everyday curriculum within classrooms. Learning in a variety of ways allows for students to use their eight multiple intelligences as described by theorist Howard Gardner in his Frames of Mind: Theory of Multiple Intelligences.[25] The eight multiple intelligences include bodily-kinesthetic, intrapersonal, interpersonal, linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, naturalist, and spatial.[26] Arts integration is especially important today when some schools no longer have or have small arts education programs due to significant budget cuts, including the federal budget agreement that took 1 dollar from the NEA, the United States' largest public arts funder, in 2011.[27]
Arts integration in common core subjects creates positive academic and social effects on students. Integrating the arts into the classroom is a great way to engage students who are otherwise uninterested in common core curriculum. Additionally, disadvantaged and at-risk students are exceptionally highly impacted by arts integration. The integration of the arts helps these students in the classroom by improving their ability to practice effective communication, give them a better attitude towards school, lowering their frequency of inappropriate behavior in class, and increase their overall academic abilities.[28]
Educational essentialism is an educational philosophy whose adherents believe that children should learn the traditional basic subjects thoroughly. In this philosophical school of thought, the aim is to instill students with the "essentials" of academic knowledge, enacting a back-to-basics approach. Essentialism ensures that the accumulated wisdom of our civilization as taught in the traditional academic disciplines is passed on from teacher to student. Such disciplines might include Reading, Writing, Literature, Foreign Languages, History, Mathematics, Classical Languages, Science, Art, and Music. Moreover, this traditional approach is meant to train the mind, promote reasoning, and ensure a common culture.
Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also administers Hunter College High School and Hunter College Elementary School.
Science education is the teaching and learning of science to school children, college students, or adults within the general public. The field of science education includes work in science content, science process, some social science, and some teaching pedagogy. The standards for science education provide expectations for the development of understanding for students through the entire course of their K-12 education and beyond. The traditional subjects included in the standards are physical, life, earth, space, and human sciences.
In contemporary education, mathematics education—known in Europe as the didactics or pedagogy of mathematics—is the practice of teaching, learning, and carrying out scholarly research into the transfer of mathematical knowledge.
Secondary education is the last six or seven years of statutory formal education in the United States. It culminates with twelfth grade. Whether it begins with sixth grade or seventh grade varies by state and sometimes by school district.
In education, a curriculum is the totality of student experiences that occur in an educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view of the student's experiences in terms of the educator's or school's instructional goals. A curriculum may incorporate the planned interaction of pupils with instructional content, materials, resources, and processes for evaluating the attainment of educational objectives. Curricula are split into several categories: the explicit, the implicit, the excluded, and the extracurricular.
Teachers College, Columbia University (TC) is the graduate school of education, health, and psychology of Columbia University, a private research university in New York City. Founded in 1887, Teachers College has served as one of the official Faculties and the Department of Education of Columbia University since 1898. It is the oldest and largest graduate school of education in the United States.
York College is a public senior college in Jamaica, Queens, New York City, United States. It is a senior college in the City University of New York (CUNY) system. Founded in 1966, York was the first senior college founded under the newly formed CUNY system, which united several previously independent public colleges into a single public university system in 1961. The college is a member-school of Thurgood Marshall College Fund. The college enrolls more than 6,000 students as of fall 2022.
This is an index of education articles.
Visual arts education is the area of learning that is based upon the kind of art that one can see, visual arts—drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, and design in jewelry, pottery, weaving, fabrics, etc. and design applied to more practical fields such as commercial graphics and home furnishings. Contemporary topics include photography, video, film, design, and computer art. Art education may focus on students creating art, on learning to criticize or appreciate art, or some combination of the two.
Massachusetts College of Art and Design, branded as MassArt, is a public college of visual and applied art in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1873, it is one of the nation's oldest art schools, the only publicly funded independent art school in the United States. It was the first art college in the United States to grant an artistic degree.
The College of Visual Arts (CVA) in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States, was a private, accredited, four-year college of art and design offering a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in fine arts, graphic design, illustration, and photography. The fine arts degree offered concentrations in drawing, painting, printmaking, and sculpture.
This glossary of education-related terms is based on how they commonly are used in Wikipedia articles. This article contains terms starting with A – C. Select a letter from the table of contents to find terms on other articles.
Education in the performing arts is a key part of many primary and secondary education curricula and is also available as a specialisation at the tertiary level. The performing arts, which include, but are not limited to dance, music and theatre, are key elements of culture and engage participants at a number of levels.
Education in the Philippines is compulsory at the basic education level, composed of kindergarten, elementary school, junior high school, and senior high school. The educational system is managed by three government agencies by level of education: the Department of Education (DepEd) for basic education; the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) for higher education; and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) for technical and vocational education. Public education is funded by the national government.
Arts integration differs from traditional education by its inclusion of both the arts discipline and a traditional subject as part of learning The goal of arts integration is to increase knowledge of a general subject area while concurrently fostering a greater understanding and appreciation of the fine and performing arts. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts defines arts integration as "an approach to teaching in which students construct and demonstrate understanding through an art form. Students engage in a creative process which connects an art form and another subject and meets evolving objectives in both."
Uruguayan American School (UAS) is an American private international school in Carrasco, Montevideo. It serves nursery through grade 12. As of 2024 it has approximately 350 students, including students from Uruguay and 32 other nationalities. Students at the Uruguayan American School have the opportunity to earn the US high school diploma, the IB Diploma, and, in many cases, the Uruguayan Diploma. The school's educational program is designed to prepare students for academic and professional pursuits in various global contexts.
David Milton Steiner is executive director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy and professor of education at Johns Hopkins University. His previous appointments include New York State Commissioner of Education in the New York State Education Department; director of arts education at the National Endowment for the Arts; founding director of the City University of New York Institute for Education Policy at Roosevelt House and the Klara and Larry Silverstein Dean at the Hunter College School of Education; and member of the Maryland State Board of Education and Maryland Commission for Innovation and Excellence in Education. Steiner currently serves on the boards of the Core Knowledge Foundation and Relay Graduate School of Education. Most recently, he was appointed to the Practitioner Council at the Hoover Institute, Stanford University.
The Common Core State Standards Initiative, also known as simply Common Core, was a multi-state educational initiative begun in 2010 with the goal of increasing consistency across state standards, or what K–12 students throughout the United States should know in English language arts and mathematics at the conclusion of each school grade. The initiative was sponsored by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers.
In the United States, elementary schools are the main point of delivery of primary education, for children between the ages of 4–11 and coming between pre-kindergarten and secondary education.
↑ Hancock, D.R. (2018). "Enhancing Early Childhood Development Through Arts Integration in Economically Disadvantaged Learning Environments". Urban Review. 50 (1): 430–446. doi:10.1007/s11256-017-0440-y. S2CID148866849.
Further reading
Anderson, A.A. Jr.; Paul Erik Bolin, eds. (1997), History of Art Education: Proceedings of the Third Penn State International Symposium
Hampton, Grace (2015), From Dream to Reality Manchester Bidwell as a Testament to the Transformative Power of the Arts, The International Review of African American art, Museum of African American Art, pp.25–34
External links
Texas Art Education Association. "Web Resources". Archived from the original on 2016-08-17. Retrieved 2016-08-02.
George Washington University, Libraries. "Art Education". Research Guides. Washington DC. Archived from the original on 2016-09-19. Retrieved 2016-08-02.
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Flaxman Library. "Art Education". Research Guides. Archived from the original on 2016-08-16. Retrieved 2016-08-02.
Tufts University, Libraries. "Art Education". Research Guides. Massachusetts.
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