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Inspired by critical race and feminist perspectives, this paper complicates the conversation on preparing arts educators for diversity and equity. The authors ground their research on the premise that arts educators committed to challenging social inequalities must understand sociocultural influences on art, curriculum, teaching, and learning. The paper reports a qualitative study that investigated how pre-service arts educators make sense of sociocultural differences (i.e., the dynamics of race, class, gender and sexuality). Findings articulate key curriculum flashpoints that emerged when art teacher candidates engaged with sociocultural knowledge. These flashpoints include identity formation, questioning knowledge, and discourses of offense. The authors argue that these flashpoints present curricular provocations that can assist in developing the critical capacities of art educators. The conclusion explores the implications of these findings for organizing and teaching sociocultural content as foundational knowledge for arts educator preparation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have highlighted the capacity of community arts programs to re-engage those young people considered at-risk of disconnection from future education and/or employment. Evolution is an artist-guided visual arts program established for young people challenged by mental health and social issues that aims to foster re-engagement in education and training. It was founded by a community-based youth arts studio, Signal, and in a partnership with a youth support service, has developed into an effective, strength-based model of practice that focuses on the young people's existing capacities and positive qualities rather than setting out to improve perceived deficits. Central to the success of this program has been the commitment to relationship-building, mediated through art practice, and the opportunities afforded to connect positively with others. This paper reports on research during the formative years of this initiative and outlines the conditions that framed and impacted upon participant engagement in the Evolution Program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bowers (2001) described how our ecological crisis is marked by metaphors of difference and separation. By adopting an ecological paradigm, students have the opportunity to move past harmful distinctions that have characterized relations with the earth. Instead, students can move to a deep recognition of the interconnectedness of living things. Empathy, particularly with the environment, is deeply tied to such a paradigm. To help students develop this paradigm, a critical place-based art curriculum designed and implemented in a middle school classroom. The curriculum was informed by the ecological imagination, a call for education that embraces the arts as a way to conceive of new ecological perspectives and dialogues. Drawing exercises, interviews, surveys, journals reviews, observations, and focus groups were used to investigate student experiences. Data revealed that students' ecological paradigms increased as a result of their participation. Throughout the program, students exhibited empathy with the environment as they cared for nature, developed awareness, and accepted responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current research indicates that within the United States, many preservice teachers are not prepared to work with a rapidly changing student population that includes an increasing number of immigrant students with limited proficiency in English (Giambo & Szecsi, 2005/2006; Janzen, 2008; Latta & Chan, 2011). This article presents findings from a longitudinal qualitative study that examined the semester-long experiences of preservice art education students who participated in The University of Georgia Studies Abroad in Cortona, Italy program from 2003 to 2006, providing sequential art instruction to Italian children who were not English speakers. In 2010, we conducted follow-up interviews to better understand the potential long-term effects of this experience. Our findings indicated this experience gave the art education students increased cultural understanding and greater confidence in their teaching, and provided a foundational experience that they believed would help them be more successful in working with English Language Learners (ELLs) in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we introduce non-dualism and begin by answering the questions posed by the editors of this journal. We address the theme of de(fence) and propose a paradigmatic shift. For many years, art teachers have advocated tirelessly in defense of the field, fighting for funding and legitimacy in an educational landscape that prioritizes other subjects. While the reaction to fight is appropriate, art reveals another way. It aids us in our task of living in the liminal, and it gives us the chance to suspend our judgments and forego meaning in favor of experience. Art can help us transition from the dual mind to a non-dualistic awareness. When we experience art as it is, we stop seeing differences and start to see connections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses the topics of various articles published within the issue including one on subversive expression in early childhood art education, one about digital art as communication, and one regarding literacy programs and visual art.

A case study is presented of the collaboration at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, between a Gender and Development professor and the Director of the Acadia University Art Gallery in creating a visual art exhibit of the Guerrilla Girls, a group of feminists protesting sexism in the world of fine art. The article describes and analyzes both the classroom and gallery components as an interdisciplinary project for the Gender and Development class, and promotes the use of visual art in classroom learning.

Recent nontraditional forms of public art have been described as interventionist, referring to art that establishes its purpose and form through the social exchanges and altered behaviors that arise as a result of its disruption of quotidian patterns of social experience in public spaces. The form of the work is revealed through the contingent communities, spontaneous social dialogues, and incidental social collaborations that occur as a result of its disruption of habitual public experience. This article provides a theoretical and artistic framework for rethinking the function of artmaking within the broader context of art educational practices and for reevaluating the potential that artmaking might have as a means of socially engaging and making meaning in the public environments inhabited by students. An interventionist art curriculum can be understood as a type of art-informed tactical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on art education for preadolescents, children ages 11 through 13. The author explains that children of this age are more apt to participate in art education if they can relate to the projects assigned. At this age, children want to express their opinions and voices, and art education is a way for them to display this. They can explore identity, reflect on experiences, and develop moral reasoning. A collaboration between preadolescent art classes in the U.S., Spain, and Turkey is chronicled.

Discusses issues related to feminism in art education. Relation between feminism and art education; Feminist consciousness and research; Reasons why feminists think they can change things.

Compares two approaches to a multicultural art curriculum. The issue-oriented approach, which supports cultural diversity; The thematic approach, which aims to experience cultural traditions; The difficulty of transferring the literary meanings of themes and issues to discussion of imagery; Value of the two approaches to curricula.

The article focuses on the changes in technology and culture that affects art education. It discusses the role of technological innovations in the changes in the culture and values of people. It also discusses the effect of the changes in technology to people's conception of art and art education. Although the article questions the moral and cultural effects of technology, it also discusses the positive results of technological innovation in making people's lives efficient and productive. Art education's responsibilities in guiding students' vision and engendering critical visual intelligence through practice and discourse in response to the changes in the society are also discussed.

The article presents arguments in favor of the importance of including the NAMES Quilt Project in art education and provides examples on its ongoing development. The NAMES Quilt is an international effort to make the public aware of the effects of the AIDS virus through visual representations of those who have died of the disease and their loved ones left behind. The article also discusses the history of the project. The article concludes that seeing the NAMES Quilt as a form of political action can be instrumental in its integration into art education. The involvement of the students not just university students but also elementary and secondary students in quilt making helps them be aware of the disease and its fatal consequences.

The article reports on the potential of art education to address the roots of the Watts riots. Violence as a means to achieve respect and self-dignity, things that have been lost due to material deprivation, is believed to be the roots of the riots in Watts, California in 1965. The problem is hoped to be addressed through innovations in art education curricula and teaching methods. The program's strategies include developing productive perceptual-cognitive patterns of behavior, acquiring an adequate self-image, instituting structured curricula, and adopting positive attitudes toward the value of education.

Interactions through dialogue on visual art are being practiced by middle school students at Clarence Darrow Middle School in New Jersey in studying English and poetry. Details on how conversations on visual art help students develop their poetry writing skills are discussed.

The article focuses on a new sense of vocation as a way of creating and teaching art by understanding what a person is doing. The author argues that a person gains a new sense of vocation when he sees what his art creation and teaching of art do for him. The reasons cited in a person's change in his sense of vocation includes providing stepping-stones to the next level of awareness, actualization of self-expression and changes in the person. An overview of how to achieve a new sense of vocation is discussed. The author also suggests that a person should see deeply the meaning of what he is doing and let it lead the way to understand the effect of a new sense of vocation.

Applauds the recent issue on `Lifelong Learning' that demonstrates that contemporary art education can encompass all phases of life. Distancing of readers from human contexts of researches; Author's profession as an art teacher; Older students' dimensions of learning; Audience for lifelong learning and motivation.

The article reports on the Connecticut State Department of Education and its publication of a preliminary Bulletin in Art Education. It discusses that the bulletin will contains material for students in Grades K - 12 and was developed with the Connecticut Arts Association. The bulletin is a part of the request by the State Board of Education to develop a curriculum guide for public schools in Connecticut. Comments from Connecticut residents and school officials will be entertained to help improve the bulletin. A mailing address is included for people who want a copy of the bulletin.

The article discusses the indirect benefits of the teaching of vocal music and art to children. Music and art courses in the schools will not make children professional singers or employable draftsmen, but the courses will make children become aware of the beauty of music and art. The children will be imparted with a lifelong ability to enjoy music and art.