Thinking Otherwise About the Arts in Education—A Rejoinder

2013 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 636-643 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Arts Education ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Harvard Educational Review ◽  
National Endowment ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Arts In Education ◽  
The Arts ◽  
New Vision

In this essay, Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández reflects on the comments made in a forum convened to reflect on his article “Why the Arts Don't Do Anything: Toward a New Vision for Cultural Production in Education,” published in the Harvard Educational Review (HER)'s special issue entitled Expanding Our Vision for the Arts in Education (Vol. 83, No. 1). Participants in the forum (published in HER Vol. 83, No.3) were John Abodeely, manager of national partnerships, John F. Kennedy Center for the Arts, Washington, DC; Ken Cole, associate director, National Guild for Community Arts Education, New York City; Janna Graham, project curator of the Serpentine Gallery, Centre for Possible Studies, London; Ayanna N. Hudson, director of arts education, National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, DC; and Carmen Mörsch, head of the Research Institute for Art Education, Zurich University of the Arts. In his original essay, Gaztambide-Fernández makes the case that advocacy for arts education is trapped within a “rhetoric of effects” that relies too heavily on causal arguments for the arts, whether construed as instrumental or intrinsic. Gaztambide- Fernández further argues that what counts as “the arts” is based on traditional, Eurocentric, hierarchical notions of aesthetic experience. As an alternative, he suggests a “rhetoric of cultural production” that would focus on the cultural processes and experiences that ensue in particular contexts shaped by practices of symbolic work and creativity. Here the author engages the forum's discussion in an effort to clarify his argument and move the dialogue forward.

Responding to “Why the Arts Don't Do Anything: Toward a New Vision for Cultural Production in Education”

2013 ◽  
Vol 83 (3) ◽  
pp. 513-528 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Abodeely ◽  
Ken Cole ◽  
Janna Graham ◽  
Ayanna Hudson ◽  
Carmen Mörsch
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
Arts Education ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Associate Professor ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Harvard Educational Review ◽  
Arts In Education ◽  
The Arts ◽  
New Vision

In the spring of 2013, the Harvard Educational Review (HER) published a special issue entitled Expanding Our Vision for the Arts in Education (Vol. 83, No. 1). Following a variety of forward-looking essays and arts learner reflections concerning the potential of the arts in education, the issue concluded with a provocative scholarly article, “Why the Arts Don't Do Anything: Toward a New Vision for Cultural Production in Education,” written by Rubén A. Gaztambide-Fernández, an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. In this piece, Gaztambide-Fernández makes the case that advocacy for arts education is trapped within a “rhetoric of effects” because the arts, as we conceive of them in educational environments today, rely too heavily on instrumental and intrinsic outcomes while only shallowly embodying a commitment to, or a consideration of, cultural practice. Gaztambide-Fernández further argues that what counts as “the arts” is based on traditional, Eurocentric, hierarchical notions of aesthetic experience. According to him, this discursive positioning of the arts within traditional Eurocentric power structures complicates arts teaching and learning for arts educators, especially those committed to issues of social justice. As an alternative, he suggests discursively repositioning the arts within a “rhetoric of cultural production,” positing that such a discursive shift would reconceptualize arts education as experiences that produce culture.

Editors' Introduction: Expanding Our Vision for the Arts in Education

2013 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Clapp ◽  
Laura Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Arts Education ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Harvard Educational Review ◽  
Arts In Education ◽  
The Arts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Education Journal ◽  
Generalist Education ◽  
Sociocultural Interactions ◽  
Education Symposium

In 1991 the Harvard Educational Review presented a two-part arts education symposium (vol. 61, nos. 1 & 3) that was published the following year as Arts as Education (Goldberg & Phillips, 1992). Then, HER editors were troubled to look back on the history of our journal and find scant discussion of issues pertaining to the arts in education. Twenty years after the Arts as Education symposium, we remain troubled that the topic of arts teaching and learning has continued to remain a stranger to the pages of our journal, only rarely making an appearance in the occasional article or Book Note. While we are dismayed by this lack of focus on the arts in a generalist education journal such as our own, we wonder, Should we really be surprised by the absence of arts education content in HER? Given that our current educational landscape is so deeply fixated on standardized tests, measurable outcomes in rigid content areas, and increased “achievement” at all costs, perhaps it makes sense that the arts—though fundamental to how we make meaning of ourselves, our environments, and our sociocultural interactions—are relegated to the margins of dominant discussions on education and therefore sadly absent from HER's pages.

Why the Arts Don't Do Anything: Toward a New Vision for Cultural Production in Education

2013 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
pp. 211-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández
Keyword(s):  
Education Research ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Arts In Education ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The World ◽  
New Vision ◽  
Discursive Approach

In this essay Rubén A. Gaztambide-Fernández uses a discursive approach to argue that mainstream arts in education scholarship and advocacy construes “the arts” as a definable naturalistic phenomenon that exists in the world and is available to be observed and measured. In the course of his analysis, he examines how this construction is employed through what he calls the rhetoric of effects as part of the mainstream discourses used in arts in education research today. He describes how this positivistic rhetoric masks the complexity of those practices and processes associated with the arts, limiting the possibilities for productively employing such practices in education. In addition, he explores how discourses of the arts both arise out of and continually reify hierarchical conceptions of artistic practices in education and broader society. He concludes by proposing an alternative rhetoric of cultural production, arguing that moving toward this new way of understanding practices and processes of symbolic creativity is critical for expanding our vision for the arts in education.

Source Theatre Company and the Mandate of the NEA: a Case Study

1995 ◽  
Vol 11 (42) ◽  
pp. 128-134
Author(s):  
Mary C. Resing
Keyword(s):  
Public Funding ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Endowment ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
The Public ◽  
Chapel Hill ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Theatre Company ◽  
The University

The controversy in the United States surrounding the funding of ‘offensive‐ and ‘pornographic‐ works by the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) has centered on whether or not the organization should espouse a morally conservative outlook in regard to the public funding of artistic works. However, the NEA arguably already pursues conservative policies rooted in its vision of the form, function, and outlook of the arts it exists to serve. The appointment of the actress Jane Alexander as chair of the NEA may have indicated that the organization would become more liberal in its moral stance, but the question remains: can government-supported art be anything but conservative? The following is a case study of one theatre's relationship to the NEA in the context of the Washington, DC, theatre community. The author, Mary C. Resing, is a former business manager of New Playwrights' Theatre in Washington, DC, and a former grant writer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is currently working on her dissertation on the actress-manager Vera Kommissarzhevskaia.

scholarly journals “I think the arts are as prominent as any subject”: A study of arts education in two Scandinavian schools

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Catharina Christophersen ◽  
Cecilia Ferm Thorgersen
Keyword(s):  
Educational Leadership ◽  
Personal Growth ◽  
Arts Education ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
School Life ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Challenging Situation

The arts seem to be under pressure in many educational systems, which is demonstrated by a general lack of recognition of aesthetic experience and learning, a lack of emphasis on the arts in education, and often also a lack of fully competent teachers. Despite the challenging situation facing the arts in schools in general, there are exceptions. Some schools do choose to focus on the arts. This article is based on an ethnographic double case study that explored arts education practices in two such Scandinavian schools. The purpose was to examine how education in the arts subjects was carried out in the schools, and how the actors perceived, articulated and legitimated the educational practices in the arts subjects. The case descriptions of the two schools imply that the educational leadership in the schools were of great importance. Further, that the arts are integrated as a natural part of everyday school life, and both schools have taken a holistic approach to education, in which the arts are perceived to involve and contribute to learning in the broadest sense, as well as to the pupils’ social and personal growth. Also, the case descriptions show that arts education practices were carried out in a creative, but challenging tension between frames and freedom.

The Future of the Arts in Education? Alternative Strategies

1992 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-17
Author(s):  
Robert Long
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Arts Education ◽  
Alternative Strategies ◽  
Arts In Education ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Future ◽  
Art Forms ◽  
Education Act ◽  
Sustained Responses

Much speculation exists as to the prospect Music and the Performing Arts face in the wake of the 1988 Education Act. Research shows that interaction and fusion, which exist between Music and the Performing Arts, intensify expressive character for young people, and generate more powerful and sustained responses, in comparison with single art forms.Results of experiments show the value of fused artefacts with significant implications for future Arts education, as regards both making and appraising.

Lake Effect

2020 ◽  
pp. 213-232
Author(s):  
A. Joan Saab
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York State ◽  
National Endowment ◽  
State Council ◽  
York State ◽  
Late Night ◽  
Erie Canal ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Lake Effect ◽  
Pan American

This chapter talks about Buffalo as a once booming industrial city that enjoyed a prolonged modernist golden age, beginning with the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825. It describes that the Erie Canal was midway en route between New York City and Detroit and linked the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, which brought an influx of new opportunities to the region and earning Buffalo the moniker of “the Queen City.” It also cites the 1901 Pan-American Exposition that placed Buffalo in the international eye. The chapter explains how Buffalo had become the butt of jokes in the opening monologues of late-night comedians by the 1970s after the opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway in 1959 made the Erie Canal system obsolete for moving freight. It mentions that the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts provided funds for the expansion of the massive neoclassical Albright-Knox complex.

Pluralism and Public-Private Relationships in the Field of Cultural Production

2020 ◽  
pp. 75-98
Author(s):  
Michael Sy Uy
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Tax Reform ◽  
Rockefeller Foundation ◽  
Economic Capital ◽  
The Other ◽  
National Endowment ◽  
Institutional Practices ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Philanthropic Organizations

This chapter explores the coordination, cooperation, and competition between the federal government and private philanthropic organizations. As a federal agency, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) was mandated to serve broadly the interests of all citizens, groups, and communities. Private foundations, on the other hand, could decide to uniquely tailor their chosen missions. Regardless of differences in institutional practices and operation, however, the NEA, Ford Foundation, and Rockefeller Foundation collectively served as weathervanes in the field. Their “seals of approval” guided the decision making of individual patrons, smaller foundations, state art agencies, and corporations. Furthermore, their matching requirements concentrated winners and excluded losers because most often, grantees already possessed other sources of social and economic capital. After the Tax Reform Act of 1969, foundations and the federal government found even more reasons to communicate and cooperate with one another, including at high-powered gatherings like Rockefeller’s “How Can Foundations Help the Arts?” meeting in 1974.

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