JSTAE Number 19/20

2000

Editorial

Yvonne Gaudelius

 

Empowerment through Dialogue

The theme of the Journal of Social Theory in Art Education, Volume 19/20 is Empowerment Through Dialogue. Empowerment is a difficult issue-for example, how do we as art educators "empower" those who don't want or feel the need to be empowered? Can we ever empower others or can empowerment only occur through self-reflections? How do we engage in dialogue with our students, our teachers, and our colleagues? Just as with empowerment, dialogue cannot be forced upon us. Through the various dialogues that run through the articles in this volume, we see that dialogue is something that we choose to engage in or not engage.

Dialogue and empowerment are closely connected. One of the ways that empowerment can be realized is through dialogue. Dialogue is, for many of us, also a primary means of teaching and learning. Yet the emphasis that is placed on empowerment as a facet of dialogue creates a dialogue that becomes dialectic in nature and one in which the ideas that shape the dialogue are always evolving and changing.

This volume features seven authors' exploration of the form and content of the theme, Empowerment Through Dialogue. Artists' visual explorations of the form and content of empowerment through dialogue often create a purposeful ongoing tension. However, art teachers often overlook this oscillation between form and content when they write about their teaching experiences. Authors in this volume explore the act of dialogue both as a means through which to teach and as a form of writing.

In their article Grace Deniston-Trochta, Jane Vanderbosch, and Ed Check provide us with an example that represents both a theoretical discussion of dialogue and empowerment and a model of the process of dialogue between the three authors. These authors explore their own understandings of dialogue, situated within their own locations. Simultaneously, resonances emerge between the three dialogues as the writings "speak" to one another.

Shirley Yokley discusses the ways in which students can explore ideas of critical citizenship and move towards positions that work against prejudice. Using ideas from critical pedagogy and the work of contemporary artists, Yokley challenges readers to use dialogue with students to examine biases.

In her article, Amy Brook Snider reconstructs and reflects upon a dialogue through letters written ten years previously between herself and Isla McEachern, a then art education undergraduate student from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Canada. As part of an exchange program with the Pratt Institute, Isla visited teachers and students in a variety of New York settings. Based on letters that investigate pedagogy, learning, and teaching the writings serve as a fonn of discussion between two art educators leading each to new understandings of what it means to teach about art.

Paul Duncum, in his article, examines images of childhood and children that adults create to serve their adult needs. Rather than explore the multiple dialogues that children construct about themselves and childhood, we attempt to control these multiplicities reducing them to a single narrative largely, Duncum writes, so that we can reduce them to consumers. Duncum argues that instead we need to understand childhood as fluid and shifting, and engage in critical dialogue with our students about the images that are targeted at them.

The Book Review section features a new millenium book of 18 chapters authored by Caucus on Social Theory and Art Education members who practice social theory teaching. Dennis Fehr introduces the book, Real-World Readings: Things Your Professors Never Told You. Fehr co-edited Real- World Readings with Kristen King Fehr and Karen Keifer-Boyd. Fehr in the introduction to the book states that the editors' goal was to provide real-world examples of art educators "who protest, break, ignore, or rewrite the rules that trap art at the curricular pheriphery" (Fehr, 2000, p. xvi).

This issue concludes with Karen Keifer-Boyd's reflections on visualizing empowerment through dialogue. She visualized the theme's form and content to create the cover image.

Finally, as editor I wish to thank the authors whose work is presented in this issue of the journal, as well as the reviewers who thoroughly read and commented upon the manuscripts. I also wish to sincerely thank Karen Keifer-Boyd whose support, helpful ideas, encouragement, and assistance made the publication of this issue of ]STAE possible. It is my hope that the ideas presented by the various authors in this volume will encourage all of us to begin our own dialogues with our colleagues, our students, and our teachers as a form of self-empowerment and of the empowerment of all of the others with whom our lives intersect.