Graduate Research Art Education Conference
Saturday 11th of November 2006
Teachers College
Columbia University
Cowin Center
(Horace Mann 147)
9.00 – 5.30
2006 DVD Set of Presentations
Social and Individual Identity
Representing Identity
Expanding Identity
Inventing Identity
Sharif Bey
Doctoral Candidate in Art Education at The Pennsylvania State University
Aaron Douglas and Hale Woodruff: The Social Responsibility of the Black Artist
This study examines the pedagogical strategies and studio presence of Aaron Douglas and Hale Woodruff, two African American artists who came to prominence during the 1920s. Although they received their formal training from American and European institutions, they later spent their tenures teaching at historically Black universities. The content of their work, and their cultural and political convictions emerged from the hardships of growing up in a racially segregated United States. The purpose of this project is to explore the impact of Black identity on their teaching of African-American students in the 1930s and 1940s.This study charts the challenges and triumphs of how these two art educators used their influence to instill racial pride and teach their students to navigate a White-male dominated art world.
Marty Spence
Doctoral Candidate in Art Education at Teachers College, Columbia University
The Relationship of Motivation and Self-validation Illustrated in the Work of Three Contemporary Artists
Unmotivated students represent one of the biggest problems facing art educators. While there is an abundance of literature on motivation in education, there is little that mentions self-validation. Interviews with six artists, however, revealed self-motivation to be a key factor influencing their work. If strong intrinsic motivation impels artists to create, then what are the factors that contribute to such motivation? Artists’ narratives reported in this study reveal a rich and complex definition of self-validation built upon nine motivation related themes. Understanding the relationship between motivation and self-validation suggest ways of responding to the problem of student motivation facing art educators.
Joseph Furnari
Doctoral Candidate in Art Education at Teachers College, Columbia University
What’s the Point: Adolescent Adventures in the Exploration of Self-Identity through Drama
In this presentation, I will provide a synopsis the findings of a study in which a group of fourteen high school students, myself and another teacher, worked for a period of four months to construct a theatre piece based on narratives from the students lives: their experiences, issues important to them, and their hopes and fears. Focusing on Winnicott’s theory of a potential space, and Ellsworth’s concept of transitional space, which augments Winnicott, I examine and describe the nature of a dramatic experience and the ways in which adolescents develop within and through these experiences.
Gretchen Heuges
Candidate for the Master of Education Degree in Art Education at The Pennsylvania State University
The Drawings and Paintings of Violetta C. Radtiz
In this socio-historical study, I focus on a collection of more than 400 drawings and paintings done by a young girl between the ages of six-and-a-half and twelve years old. Violetta C. Raditz and her artwork entered public discourse in 1920 when five of her drawings were exhibited in an adult juried exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in Philadelphia. She was eight years old. My findings regarding the collection center on the cultural influences that created the genre of child art and those that are in turn reflected in her work. These influences include the philosophies of modernism, the nascent appreciation of child art, and how this particular child assimilated both fine art and contemporaneous popular visual culture into her drawings and paintings.
Gillian Furniss
Doctoral Candidate in Art Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
The Role of Intervention in the Artistic Development of a Young Artist with Autism
A growing number of children are being diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Autism is a pervasive developmental disorder characterized by impairments in social communication, interpersonal relations, and narrow repetitive behaviors. The artwork of children with autism has been discussed in the academic fields of psychiatry, cognitive psychology, and art therapy. However, there has been almost no research conducted in the field of art education within the theoretical framework of artistic development. This is a qualitative case study of the early artwork—drawings, paintings, and collage—of a young girl with autism. Peers and adults played a major role in her artistic development with the use of various intervention techniques.
Miyuki Otaka
Doctoral Candidate in Art Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
A Case Study of Museum Family Programs Focusing on Participants' Post-Program Activities
Currently, many art museums offer family programs. What significance do art-museum family programs have in participants’ daily lives? This study examined the characteristics of the art experiences of eight extended families that attended one of three museums' family programs in New York City. Findings indicate that participant families have rich everyday art experiences, which constitute significant self-education within these families. However, interpersonal art experiences between adults and children are infrequent. Further, the relationships between their day-to-day experiences and family program experiences are relatively weak. Based on these results, this study urges paradigm shifts in family programs and intra-familial education.
Pei-Ching Yang
Candidate for the Master of Science Degree in Art Education at The Pennsylvania State University
An Odyssey in Tamsui Community through a Community-Based Art Curriculum: A Case Study
This action research examines whether my community-based art curriculum taught at Tamsui Sin-Sing Elementary School of Taipei County, Taiwan from May 11 to June 30, 2005, promotes students’ sense of community and understanding of the history and culture of Tamsui. The curriculum focused on four sites in Tamsui and an annual event, the Chinsui Festival. A first step to promote students’ sense of community involved broadening students’ understanding of the history and culture of Tamsui. Secondly, strategies designed to develop an appreciation of Tamsui folk arts helps to preserve valuable community resources. Finally, ongoing interactions with the community is emphasized in this community-based art curriculum.
Kyong-Mi Paek
Doctoral Candidate in Art Education at Teachers College, Columbia University
Opportunities, Options and Obstacles in a Changing Educational Landscape: Socially Negotiated Meanings of Three Korean Middle School Art Teachers’ Experiences
This qualitative case study focuses on the diverse social relations and multiple perspectives of educational reform in a specific cultural and historical context of Korean art education. It examines the different socially negotiated meanings of three Korean middle school art teachers’ professional experiences constructed out of their unique local circumstances. The purpose is to understand the sociocultural continuities involved in the current effort to change art teaching practice and to explore challenges and opportunities created by these changing circumstances. The outcomes are expected to help promote more productive collaborations between the reformer and the reformed.
Doctoral Candidate in Art Education at The Pennsylvania State University
In/From the Classroom, Toward Transnational: Educational and pedagogical Insights From the Art of Two Immigrant Artists
In this presentation of one aspect of my dissertation research, I analyze selected works by artists Wenda Gu and Trinh Minh-ha, whom I consider transnational personae living in-between multiple cultures and places. Their art and art-making blend various artistic, disciplinary, and cultural traditions, suggesting new ways to approach resistance and appropriation in a culturally hybridized, conflict-fraught world. Based upon Richard Rorty’s notion of art as an honorary person, I interpret their works from my perspective as an art educator. My goal is to develop a transnational model of art education that resists binaries and fixity and promotes multiplicity and transformation of both the content and dynamics of teaching in a global postmodern world.James Werner
Doctoral Candidate in Art Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Making ‘Space’ – An Examination of Immersive Experiences in Art
The presentation will discuss space as it is examined in the context of recent installation artworks. The definition of ‘space’ is an ongoing discussion continually being challenged by the development of digital imagery and other technological communication environments. I will discuss how the development of technology has contributed to immersive experiences and catered to the human need for phenomenal experience. Likewise, during this time installation artists have created immersive experiences. Implications of these created spaces will be explored in relation to our desire for phenomenal experience, and how the relationship between art and technology has contributed to our understanding of it.
Hui-Chin Hsiao
Doctoral Candidate in Art Education at The Pennsylvania State University
Reflective Learning with Interactive Narrative Interface in a Game Environment
Using the digital game The Sims 2(TS2), a life-like simulation game as an example, this study is designed to advance understanding of how digital game play provides an interactive narrative interface in which players may play, explore, and express themselves through storytelling. Ultimately, the goal of the study is to discover whether the experiences of narrative creation in game play encourage reflective learning and the construction of identity.
Graduate Research in Art Education Conference 2006 Respondent Panelists
David Darts
David is Assistant Professor and Acting Director of Art Education in the Department of Art and Art Professions at New York University. His research and teaching spans the fields of curriculum studies, visual culture, media education, cultural studies, and arts and image based research. His work focuses on education and the arts as critical sites of cultural and sociopolitical struggle and emphasizes arts education as the nexus between individual identity, critical inquiry, symbolic imagination, and collective social action. His research also examines popular culture and media as educative forces – sites of living curriculum and sources of cultural pedagogy, particularly in relation to citizenship, political agency, creative expression and the production of meaning. Darts is a former doctoral fellow of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He has contributed academic articles and chapters to a number of art education publications and has presented his research both nationally and internationally. He is Program Chair for the Arts Based Educational Research Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association and serves as editorial board member for the Journal of Art Education.
Dissertation Title: Visual Culture Jam: Art, Pedagogy, and Creative Resistance (University of British Columbia, 2004)
Aphrodite Desiree Navab
Desiree is an Iranian-Greek-American artist-scholar who uses art and writing to investigate transnational issues in art and cultural studies. She completed five years of teaching art history, theory and studio courses in the College of Fine Arts at the University of Florida as Adjunct, Visiting, and Assistant Professor. Navab has published several refereed journal articles crossing a number of disciplines, from aesthetics and history of photography to Iranian studies. Her own art has been featured in over sixty exhibitions and is included in a number of permanent collections. Her doctoral dissertation is the first study specifically focused on the photography and video of diasporic Iranian women. A chapter from it will be published the Journal of Aesthetic Education.
Dissertation Title: Unsaying Life Stories: A Comparative Analysis of the Autobiographical Art of Four Iranians (Teachers College Columbia, 2004)
Dan Serig
Dan Serig is an Assistant Professor of Art Education at the Massachusetts College of Art. His dissertation investigated the conceptual structure of visual metaphors by contemporary artists. His current responsibilities in the Art Education department at MassArt include teaching courses in new and traditional media with undergraduate students, teaching research courses with masters' students and coordinating the graduate programs. Research conducted by Dan has been published in Studies in Art Education, as well as other publications. Dan is also a Senior Research Associate with Dr. Rob Horowitz in their work as evaluators of community arts programs. Clients include the Lincoln Center, the National Dance Institute, the Indianapolis Symphony and ArtsConnection of New York City. Dan has taught visual arts to preschool through adult students in both public and private schools in the United States and China. In Shanghai, Dan was a founding faculty member of the Concordia International School and designed the visual arts curriculum. As a practicing visual artist, Dan shows at the Pearl Street Gallery in Brooklyn, New York, where he is also an assistant director. His artwork is in private collections throughout the world.
Dissertation Title: A conceptual structure of visual metaphor in the practices and exhibition of a consortium of artists (Teachers College Columbia, 2005)
Kryssi Staikidis
Kryssi Staikidis is Associate Professor of art education at Adelphi University. She received her Ed.D. in art education from Teachers College Columbia University and her M.F.A. in painting from Hunter College. She teaches courses in indigenous studies and art education. Her research interests are in the areas of indigenous pedagogy and art studio practice as a site for research. In examining Mayan teaching practices emerging out of artist’s studios, Staikidis hopes to transform art education curricula in higher education that have tended to be historically Eurocentric.
Dissertation Title: Where Lived Experience Resides in Art Education: A Painting and Pedagogical Collaboration with Mayan Artists (Teachers College Columbia, 2004)