Contemporary Issues in Art Education (Paperback)

by Yvonne Gaudelius (Author), Peg Speirs (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Contemporary Issues in Art Education by Yvonne Gaudelius and Peg Speirs is a collection of essays that are framed around social issues, art, and teaching. Using an issues-based approach, the authors provide a valuable resource for teaching issues-based content, especially as these issues are explored through contemporary art and visual culture in the classroom.

The authors present ideas for educators at all levels who want to incorporate an issues-based approach to teaching. This book combines theoretical perspectives with tangible and practical strategies for generating content and pedagogical approaches. The book, while primarily written for pre-service elementary teachers, will prove useful to general classroom teachers and art educators at all levels, whether they are teaching in the K-12 or the college classroom.

The authors in this book are highly respected within the field of art education. They provide thoughtful approaches to a realm of complex ideas encompassing artistic, social, political, and educational issues. Readers will develop and understanding of a variety of ways to teach about such issues in the classroom, how to draw upon the contemporary artworld, and a sense of the critical frameworks within which we need to explore such issues.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

This book is a collection of essays that are framed around social issues, art, and teaching. Using an issues-based approach, the authors provide a valuable resource for teaching issues-based content, especially as these issues are explored through contemporary art and visual culture in the classroom.

The focus of the text is on contemporary issues such as those involved in our understandings of identity, the political, the social, the body, difference, and the environment. These important issues are being addressed in the art-world, in critical theory, and in art education. The authors present ideas for educators at all levels who want to incorporate an issues-based approach to teaching. This book combines theoretical perspectives with tangible and practical strategies for generating content and pedagogical approaches. While primarily written for pre-service elementary teachers, Contemporary Issues in Art Education will prove extremely useful to general classroom teachers and art educators at all levels, whether they are teaching in the K-12 or the college classroom.

This anthology is divided into three parts. In the first, Theoretical Frameworks, the chapters provide an overview of a variety of theoretical perspectives that include a focus on postmodern, feminist, multicultural, popular and visual culture, and community issues. The chapters in Content, the second section, center on aspects of creating issues based curricula, issues of identity and difference in the elementary classroom, visual culture and popular media, and artistic issues in the elementary education classroom. In the final part of the book, Pedagogical Strategies, the authors examine issues surrounding the relationship of pedagogy to content, the application of specific pedagogical strategies, and assessment and evaluation in issues based curricula.

The writings that we have included are those that address contemporary issues in both theoretical and practical terms. One of the aims of this anthology is to provide elementary pre-service teachers and art education pre-service teachers with a complex of conceptual frameworks dealing with contemporary issues such as identity, the political, the social, and the environmental and connect these issues to the work being done by contemporary artists and critical theorists. In addition, the chapters encourage connections between contemporary experiences and past experiences, between students' lives and the concepts under discussion, and between a variety of critical contexts.

It is very important to us that readers make connections between the materials that they are reading, the information that they are gathering and their own lives and experiences. In order to facilitate this, each chapter begins with a series of questions and explorations. We encourage readers to take the time to think about these questions, write responses to them, and to use them as a framework within which to read the chapter. We follow each chapter with a similar list of questions that ask readers to re-consider their initial personal reflections in light of the understandings that they have developed from their reading. We also provide a list of additional resources for further investigation of the issues that each chapter presents.

The authors in this book are highly respected within the field of art education. They provide thoughtful approaches to a realm of complex ideas encompassing artistic, social, political, and educational issues. While many of the ideas that are being dealt with are complex, the language used throughout the book is direct and straightforward. Readers will develop an understanding of a variety of ways to teach about such issues in the classroom, how to draw upon the contemporary artworld, and a sense of the critical frameworks within which we need to explore such issues.

Yvonne Gaudelius
Peg Speirs

Product Details

• Paperback: 418 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (June 23, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130886882
• ISBN-13: 978-0130886880
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
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• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #173,223 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)