Art Education Courses for Elementary Teachers: What Really Happens?

Abstract

In most elementary schools art is taught by classroom teachers with limited art education backgrounds. Teachers' beliefs and previous professional preparation can act as a powerful force on how art education is approached and what students learn about art. To examine these factors, preservice and inservice elementary teachers' attitudes about art and the influence of their art education preparation was studied. Eisner's Art Attitude Inventory served as the starting point for a questionnaire examining three aspects of teachers' attitudes about art education: art values, conceptions of the ideal art program, and prior art experiences. Findings indicated participants' attitudes about art and how art should be taught were often contradictory. Inservice respondents held more moderate attitudes about the place of art in society and schools than their preservice peers. These results have implications for art methods courses, which are often the only professional preparation elementary teachers have in art education.

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