Why Art Education Lacks Social Relevance: A Contextual Analysis

Abstract

Contemporary art education is individual - focused (i.e. self-centered) to the almost complete exclusion of larger social concerns. This is true whether the art education is child-centered, discipline-centered, Rockfeller (Coming to Our Senses) - centered, or competency-based. The primary concern, notwithstanding differences, is on individual artistic productivity and, to a lesser degree, on personal aesthetic response. The enormous untapped potential of art education - and ninety-nine percent of us will be viewers and consumers, not artists - is in the social dimension. Critical understanding of the dominant visual culture - often dehumanizing in its effect, multicultural understanding through art, and the democratization of our visual culture (i.e. culture of, by, and for all of the people are major social goals largely ignored by art educators.

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