The Issue of Technocratic Rationality in Discipline-Based Art Education

Abstract

Karen A. Hamblen Louisiana State University Discipline-based education, often also referred to as subject-centered, contextualist, or aesthetic education, is perhaps the most discussed, promoted, and viable perspective in education at this time. With well-publicized pilot programs and the possibility of subsequent widespread implementation, however, comes the concomitant need to examine and discuss both the positive and negative characteristics of this type of instruction. A recent article by Bullough and Goldstein (1984) in the Journal of Curriculum Studies deserves scrutiny inasmuch as it indicates some of the criticisms, issues, and possible contradictions developing in regard to disciplinebased education. Specifically, Bullough and Goldstein have chosen to discuss the Utah state-adopted curriculum guide, Art is Elementary (Cornia, Stubbs, & Winters, 1976), as indicative of technocratic rationality values in education curricula. Although the Utah guide may not be the best example of discipline-based education, inasmuch as it does not have clearly specified content within the tripartite focus of aesthetic education, i.e., creative expression, history, and criticism, this guide does, however, serve as a focus for developing issues and criticisms. With slight modifications, the authors' criticisms could just as well be leveled at other curricular materials supportive of delineated content, predefined skill acquisition, sequential instruction, teacherproof procedures, and the testing of outcomes. Unlike many state curricular publications that provide primarily a framework for curriculum development, the Utah guide consists of 206 concepts that form the focus of well-explicated lessons easily followed by with little or no training. Each lesson outlines a concept that is to be learned, provides teacher procedures, specifies materials needed, and includes follow-up activities. Tests to assess competencies have subsequently been developed. The lessons are sequenced according to a systematic growth and progression through eight competency levels. The assignment of students to a competency level is based on analyses of drawings students are asked to make. Although other discipline-based curricular guides, materials, and proposals may differ in details from the Utah publication, they have in common the premise that should be taught as a area with structured content rather than solely for the experiential values of self-expression and creativity that can be gleaned though studio work. The Utah guide was initiated on the premise that art concepts can now be identified and taught in a systematic method (Cornia et al., 1976, p. 2). According to Bullough and Goldstein, (1984), the major problem with this premise is that it is based on the belief that art [can] be taught and learned like any other skill subject (pp. 147-148), and this is the focus of their criticism. According to Bullough and Goldstein, cannot be taught like other areas because it differs in kind and in scope. Many teachers like precisely because it is not teaching mathematics or

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