Overview
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.
Synopsis
An anthology based on contemporary art issues being addressed in the art world, in critical theory, in education and in art education, Contemporary Issues in Art Education provides a complex of conceptual frameworks within three sections—theoretical frameworks, content, and pedagogical strategies. The contributors—art educators from the United States and Canada— suggest in both theoretical and practical terms ways to teach art that explore issues such as personal identity, difference, visual culture and the popular media, the environment, aging, and narrative, as well as examining issues of race, gender, and ethnicity.
The readings provide an issues-based approach to art education and address schooling as socialization, issues as content and context, the traditions of art education, educational theories, visual art and visual culture.
For future and current art educators and others interested in teaching art to children.