This research looks thoughtfully and deeply at the relationship between art education and signs, as defined by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1964/1998). Signs, as articulated by Deleuze (1964/1998), are violent disruptions to our way of understanding the world, causing us to think again and/or re-consider what we once knew (or thought we knew). This study looks generatively at how these kinds of disruptive and disorienting moments might be mined for possibilities in art education and remind us of our own relationality. As a post-qualitative lived inquiry, it asks how might art education be-with apprenticeship to signs and what might art education do-with sign-encounters? Using the theoretical lens of transcendental empiricism and new materialism, this study considers how art educators might hold open the space of sign-encounters for oneself and one's students by turning towards the rhizomatic cut and staying with uncertainty. It is focused on the doing-with, making-with, and thinking-with of art, pedagogy, and philosophy/theory, investigating their deep entanglements in spaces of disruption and ultimately developing frame-works for engaging in this kind of work in the classroom. Drawing from Erin Manning and Brian Massumi's theory of research-creation, this research was experienced in an emergent, layered, and complex way over …

The purpose of this phenomenographical case study is to explore the ways in which a group of MFA students conceive of their learning as they are enmeshed within an MFA community. The research follows along two guiding research questions: 1) What does artistic learning involve for graduate students in an MFA community? 2) How is one's artistic practice shaped by one's active participation in an MFA community? The findings of this study have been presented as lines of artistic learning and help to show the various conceptions that MFA students have of their learning as artists while in an MFA program of study. Ultimately, it is in better understanding one's lines of artistic learning that MFA students can be better supported in their journeying to become professional, practicing artists.

Plates of ceramic samples to accompany a thesis studying the suitability of five clays from the vicinity of Denton, Texas for use in high-school ceramics classes. The abundance of natural clays in Denton County and throughout the state of Texas, the ease with which clays may be obtained, and the ease with which they may be refined for use provide almost unlimited teaching possibilities in high-school art classes. This study of five Denton County clays has proved informative in several respects. It has shown that within the vicinity of Denton there are clays that are suitable for high-school use. Although all these clays may be suitable for one technique of pottery making each may not be suitable for all techniques. Many clays may be used after refining by a simple, quick process without the use of expensive and complicated equipment. Simple glazes, which have an aesthetic as well as a utilitarian value, may be compounded to fit these clays.

It is the fundamental insight of phenomenology that meaning is first and foremost - not something which we intellectually reflect on. It is not a product of the mind reworking raw, perceptual experiences. Rather meaning, and our connection to the world, are perceptual phenomena. Thus, to understand the ways in which children find meaning demands a turn toward perceptual experiences - how children see and feel. In this theoretical dissertation, I explore questions of perceptual experiences through a phenomenological framework that I refer to as the perceptual rite of passage (PRoP). The conceptual framework, which centers on attentiveness, labors to help us understand the ontology of perception for preadolescents and how meaning emerges through everyday encounters.

This qualitative inquiry explored how art educators might broaden their views of place through critical encounters with art, local visual culture, and working with older artists. I combined place-based (PB) education and intergenerational (IG) learning as the focus of an art education curriculum writing initiative with in-service art educators within a museum setting to produce PBIG art education. This study engaged art educators in cooperative action research using a multi-modal approach, including identifying and interviewing local artists to construct new understandings about local place and art to share with students and community. I used critical reflection in our cooperative action research by troubling paradoxes in local visual culture, which formed views of place including Indigenous cultures. Using Deleuze's Logic of Sense (LOS) theories of sense and event, enabled concept development through embracing the paradoxes of this research as sense producing. LOS theory of duration complements IG learning by clarifying the contributions of place and time to memory and experience. Duration suggests that place locates the virtual past, which is actualized through memories--one of the shared experiences of IG learning. Rethinking IG relationships as a sharing of experience and memory while positioning place as a commonality, dismantles ageist notions by offering …

The art of making pottery has long been recognized as a valuable educational activity, both for its cultural value and for the opportunity it presents for creative activity. However, the impression is prevalent among school teachers and administrators that the making of pottery requires the purchase of raw material as well as an expensive kiln. For this reason few schools have given pottery making a place in school activities. Experiments with Texas clays have shown conclusively that pottery making is a comparatively simple and inexpensive undertaking. The purpose of this study is to present and evaluate these experiments so that other Texas teachers may utilize them in their work, especially in the elementary art classes of the public schools.

The purpose of this study is to determine the suitability of five clays from the vicinity of Denton, Texas for use in high-school ceramics classes. The abundance of natural clays in Denton County and throughout the state of Texas, the ease with which clays may be obtained, and the ease with which they may be refined for use provide almost unlimited teaching possibilities in high-school art classes. This study of five Denton County clays has proved informative in several respects. It has shown that within the vicinity of Denton there are clays that are suitable for high-school use. Although all these clays may be suitable for one technique of pottery making each may not be suitable for all techniques. Many clays may be used after refining by a simple, quick process without the use of expensive and complicated equipment. Simple glazes, which have an aesthetic as well as a utilitarian value, may be compounded to fit these clays.

For three years the writer has worked with children from a section in Mineral Wells, Texas, in which home environments were unnecessarily bad. They offered none of the wholesome stimuli for growth and development that homes should give. The houses were drab and cheerless, and the grounds were neglected, often grown up in weeds or cluttered with trash. Through its members, made up of sixth and seventh grade children of Travis Elementary School and including children from the affected homes, plans and procedures were formulated for improving homes, and the interest and cooperation of the parents were secured in extending the improvements over the area. By this plan the writer hoped that life might be made more satisfying for these people as a result of improved surroundings.

In this narrative study, I explore the transformative visual cultural dialogue behind the sight of the veil or veiled women in Denton, Texas as a Western culture. The narrative is constructed from the experiences of three Western non-Muslim women participants who wore the veil publicly in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, especially Denton, Texas, for about two weeks, in the spring of 2014. The main question for this study is: How do veiled Western women incite transformative visual cultural dialogue and ideas concerning veiled women? To gather rich data to answer the study's question, I utilized qualitative narrative inquiry to explore the transformative dialogue that the veil, as a visual culture object, can incite in non-Muslim Western women's narratives. The study involves three participants who are non-Muslim American women who voluntarily wore the veil in public and recorded their own and other's reactions. The participants' interviews and diaries demonstrated that the veil incited a particular perceptive dialogue and often transferred negative meanings. For example, the sight of the veil suggested the notion of being Muslim, and consequently, the ideas of not belonging. The reactions the participants received were either negative verbal interactions or physical ones, both of which are limited in …

This collective case study explores the confluence of educational policy and professional praxis by examining the ways art teachers in one public school district make decisions about creating and implementing curricula. Through various interpretations of one district's formal and informal expectations of art teachers, some of the complexities of standards, instruction, and assessment policies in public schools are described. The research shares how art teachers are influenced by local policy expectations by examining how five K-12 art teacher participants negotiate their ideological beliefs and practical knowledge within the professional context of their local setting, and presents an art teacher decision-making framework to conceptualize the influences for praxis and to organize analysis. Case study data include in-depth interview sessions, teaching observations, and district policy artifacts. Themes emerge in the findings through coding processes and constructivist grounded theory analysis methods. The research describes how participants interpret and negotiate expectations, finding curricular freedom and participation in public exhibition as central policy factors. Contributing the perspectives of art teachers to the literature of policy implementation and fine arts education, the study finds that balancing autonomy and mandates are primary sites for negotiating praxis and that informal expectations for student exhibition contribute to a culture …

As a doctoral student, I was asked to teach a course based on emerging technologies and postmodern methods of inquiry in the field of art education. The course was titled Issues and Applications of Technology in Art Education and I developed a method of inquiry called animated autoethnography for pre-service art educators while teaching this course. Through this dissertation, I describe, analyze, interrogate, value, contextualize, reflect on, and artistically react to the autoethnographic animated processes of five pre-service art educators who were enrolled in the course. I interviewed the five participants before and after the creation of their animated autoethnographies and incorporated actor-network theory within the theoretical analysis to study how the insights of my students’ autoethnographies related to my own animations and life narratives. The study also examines animated autoethnography as a method of inquiry that may develop or enhance future teaching practices and encourage empathic connections through researching the self. These selected students created animations that accessed significant life moments, personal struggles, and triumphs, and they exhibited unique representations of self. Pre-service art educators can use self-research to create narrative-based short animations and also use socio-emotional learning to encourage the development of empathy within the classroom. I show …

In this self-study inquiry, I studied my graphic design practice in a professional setting, focusing on my Arabic typographic skills and knowledge. My roles as researcher and design educator indivisibly intertwined throughout this research. I worked to understand the value of calligraphy in art and design education, highlighting its power as an art form while also emphasizing its pedagogical potentials. I utilized two theoretical approaches suited to investigating and understanding the Arabic letters as text and image, Ibn Arabi’s science of letters, or 'ilm al-hurûf, and semiotics. I applied my theoretical framework to three distinctive artworks to investigate their uses of the Arabic letters, contemplating their roles in modern and contemporary Arab art. Essential to my research was learning Arabic calligraphy through two approaches: 1) I attended a calligraphy workshop, and 2) I conducted three self-study experimentations. I analyzed my experience through visual representations, commentary, and narrative inquiry to assess Arabic calligraphy’s significance for graphic design education. As such, my experimentations confirmed Arabic calligraphy’s aesthetic and educational value. I employed my findings to create a contemporary Arabic typography curriculum suitable for university-level students. This curriculum is built on learning theories such as visual culture analysis, semiotics, constructivist theory, play principles, …

This study seeks to explore relationships between Logo turtle graphics and visual literacy by addressing two related questions: (a) can traditional visual literacy concepts, as found in the published literature, be synthesized in terms of Logo turtle graphics, and (b) do the literature and "hands-on" experience with turtle graphics indicate that visual competencies are pertinent to graphics-based electronic communications in computer culture? The findings of this research illustrate that Logo turtle graphics is a self-contained model to teach visual literacy skills pertinent to computer culture. This model is drawn from synthesizing published literature and the classroom experience of Logo learners, which is demonstrated through their visual solutions to Logo assignments. A visual analysis and interpretation of the subjects' work concludes that the principles and competencies associated with traditional visual literacy skills manifest during the Logo turtle graphics experience. The subjects of this study demonstrate that visual literacy pertinent to computer culture includes reading, writing, and drawing alphanumerics and pictographic information with linguistic equivalence. The logic for this symbolic metaphor is body-syntonic spatial experience explained in geometric terms. The Logo learner employs computational models for visual ideas and visual-verbal symbols for spatial ideas in the course of doing turtle graphics.

The purpose of this paper is to compare a group of adolescents with the learning disorder of dyslexia and a group of adolescents without dyslexia in regard to their ability to make realistic drawings. Subjects selected for the study were from a suburban junior high school in which a random sample was taken of both dyslexic and non-dyslexic students. Each was given three standardized drawing tasks, including a still-life drawing, a contour drawing, and a perspective drawing. The drawings were judged by five evaluators on a continuum of realistic to non-realistic. The ratings were then analyzed by the application of the Mann-Whitney U-Test, which indicated that there are no significant differences in the abilities of the two groups to render drawings realistically.

This study is concerned with providing a strategy for teaching basic art concepts of line and shape at sixth grade level to the disadvantaged child through the use of kits as a supplement to classrooms instruction. Twelve kits were devised. The materials and information necessary to do the assignment were included in each kit. They were tested by disadvantaged sixth graders in a Dallas school for one month. The kits were evaluated using the children's work as compared to control assignments, as well as behavior checklists and frequency of uise counts. The game kits were particularly effective. Kits proved to be a viable strategy for enriching the art curriculum for disadvantaged children and improving classroom discipline.

The problem of investigating the adaptability of plant fibers for basketry was two-fold. The first part was the selection and preparation of the plants. Suitable collection time, drying methods, and processing and soaking procedures were determined through a series of experiments, performed during each season of the year. In the second part experimental samples were woven by using the basic basketry techniques to illustrate the usability and versatility of each plant fiber. The survey of forty plants proved that there are readily available plants suitable for basketry. The simplicity of the process, the ready availability of plants, the nominal cost of supplies, and the variety of visual elements obtainable were advantages realized from this investigation.

The problems of this investigation are the content analyses of the art vocabulary, the art-term definitions, and the art-vocabulary objectives in seven sets of visual art curricula for the elementary grades. The hypotheses are that the formulators of three or more of the sources will agree on fifty per cent or more of the art terms and their definitions and will present art-vocabulary objectives. The findings are that the formulators of three or more of the sources agree on less than fifty per cent of the art terms and their definitions. Two sources include definite art-vocabulary objectives. The conclusion is that all three hypotheses are rejected.

The introductory art history course at the university level is the focus of this study. Recognized inadequacies of the traditionally conceived course prompt the development and implementation of a new course humanistically oriented and characterized by innovative methodologies derived from encounter group processes. The course develops through formative processes of examining three deviating teaching approaches: traditional, transitional-exploratory, and alternative-innovative. The resultant format applies concepts of art history, art education,general education, and humanistic psychology to needs of art and non-art students. Course implementation reveals experiences conducive to both art and personological student self-development. The conclusion is that a new art history course was developed and merits empirical testing.

The purpose of this study was to determine if there was any difference between beginning high school art students at Calhoun High School, Port Lavaca, Texas, who had had a junior high art experience and those who had no such experience in regard to their art information, art attitudes, and ability to produce quality art work. The Eisner Art Information and Art Attitude Inventories and three art performance tasks were administered to the population. Those with junior high art experience scored significantly higher on the art information inventory and art performance tasks than those without. The data support the positive effect of a junior high art experience on beginning high school art students.

The purpose of this investigation was to observe the effect of supplemental art activities on classroom management. Supplemental art activities are assignments designed to replace "busy work" with meaningful, interesting learning projects for students. The supplemental activities allowed students who completed their regular work to direct free time to developing appropriate work habits and creative thinking. The investigation showed that additional prepared learning activities help to reduce classroom discipline problems. Students were required to continue the normal learning routine without surpassing the slower members of the class. Planned activities did not solve all classroom problems but did serve to educationally involve the faster students.

The purpose of the study was to determine a definitive description of "artistic giftedness." A questionnaire was sent to Texas art teachers to find what characteristics they attribute to the artistically gifted, how they determine this, and what program goals they set. The wide variety of survey responses indicates the diversity of artistically gifted individuals. The high rating on all items indicates that all could be used as identifiers (higher rated characteristics identifying a larger population, lower rated ones, a smaller population). Responses to items dealing with identification indicate nontest methods to be most widely used. No connection was found between goals chosen and either characteristics or methods.

The purpose of this study was to provide a basis for understanding among Tech Prep and School-to-Work change agents, and educational leaders, of the role that Discipline-Based Art Education (DBAE) can perform as a part of the core curriculum, within the framework of these reform movements. The literature indicated that the federally supported Tech Prep and School-to-Work reform movements were not acquainted with DBAE reform initiative which were supported by the Getty Education Institute for the Arts through the work of Regional Institutes. Therefore, they had no ideas about the possible worth of art as an education core component. Also, DBAE was not acquainted with Tech Prep and School-to-Work and therefore had established no common terminology to communicate the power of what they do in a manner which was relevant to that audience. The DBAE Regional Institutes provided individuals to assist in the development and validation of the study tools, and to participate in the pilot study. The Regional Institutes also identified the 10 Discipline-Based Art Education experts who composed the national Delphi panel for the study. The findings were reported according to research questions. They show the national Delphi panels' perceptions of which SCANS skills can be developed by …

The purpose of this study was to discern the topical content and educational content level of selected presentations given at National Art Education Association conferences and to identify the gender, level of involvement, and occupational background of participants who provided this information. The printed content of nineteen national conference bulletins published from 1951 through 1980 was analyzed to identify presentations and participants that focused on art education teachers, students, and programs in preschool through grade twelve.

By engaging in collaborative arts-based and arts-informed narrative inquiry with my six-year-old daughter, we explored self-guided materials in art museums in the North Texas area. Though the field of art museum education is becoming increasingly participatory, most academic research related to self-guided materials has fallen short of exploring visitors' experiences with these materials. Furthermore, the perspectives of children have been long overlooked in academic and, at times, institutional research about family experiences in museums. Over the course of nine months, my daughter and I visited art museums and engaged with their self-guided materials, ranging from audio tours to interactive galleries. During this time we created collaborative works of art based on our experiences, which acted as both data collection and analysis in preparation for writing narratives. Our narrative explorations allowed us each to better understand our collective experiences. Though this research specifically targets self-guided materials in art museums, any educator interested in intergenerational or collaborative family learning may find both our methodologies and our conclusions to be helpful in better understanding how narratives are essential to this type of learning.