This auto-ethnographic study focuses on Houston’s art car community and the grassroots movement’s 25 year relationship with the city through an art form that has created a sense of community. Art cars transform ordinary vehicles into personally conceived visions through spectacle, disrupting status quo messages of dominant culture regarding automobiles and norms of ownership and operation. An annual parade is an egalitarian space for display and performance, including art cars created by individuals who drive their personally modified vehicles every day, occasional entries by internationally renowned artists, and entries created by youth groups. A locally proactive public has created a movement has co-opted the cultural spectacle, creating a community of practice. I studied the events of the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art’s Art Car Weekend to give me insight into art and its value for people in this community. Sources of data included the creation of a participatory art car, journaling, field observation, and semi-structured interviews. The first part is my academic grounding, informed by critical pedagogy and socially reconstructive art practices. The second part narrates my experiences and understandings of the community along with the voices of others. Dominant themes of exploration include empowerment, community, and art. I …

This dissertation is "A Collective Case Study of Veterans Inside an Arts and Crafts Room and Their Perceptions Regarding Empowerment." This research examined to what degree art making, and in what ways a community of learning contributed to veterans' self-worth and empowerment through their creative activities and interactions inside an arts and crafts room at the VA hospital in Dallas, Texas. Furthermore, an essential reason for this study is to examine veterans in the arts and crafts environment to explore whether their experiences were important, meaningful, and empowering, and especially important in this regard are the interactions among veterans. Empowerment in this context is defined as gaining self-esteem and motivation within oneself. This includes becoming more confident and positive, as well as gaining the ability to learn about one's own identity. It also described how the interactions between the participants are shaped by the social contexts within which they come together. Using post-modern feminist theory, narrative inquiry and care theory, this dissertation describes the ways that the processes and products of creative activity bring empowerment through dialogue and personal stories while using the component of caring during teaching and learning.

This is an enterpretivist cultural study on how the lively idea of assessment is enacted by the art teachers, students and administrators in Denton school art education, North Texas, the United States. This ethnographic research aims to extend understanding on assessment as vivid cultural and social dynamics that both reflects and enlivens varied and interconnected values promoted and shared among the people involved. Through a perspective of the culture of assessment, this study is expected to facilitate insights on art education as lived, purposeful experience bearing suggestions on a certain social environment and historical implications. Such insights as sought further illuminate specific understandings on art education in different cultural societies, such as China. From a Chinese native viewpoint, the researcher broadens her horizons on connection and independence important for informative performance of art education in the discourses of modern nation and schooling, as well as globalization. It is hoped that this study will interest other art educators, teachers, and researchers to make multiple and continuous efforts in further exploring the culture of assessment with cultural and historical consciousness and knowledge.

This research examines the personal narratives of two contemporary non-native artists living and working on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Issues related to narratives, power structures, artistic processes, insider/outsider dynamics, Hawaiian culture, island life, surfing, and the researcher's own experiences are woven together to formulate realizations surrounding alternative knowledge systems and the power of multiple or hidden narratives to the practice of art education.

The issue of alternative certification teacher training has greatly affected art education over three decades. As a result of training through alternative certification, many art educators enter the profession unprepared and unable to cope with the realities of teaching. This study attempts to understand and represent the experiences and struggles of four alternatively certified art teachers, including myself. By reading these stories, others within the education community can empathize with and provide support for struggling novice teachers. This creative thesis uses a graphic novel format to represent participants' stories. By combining text and imagery, the graphic novel format provides different meanings, interpretations, and insights into the teachers' lives. This medium offered a unique and rich perspective on the stories of what it is like being an alternatively certified art teacher.

Suiting the Modern Woman documented the evolution of women's power dressing in the 20th century by featuring four major components: thirteen period suit silhouettes, the power suits of twenty-eight influential and successful high profile Texas women, a look at the career and creations of Dallas designer, Richard Brooks, who created the professional wardrobe for former Texas Governor Ann Richards, and a media room which showcased images of working women in television and movie clips, advertisements, cartoons, and fashion guidebooks. The exhibition served as an application for contemporary museum education theory. Acting as both the exhibition coordinator and educator provided an opportunity to develop interpretative strategies and create a meaningful visitor experience.

This study follows the progress of 11 elementary students who exhibited similar language-arts deficiencies and were treated with traditional and non-traditional language-arts remediation methods. Non-traditional methods were exclusively Discipline-Based Art Education (DBAE) lessons that required students to observe, talk about, and write about art images using a DBAE framework. Portfolios maintained by the students during one complete school year included writings and art production. Writings were marked using a color-coding system developed for the research project and designed to track growth in art cognition. Interviews for affective measure and the Test of Non-Verbal Intelligence, Edition II were administered as pre- and post-tests. Evidence indicated art understanding improved as cognition in language arts improved. Change in attitudes toward art and artists demonstrated a slight positive change. No significant difference was detected in non-verbal intelligence.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether kindergarten children possess the ability to recognize, match, and discuss lines and line qualities. Using graphics and art reproductions, three matching tasks were constructed which examined young children's awareness of the line qualities of length, width, straightness, direction, movement, and uniformity. Graphics and art reproductions were also used to construct two tracing tasks employed to examine young children's awareness of actual and implied lines. The tasks were administered to 69 kindergarten students from four elementary schools in a public school district in the north central Texas area.

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.

The purpose of the study was to make an assessment of Arkansas middle school/junior high art programs using National Art Education Association standards. Data were collected from questionnaires, curriculum guides, and school visitations. Participating in the study were 127 schools enrolling 53,502 students of which 14,755 (28%) were taking art classes. For comparisons, the state was divided into five regions.

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.

The problem of this study was to determine which of a list of forty-seven art competencies designed by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction for K-12 art specialists were most essential for early childhood and intermediate elementary classroom teachers. Four-point Likert-type scaled instruments were designed and sent to three types of North Carolina educators: (a) 200 elementary classroom teachers, stratified into two equal subgroups of early childhood and intermediate teachers; (b) 100 K-12 art specialists; and (c) all art teacher educators employed at colleges and universities with state approved programs in art education. These subjects were asked to respond to the relevance of each competency for the elementary classroom teacher.

In response to ideological issues that have emerged the last two decades from feminism, multiculturalism and postmodernism, the introductory art history survey is undergoing major revisions not only in structure and content, but also in instructional methodology. Art history professionals and art educators alike are questioning whether pedagogical methods traditionally employed in the survey are adequate for meeting the goals of visual literacy and development of critical and analytical skills. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of supplemental study resources for art history survey students, specifically an interactive multimedia (IM) computer program designed to help students acquire and retain a deeper understanding of works of art. Two research questions were asked: Is IM a more effective instructional format than traditional slide study on achievement measures? Will use of IM impact students' levels of understanding and strengthen and direct their choice of search strategies?

This study examined the influences of a variety of verbal and non-verbal strategies on the language acquisition of six fourth grade ESL students in a discipline-based art education classroom. The art teacher/researcher spoke only English, and the students spoke Spanish almost exclusively. The art instruction occurred during eighteen 30 minute sessions, over a period of five months. The program involved the whole language approach, collaborative/cooperative learning, and the study of art concepts through verbal and graphic symbol cue cards and images of art works. Data were amassed from transcripts of video recordings, student and teacher interviews, and reflective notes. This study showed highly successful results with student growth in language acquisition and comprehension of art concepts.

This is a concurrent, mixed methods study of the impacts of Austin, Texas’s cultural plan, CreateAustin. In the study, trend analysis and a t-test were used to examine variables before and after the cultural plan was in place. At the same time, interviews with cultural planners were used to uncover other effects. My research addresses a gap in the literature between understanding the desired and actual outcomes of a cultural plan. Cultural plans are being developed by many communities in an effort to attract creative workers but they are rarely evaluated. Evaluation using a mixed methods approach is necessary to capture all the outcomes of a cultural plan, rather than the limited scope of impacts that are captured by qualitative or quantitative analyses alone. My analysis of the quantitative variables showed some significant differences between when the plan was in place and the years prior to its creation. Interviews with key stakeholders revealed the formation of new networks as a powerful outcome of the planning process. The results allowed me to gauge the overall impact of CreateAustin and make some observations about the cultural planning process in general, as well as uncover new directions for future research.

This research is a nomadic inquiry into the ethics and aesthetics of three makers’ social and material practices. Deleuze’s concept of the nomad operated in multiple ways throughout the process, which was embedded in performative engagements that produced narratives of becoming. Over four months, I built relationships with three people as I learned about the ethico-aesthetic significance of their daily practices. The process started by interviewing participants in their homes and expanded over time to formal and informal engagements in school, community, and agricultural settings. I used Guattari’s ecosophical approach to consider how subjectivity was produced through spatial assemblages by spending time with participants, discussing material structures and objects, listening to personal histories, and collaboratively developing ideas. Participants included a builder who repurposed a missile base into a private residence and community gathering space, an elementary art teacher who practiced urban homesteading, and a young artist who developed an educational farm. The research considers the affective force of normalized social values, the production of desire by designer capitalism, and the mutation of life from neoliberal policies. Our experiences illuminate the community-building potential of direct encounters and direct exchanges. The project generates ideas for becoming an inquirer in the everyday and …

My autobiographical research focuses on creating digital heterotopias through social media platforms, providing safe spaces which allow art teacher candidates the opportunity to reflect upon their practicum experiences and question the status quo of institutional myths and inherited discourses in teacher fieldwork. Functions of heterotopic space link together and reflect other pedagogical sites, including institutional spaces. Heterotopias are often designed to be temporal and hidden from public view but are necessary enclaves for exploring non-hierarchical paradigms. Such temporary communal spaces can lead one to a personal praxis in uncovering what sometimes is never fully explored, our own autobiographical narrative of teaching. By creating a digital space utilized by art education student teachers in the midst of their practicum, I recalled my forgotten autobiography of student teaching, where memories of inequities and suppression of difference emerged. Through the lenses of critical theory and resistance theory, this study examines possibilities of crafting digital spaces as forms of artistic resistance and identity reconstruction zones. As such, the goal of examining the student teaching practicum concerning; power inequities, evaluation methods, standardization of teaching, evolving teacher identities, and the social environment of teaching, is to illustrate hegemonic processes and visualize spaces of possibility to deconstruct …

“In what ways does teaching with folk arts inspired visual arts-based instruction enhance community building among elementary students in a Title I school?” was the primary research question in this study. Agreeing with past and present day research that the construct of community is vital to social and cultural capital, this research attempts to determine how the notion of community benefits both students and teachers in the elementary art classroom. Folk art was utilized because this genre was accessible in terms of locality and familiarity among students and teachers. The purpose of this investigation was to produce teaching strategies and methods that show how community can be formed in the art classroom. The participants were elementary students, Grades 2 and 3, in a Title I school located in Denton, Texas. This investigation was conducted under an action research methodology. This approach to research is intended to be transformational, emergent, and accommodating. I recorded observations, field notes, and conversations from the participants. Emergent themes were discovered through content analysis and conceptual maps. Results from this investigation concluded transformation is only possible if the person wants change to happen. Data also showed that community and art education are symbiotic. Transformation, growth, and …

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 …

This was an ethnographic study of the woven tent objects produced by the Bedouin Otaibah tribe in Najd, central Saudi Arabia; the study examines origin, techniques, character and significance of their weavings. A major objective of the researcher was to discern the relationship between the weavers' development of traditions and the factors of technique, medium and perceived meaning. The method used was investigative fieldwork that included techniques of face to face interviews and participant observation. Interviews with 50 Bedouin female weavers in Najd were conducted for 8 months. Background information on the Otaibah tribe and their traditional way of life was provided. The review of the literature of traditional arts, folk arts and art education illustrates that there is limited accessible information concerning the general history of traditional arts in Saudi Arabia. A discussion of the aesthetic value, definitions and roles of traditional art, tribal art and the differences between art and crafts was included. Analysis of data answered the study's questions through a presentation of the findings of the fieldwork. The Otaibah tribe has its own unique style of weaving. Information gathered from participant observation and documents from the Haifa Faisal Collection of Saudi Arabian Traditional Arts in Chicago …

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 energy dynamics of creativity are the metaphysical foundations upon which the theory of holistic aesthetics was built. Traditional inquiry into creativity has been concerned with the isolated issues of either the process, technique, product, creator, or environment in which creation occurs. The aesthetics presented herein provide the art educator with an alternate approach and attitude. The absolute presupposition from which the theory develops states that "there is naught but energy, for God is life." The resulting model which incorporates the rationale of the physics of light is designed to illustrate relationships between the creator and the energies of creativity. Educational applications and significance of the model are described in terms of light and color; these practical implications lend themselves to 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 study was to examine the status and the content of the middle/junior high school art- programs in Texas. A questionnaire designed to elicit information concerning the art program was sent to middle/junior high school art teachers in Texas. The responses were analyzed according to the school district size, the grades comprising the school, and the school enrollment using simple descriptive statistics. This study revealed the following areas concerning the typical middle/junior high school art program in Texas: school district size, school enrollment, art enrollment, grades in school, types of art courses, teaching objectives and approaches, art budget, resource materials, and art equipment.