The last several years have seen a growing resolve among educators and policymakers to assure the place of a solid arts education in U.S. schools. In 1997, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) conducted a national assessment in the arts at grade 8. The assessment included the areas of music, theater, and visual arts. For each of…

This teacher's guide accompanies a packet of five art reproductions based on animals as a theme. The guide offers suggestions for engaging children's attention and curiosity about art and artists, and encourages exploration of the issues these works present through art activities, discussions, learning centers, field trips, and other experiences…

This study investigated the use of art lessons to enhance the comprehension of specific concepts taught in a school curriculum. Reading and mathematics achievement measures were administered as pre- and posttests to 87 fifth graders. Students in the treatment group were taught art lessons by an art teacher. In these lessons, the concepts of area,…

If visual art is to be taught as a substantive part of the public school curriculum, then it's content and structure need to be translated into a curriculum that provides continuous cognitive and psychological growth and development. While discipline based art education (DBAE) acknowledges the values of art production, the content of art should…

The collected papers from three conferences about art education are documented in three volumes. The first conference addressed art education, aesthetics, and art criticism. Eighteen scholars representing classroom teachers, museum educators, and university faculty were invited to prepare papers on the general topic of aesthetics and art criticism…

Until recently, little scholarly attention has been paid to the art found in children's books. This study describes a project with a fifth grade class in an effort to increase their ability to critique book illustrations. Ten slides from picture books were shown to one experimental and one control group. Students were asked to critique the…

In light of criticisms that many early childhood programs fail to engage children's minds, this study suggests that children need programs in which they can: (1) explore experience in visual ways; (2) experience aspects of different cultures; (3) extend their thinking; and (4) develop their imagination. That art and play can provide suitable…

This study examines the attitudes individuals have towards the arts and what role the arts play in U.S. life. A survey was designed specifically to examine issues of funding of the arts by government, the role of arts in the education of children, and what effect the current economic recession has had on participation in and attendance at arts…

This document presents the arts education research agenda that emerged from a national conference on arts education. The conference was attended by key researchers in each of the arts education disciplines, arts educators, artists and artist teachers, representatives of arts institutions and organizations, and persons from groups and organizations…

This study reviewed possibilities for looking at aesthetic perception in art using the D. E. Berlyne approach, identifying alternative methods, and reporting the results of a factor analytic study of preferences of young college adults for abstract art. The Berlyne approach used stimulus objects of simple to complex abstract components of the more…

The disparities between what is learned about art in formalized school instruction and what constitutes an informal, local knowledge of art are suggested by the general population's apathy toward art education and contemporary fine art and by studies indicating that children engage in art production and appreciation very different from their…

This report documents the proceedings from the second series of regional roundtable discussions sponsored by the Getty Center for Education in the Arts. These roundtables were established to provide a forum in which people could discuss aspects of Discipline-Based Art Education (DBAE). The topics of these roundtables were as follows: Roundtable I…

The Louisiana Slide Library is an extensive collection of slides, lectures, and tapes designed for use in the arts, the humanities, social and ethnic studies, languages, home economics, careers, crafts, and special education. This bibliography lists these slide sets and indicates the grade level intended for each set and the number of slides in…

The puzzling quality of modern art, in both its complexity and its simplicity, symbolizes a barrier between the student and the elite's privilege of power. Too frequently, students have been taught that art is a secret, a code to which only teachers have the key, and that there is only one correct interpretation of a work, which must be imparted…

The goal of an introductory graphics course is fundamental visual literacy, which includes learning to appreciate the power of visuals in communication and to express ideas visually. Traditional principles of design--the focus of the course--are based on more fundamental gestalt theory, which relates to human pattern-seeking behavior, particularly…