Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 142-152).

abstract: Adolescents' clay sculpture has been researched significantly less than their drawings. I spent approximately six weeks in a ceramics class located at a high school in a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona in order to explore how gender affected subject matter preference in students' three dimensional clay sculpture. Gender studies on children's drawings reveal that males favor fantasy, violence, aggression, sports, and power, while females favor realism, domestic and social experience, physical appearance, care and concern, nature and animals. My three main research questions in this study were 1) How did gender affect subject matter in adolescents' three-dimensional clay sculpture? 2) What similarities or differences existed between females' and males' subject matter preference in sculpture and their subject matter preference in drawing? 3) Assuming that significant gender differences existed, how successful would the students be with a project that favored opposite gender themed subject matter? I found that although males and females had gender differences between subject matter in their clay sculptures, there were exceptions. In addition, the nature of clay affected this study in many ways. Teachers and students need to be well prepared for issues that arise during construction of clay sculptures so that students are able to use clay to fully express their ideas. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Art 2011

<p> While there is growing research about the positive impact of teaching artists (TAs), these professional arts educators are an underused resource. As a TA, I have more than a decade of experience implementing spoken word and hip-hop as a pedagogical approach in urban public school classrooms. By conducting this autoethnographic study, I sought to explore insights from these 10 years of lived experience for understanding and documenting the critical principles of my practice as a TA. This autoethnography of my life as a TA tells stories from urban public school classrooms during my formative years as an educator. The research explored the impact my artistic practices have had on developing my pedagogical approach, including the emotional and financial challenges inherent to working on the margins. By interpreting and analyzing ethnographic material from five residencies, this research resulted in complex narrative accounts, which provide insights for the field of arts education, with a specific focus on TAs. Moreover, this study offers a visionary context for a liberatory educational praxis of spoken word and hip-hop in classrooms and communities.</p><p>

<p> This exploratory study utilizes a qualitative, ethnographic approach to locate and contextualize Latino/a Artist Educators (LAEs) in Miami, Florida. Foundational and cutting-edge, it brings together many distinct perspectives to illuminate the power and promise of a newly imagined yet group of individuals to build and sustain alternative democratic spaces. Building on critical educators Paolo Freire, bell hooks, Henry Giroux and Howard Zinn, as well as extending the framework of critical theorists Gloria Anzald&uacute;a, Cornel West and others, this research begins to sketch the influence of the LAEs interviewed in Miami from 2003-2013. As a sociocultural ethnographic study positioned at the crossroads of many fields, this research is hopefully the first step toward understanding the central value of LAEs&rsquo; work in Miami. </p><p> Through semi-structured interviews, participant observation, field notes, and archival data, the perspective of 52 individuals who self-identify as &ldquo;Latino/a,&rdquo; &ldquo;artist,&rdquo; and &ldquo;educator,&rdquo; are brought into view for analysis and discussion. Open-ended interview questions included queries ranging from motivation and inspiration, to identity, to perceptions of the Latino/a artist (LAE) community, to opinions on schooling and educational processes, to mentoring and how they sustain themselves. Sample questions included: &ldquo;How does your ethnicity, background and culture shape or impact your art/work/teaching?&rdquo; and &ldquo;What can the art world learn from the &lsquo;culture of education&rsquo; and vice-versa?&rdquo; </p><p> The demographic breakdown of the 52 individuals participating in the research study included 30% Cuban, 26% Puerto Rican&mdash;with the real story in the remaining 44% representing a panoply of many Latino nations. LAEs averaged 36 years old at the time of interviews, with males outnumbering females, 56% to 44%. The average LAE has lived in Miami for 20 years. Although the preponderance of LAEs are performing artists (rather than visual artists), nearly 40% claim to be &ldquo;multidisciplinary&rdquo; or &ldquo;interdisciplinary&rdquo; and practice multiple artistic pursuits. Paradoxically, what LAEs have most in common is their diversity and divergence. </p><p> However, not all analysis yielded a divergence of results. LAEs resonated with synchronicity and strength around the expression of four themes&mdash;necessity, urgency, fluidity and agency. All stated explicitly that their creative endeavors were an inextricable part of their identity, providing expression, connection, mental challenge, and healing. None of the LAEs interviewed saw their art (and to a lesser degree, their teaching) as &ldquo;optional.&rdquo; This necessity, this insatiable, non-negotiable need to create and educate was accompanied by a palpable sense of urgency. Each LAE expressed with enthusiasm and intensity their works-in-progress and the realization that the situation with our youth is both pivotal and critical. Perhaps the most exemplary quality of LAEs in Miami is their astounding flexibility or fluidity, the ability to shape-shift, integrating and capitalizing on the specific milieu as it changes over time and space. Finally, these three combined&mdash;necessity, urgency, and fluidity&mdash;result in a powerful sense of agency; LAEs believe that their creative and educational investments are powerful influences in affecting the health and vitality of our youth, our schools, our communities and our society. </p><p> Many additional findings illuminate the range of LAEs teaching styles, motivational sources, philosophical and political views, and their characterization and critique of the LAE communities where they live, work, and create. These findings could be applied in countless ways to continue this trajectory of research and discovery&mdash;better supporting and understanding LAEs, clarifying the conflicted yet active role of resistance that artists play in the gentrification process, and even understanding how schools and our society need to evolve in order to support, nurture and protect democracy at its core&mdash;creating spaces for diverse views, dissent, dialogue, debate and maintaining the deepest respect in the process. </p><p> Future research should include more detailed analysis of collective and individual efforts of the activities of artist/educators involving gender implications, other ethnicities, and the importance of place by including other big cities. Additionally, other variables might be considered more thoughtfully: the central role of music in the creative process, as well as the impact of audience members, venue owners and emcees/hosts in co-creating alternative democratic spaces. </p><p> LAEs&rsquo; creative and educational work has impacts beyond our scope of measurement; to this day, numerous LAEs continue to create the fabric of the artistic, edgy, latino/a/caribeno/a, bohemian aesthetic&mdash;the &ldquo;image&rdquo;&mdash;that is so alluring internationally, and forms the basis for tourism and wealth in Miami, and the prerequisite for imagining the development of Wynwood. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.)</p><p>

abstract: This study aimed to understand, compare and describe details about U.S children and Taiwanese children's visual image reading. The researcher interviewed thirty children ages 8 to 10 in the state of Arizona and Taiwan. The researcher employed quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze the data. The analysis using these two methods provided different ways of comprehending the data. The results showed that the two groups of children's image reading did not have statistically significant differences in most categories; but there were demonstrable trends and viewpoints employed when both groups of children explained the details of the images. First, the children expressed what they saw in the images in six ways. The U.S. children were more able to describe contexts with self-experiences/opinions and/or associations than the Taiwanese children. Second, when interpreting the meanings, the Taiwanese children understood the concepts of the images better than the U.S. group. The U.S. children were more critical and expressed self-opinions/associations more. Third, when asked preferences, the U.S. children paid more attention to identify their favorites and express feeling the images brought to them. The Taiwanese children cared more about style and form. Fourth, when judging the images, the U.S. children emphasized the artist's devotion to creating while Taiwanese children considered the form, composition, colors, structure, design, and composition. The results also indicated that the children decided their preferences and their judgments of artworks might be based on multiple viewpoints instead of a single one, especially for the Taiwanese children. Some cultural differences between the two groups of children and their image readings were presented, such as, cultural differences made children have different learned symbolism. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Art 2013

<p> The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore and recognize if district-created student art assessments and teacher evaluations influenced the job satisfaction of art teachers due to the increased teacher turnovers and teacher shortages. The experiences, beliefs, and perceptions of the art teachers were critical in understanding and establishing if the increased implementation of the accountability measures added to the stress level and job satisfaction experienced by art teachers. The sample for this case study comprised of 10 male and female art teachers who were certified to teach art within the State of Florida for at least five years and were currently or formerly employed in the Central Florida region. The art teachers were invited first through email invitations and subsequent participants were recruited through the snowball method. Data gathered in this study was collected through audio and visual recordings through the semi-structured interview process. The data collected were analyzed using NVivo 11 Pro (QSR International, 2017) software to uncover themes, patterns, and critical phrases shared by participants. The five themes were: (a) there is a greater level of stress is experienced by teachers from student art assessments and teacher evaluations than ever before; (b) there is much confusion and lack of information on the purpose, procedures, and calculation of student art assessments and VAM scores; (c) class size and an overloaded schedule are detrimental to both the already heightened stress level of art teachers; (d) a supportive, understanding, and appreciative leadership team at each school has a positive impact on an art teacher; (e) a teacher evaluation system that is applicable and fitting for performing arts courses is a necessity within the district. Research findings from this qualitative study exposed the experiences, perceptions, and challenges art teachers have encountered in relation to the district-created student art assessments and teacher evaluations, while teaching in the Central Florida region.</p><p>

The problem of this study was to survey the status of art in the secondary schools of Oklahoma. Art educators today are faced with a lack of uniformity in the teaching of art. There is an increasing need for a recognized art program and a placing of renewed emphasis on the teaching of art. Clear and comprehensive attitudes and ideas toward art in the Oklahoma public schools would tend to ease these difficulties and enrich teaching. There has been a great deal of critical thinking, but this has failed to produce the answers necessary to formulate a basis on which to build a good art program. This study was an attempt to survey the individual schools to determine the present status of art in the secondary schools of Oklahoma.

<p> Art is part of our natural human behavior. For four years, college students go through several developmental stages. Art in higher education can become a fundamental part of students&rsquo; behavior. Like language and laughter, art is a basic part of the self-concept and development. Experimental learning is one outline of the many comprehensive theories of college student development that can be used as measuring tools for administrators, professors, institutional policies, improvements, and practices. The college environment is a place that fosters outcomes of growth and challenges, and as a result, support is needed because a student lives different levels of maturity within social contexts. College can be an &ldquo;advisory circle&rdquo; as the environment provides education, support, realization, awareness, and knowledge that develop strength for the future and the world ahead. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between art and non-art majors and the development of the self-concept in higher education. The data is derived from senior students at four-year institutions who completed the college senior survey from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) of the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) of UCLA. Descriptive statistics, cross-tabulations, and chi-square testing were performed to examine the relationship between art and development of the self-concept in higher education. The major themes of the college senior survey are academic and social adjustment, sources of satisfaction and dissatisfaction, academic, residential and employment experiences, plans for the next academic year, patterns of behavior, life goals and self-concepts, and feelings of personal success. The findings of this study suggest that art majors and art careers have a good self-concept when studying the controlled variables of gender, race/ethnicity, GPA, art majors/non-art majors, career occupation, institution type, and control. The independent variables that are the HERI standards of student/faculty interactions, educational environment/climate, campus environment satisfaction, academic achievement/change, and learning styles/self-rating were also examined alongside the dependent variables of character and development of art and non-art majors&rsquo; self-concept, self-esteem, ideal self, and self-image.</p><p>

This thesis makes the first sustained attempt to locate post-war British art school pedagogy in relation to systems-inspired cultural practice after World War II. I explore how in the post-war era in Britain, system, cybernetic and network theories had an instrumental presence in visual arts pedagogy and practice which marked a fundamental shift in the values of cultural production. This was informed both by General System Theory, which had emerged in biology before the war (GST) and its part in the new systemic presence across culture and economy in the wake of the war. I draw out this cultural trend through the examination of student work of the period, pedagogical documents and new interview material with teachers and students. The immediate post-war years form one of the most vital periods of technological development of all time, in which the physical and biological sciences played an ever-more prominent – and integrated - part. The pedagogies of 1945-1970 incorporated a range of systemic and mechanical approaches into creative practice, which had a clear link to contemporaneous technological developments. That mechanisms, networks and systemic approaches were a fundamental aspect of visual arts pedagogies of the period is a phenomenon which has never been analysed and this is the task of this thesis. This was manifested both in the subject matter of classes and courses and in the teaching structures and models that this thesis will examine. These consist of the Basic Design movement, Groundcourse and the Hornsey protest of 1968. The presence of mechanics as process, pedagogy, practice and symbol within British art education demonstrates the evolving importance of technology within culture. With this in mind, each case study within this thesis investigates systems characteristics of British art school pedagogies during the period. The underlying aim is not to create a narrative account of each pedagogical moment, but rather to pursue the material and cultural influences which shaped their development.

<p> Digital clay is a virtual material that exists currently in many 3D design software applications. Coupled with the rapid development of 3D printing technology, clay forms designed with a computer can now be externalized into the physical world as 3D prints or, vice versa, as digital scans. Recently, advanced tools have become available to artists and designers as affordable systems marketed to the professional consumer. As a response to these developments, my research examines the learning that occurs for eight artists who have been asked to play with physical and digital clay. This research employs a multiple case study methodology to understand the challenges of learning to work with digital clay and the supporting role of physical material engagement in this process. By interviewing participants and thematically analyzing their responses, I presented the subjective experience of the artists through portraiture showcasing the educational role play assumes when engaging across physical and digital media. Findings of the study suggest that engaging physical and digital materials calls upon a broad scope of cognitive processes including recollection and mental wanderings that contributed to reflection and discovery of novel ideas. Details from unstructured interviews were presented through narrative reporting as this research also strives to make sense of the participants' experience and situate the details of the study&rsquo;s context.</p><p>