The purpose of this philosophical study was to clarify and synthesize a variety of theories and approaches in cognitive developmental psychology, curriculum theory and development, aesthetics, as they relate to visual art education. Four conceptual frameworks for teaching aesthetics as a component of a discipline-based art education program were proposed. These conceptual frameworks for aesthetics were developed from varying philosophical, psychological, and sociological theories as found in the writings of Monroe Beardsley, Harold Osborne, Morris Weitz, George Dickie, Melvin Rader, Joseph Margolis, and Richard Kostelanetz. / A conceptual approach to aesthetics as a subject of study for children was placed within a curriculum continuum ranging from traditional academic rationalistic and cognitive-empirical orientations, to more radical personal relevancy and social reconstructionistic orientations. Elliot Eisner's and Elizabeth Vallance's curriculum frameworks and Henry Giroux's, Anthony Penna's, and William Pinar's curriculum ranges were examined, and compared, and brought together to provide a comprehensive overview of curriculum theory options. Glenys and Adolph Unruh's background research into curriculum theory and practice was also reviewed to identify influences on educational policy making. / Cognitive developmental theories proposed by Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner, and David Feldman were examined and compared to clarify the basis for organizing content and instructional sequencing, with regard to learning theory, student readiness, and levels of understanding as proposed in a discipline-based art education orientation. / The works of art educators and educational theorists interested in the area of aesthetics reviewed in this study included Tom Anderson, David Ecker, Gilbert Clark, Enid Zimmerman, Michael Parsons, Arthur Efland, Vincent Lanier, John Jagodzinski, Dwaine Greer, Margaret DiBlasio, Karen Hamblen, Merle Flannery, Betty Redfern, and Ralph Smith. Their varying approaches were compared and contrasted. / As philosophical inquiry, this study clarified and brought together varying views on the nature of teaching and learning in art. The particular focus of this study on the discipline of aesthetic inquiry and the manner in which young children could reasonably approach the subject resulted in a broadly based synthesis of divergent approaches to aesthetics. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-02, Section: A, page: 0333. / Major Professor: Jessie Lovano-Kerr. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1988.

This study reflects a synthesis of art, art education, and Southern Baptist education's role in the transmission of values as a foundation for articulating a conceptual and theoretical basis for teaching art in Southern Baptist colleges and universities. The primary focus of this study was to examine ways in which values are transmitted through art, art education, and Southern Baptist education. Each of these three areas was related to (a) the educational setting, (b) the curriculum, (c) the teacher, and (d) the student as a means of structuring the discussion. / As a foundation, art was examined in relation to its role in communication and as transmitter of values. Art educators' statements of art's role in the transmission of values were then examined and synthesized. The following art educators were selected based on their contributions to the field: Laura Chapman, Michael Day, Arthur Efland, Elliot Eisner, Edmund Feldman, Dwaine Greer, Karen Hamblen, Vincent Lanier, June McFee, Jean Rush, Ralph Smith, Brent and Marjorie Wilson, and Michael Youngblood. Literature published in cooperation with the Education Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Association of Southern Baptist Colleges and Schools was then examined to determine the theoretical role of Southern Baptist education as a vehicle for values transmission. A synthesis was then developed which postulates a potential role for art in Southern Baptist colleges and universities. / Results of this study suggest that art can be viewed as a communicative instrument that can serve the aims and goals of Southern Baptist higher education. One of the primary functions of art in the context of Southern Baptist education is that it can be used as a vehicle for values education. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-12, Section: A, page: 3829. / Major Professor: Tom Anderson. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1989.

This study focuses on the development of a quantitative model designed to show how figural and ground space is manipulated by the young artist to reflect structure and organization in drawings. Two computational methods are used to (a) establish a mathematical scale of visual balance for drawings, and (b) specify the geometric center of balance in the drawings. A series of analyses are performed to determine the validity and reliability of the programs used to perform machine processes analogous to those people use in imposing organization on the structure of drawings. / This paper provides experimental evidence in support of the Gestalt principles of organization, and establishes a methodological basis for the interpretation of those principles in a computational medium. Drawings are analyzed in terms of their part-whole relationships, according to the theories of Rudolph Arnheim. The developmental aspects of organization in drawing production are investigated. Computer bitmaps were generated from original drawings produced by children in Kindergarten through sixth grade. Four measures of visual balance were computed, and the balancing center, or focal point was specified. / In a series of multiple regression analyses, it was determined that, on the average, chronological age differences had no effect on a child's ability to produce drawings within the range of balance considered to be aesthetically pleasing by Arnheim and others. These results support the rejection of a Piagetian developmental hypothesis that pictorial organizational skills are low in early childhood, and gradually increase over time. They are, however, in step with the Gestalt theory that the ability to impose organization on perceptual stimuli is an inborn capacity, or due to very early learning. / Preferences for focal point placement were not explained by differences in chronological age. A cluster analysis of the balancing center coordinates in the drawings suggests that children in Kindergarten through sixth grade generally show a strong bias for balancing pictures around a focal point close to the geometric center of picture space. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-11, Section: A, page: 3521. / Major Professor: F. J. King. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1989.

The problems addressed in this study are twofold: (1) the lack of information about evaluation frameworks in arts administration literature for use in decision making, and (2) the limited availability of appropriate existing evaluation models for the multisite nonprofit arts organizations. Through the development of a context-based evaluation framework, the present study investigated the theoretical and methodological aspects of evaluation models currently used in community arts service organizations. A target population, Very Special Arts Florida, was identified to illustrate the complexity of evaluation in a multisite nonprofit arts organization. / The case study methodology utilized a systems perspective and systems theory in evaluation to develop multisite self reports. This evaluation system was designed to function by supplying information specific to each site, yet generalizable to the statewide organization. It was intended to serve as a framework for stakeholders anticipatory decision making. In this methodology the instrument attempted to facilitate information processing for the complex staff structure of nonprofit organizations with multiple hierarchies of leadership and interdependence for resource development. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-10, Section: A, page: 3506. / Major Professor: Betty Jo Troeger. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

The study is organized into two major parts. Part I is largely theoretical. It asserts the need for investigation and states the problem. It reviews the relevant literature and sets out the methodological framework of the study. Finally, it discusses the many facets of the gallery/museum: management, governance, structure, educational programs, publics served and exhibitions. Part II reports and analyzes the practice of one particular gallery/museum, that of The University of Texas at San Antonio. / Part I covers educational programs that may be pursued by the academic art gallery/museum in addition to exhibitions, including classes, lectures, workshops, and special events. It considers such programs from the perspective of environment for a successful presentation of these programs. Also included is a discussion of the place of the academic gallery/museum in adult education. / In Part II, the study analyzes the Art Teaching Gallery of The University of Texas at San Antonio, from its beginning in 1982 to its operation at the close of Spring Semester, 1986. Here, specific problems that actually arose are examined, and the solutions to them are presented. At issue are a wide variety of gallery tasks and the practical realities of accomplishing them. Major considerations include staffing, governance, finances, exhibitions, audience, and publicity. / The intent, ultimately, is to construct a paradigm for such a facility. The paradigm designed here is self-contained and fully intelligible without reference to the body of the study. It is offered as a basis for examination and comparison by interested directors and personnel of existing academic art galleries and as a model for the origination of new facilities and the development or improvement of current academic gallery facilities, operations, and services. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-06, Section: A, page: 1350. / Major Professor: Marylou Kuhn. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1988.

Institutional theories of art define works of art within a context of surrounding social relations, and in terms of their functions as the loci for specific social activities. The best known example of an institutional theory of art is that of George Dickie. While Dickie's attempts to define art in terms of behavioral patterns occurring within the "artworld" are significant, he ultimately fails to explicate the institutional basis of aesthetic behavior. Indeed, Dickie leaves obscure the complex social basis for any human institutional behavior. / The deficiencies of the theory may, however, be remedied with a thorough description of the intersubjectivity of aesthetic creation and appreciation. Toward this end, the pragmatic interactionism of John Dewey and the social behaviorism of George Herbert Mead are of use in reconstructing the institutional theory of art. / To execute this reconstruction, I draw upon Dewey's account of human propensities to respond creatively to novel situations arising in the everyday interactions between living creatures and a world--responses that reach apotheosis in artist production. Appreciation, too, has its place in reconstruction for it is yet another interactive response, one that mirrors structurally the gestures of creating artists. And here the precision of Mead's attention to the interactive behavioral basis for human communication and sociality complements Dewey's analysis. / Finally, my pragmatic reconstruction of the institutional theory clarifies the functional roles that one may fill within the artworld, may be used to ground an analysis of the unique value of the artworld as a social institution. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-03, Section: A, page: 0835. / Major Professor: Eugene F. Kaelin. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

This paper traces the effects of romantic idealism promulgated in John Ruskin's (1814-1900), aesthetic, socio-economic and educational theories to the crafts revival in the Highland region of Southern Appalachia at the turn of the century. It follows the influence of Ruskin's thought through the Arts and Crafts Movement and the androgogical practices of American urban settlement houses and connects it with the Appalachian settlement schools' curriculum and goals. / The personal and social factors impelling Ruskin's revolt against Victorian social Darwinism and scientific materialism of the burgeoning industrial revolution are outlined. Ruskin's claim that only a just culture produces great art, and that aesthetic values reveal moral values is examined for its immediate implications and applications in reforming arts education and practice. His attempts to reform labor conditions and foster handicraft is scrutinized. Some early English and American school and workshop experiments based on this model are reviewed. / Ruskin's thought, first published in Modern Painters in 1843, inspired the English Arts and Crafts Movement. Led by William Morris, its founders combined democratic and socialist ideals with romantic idealism, and shaped handicraft education and manufacture along egalitarian and cooperative lines. The emphasis on arts and crafts education in early settlement houses is traced to these influences. / An examination of primary documents of certain Appalachian settlement schools and of their leaders link their values to Ruskin's romantic idealism, revealing close ties with the Arts and Crafts Movement and the urban settlement houses. The conclusion suggests that the revival of handicrafts in the Southern Appalachians was strongly affected by romantic idealism's veneration of handicrafts as a mode of instilling social values and building a sense of community, and offers suggestions for the relevance of romantic idealism to modern androgogical practices. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-06, Section: A, page: 1993. / Major Professor: Charles M. Dorn. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

National reform initiatives suggest the need to restructure art education to demonstrate more evidence of critical thinking. Advocates of two of the various competing paradigms dominating thinking in the field of art education posit that only their respective approaches to art study are best suited to this end. / Quasi-experimental research employing a non-equivalent control group design was employed to investigate the effects of teaching strategies associated with the two methodological orientations to art study known as the studio-based creative free-expressive approach and the Discipline-Based Art Education approach which served as the independent variables in the study. The primary dependent variable of cognitive development was pretested and posttested with the Developing Cognitive Abilities Test (DCAT) (1989), an instrument containing test items correlated to the first five levels of Bloom's (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Handbook I: Cognitive Domain distributed within the three sub-test areas of verbal abilities, quantitative abilities, and spatial abilities. The other dependent variables of artistic aptitude and attitudes toward art in terms of tolerance for ambiguity when viewing new or unusual works of art were also pre and posttested using measures adapted from The Second Assessment of Art 1978-79: Released Exercise Set (No. 10-A-25). / As a review of the literature revealed both strong support and much criticism for each of the two art education approaches used in the experiment, all hypotheses were stated as null hypotheses. Following nineteen weekly intervention sessions, the sixth grade students in the control and experimental groups were posttested with identical forms of the instruments. Findings from t-test analyses of the differences in the difference of the means and standard deviations from pretesting to posttesting revealed no statistically significant difference at the.05 level of confidence in the performance of the control or experimental groups on any of the measures. Thus, all null hypotheses were accepted, suggesting that the methodological argument regarding the best means to enhance critical thinking skills may be a moot point and irrelevant to the goals of art education. Future researchers need to investigate the wholistic perspective provided by philosophical rather than psychological conceptions of critical thinking. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-08, Section: A, page: 2975. / Major Professor: Charles M. Dorn. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

<p> This study documents an experience in which a small group of cognitively and developmentally disabled adults expressed their personal goals and views related to art museum visits. A review of literature related to disability studies, museum access and inclusive programs, art therapy, and person-centered thinking provide background and context. Case study and qualitative interviews are used as methodologies to support an investigation of the use of person-centered thinking in the implementation of art museum programming for the study participants. Person-centered thinking is considered and assessed as an approach to structuring meaningful collaborations between visitors with disabilities and art museums. Data collected in the forms of visual and written response, observation, and documentation of interviews inform the findings, discussion, and analysis of the study&rsquo;s research goals. The resulting case study may be used by museums to structure visits with similar groups. This study contributes to a growing body of knowledge pertaining to how museums can best collaborate with disabled populations to create inclusive programs.</p>

<p> This study is an overview of how museums utilize informal learning as a primary source of engagement to improve overall visitor experience while building community interest. For this study, it was important to look at the history and purpose of museums origin and the evolution of their function from an art institution to an educational institution. The top 3 Los Angeles based museums; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty and the Museum of Contemporary Art were all put under the various scopes to deduce if they are utilizing their education department to be the best of their ability to create meaningful experiences for their visitors. They were evaluated based on their use of technology, use of dialogue and the overall experience within the museum. Lastly, this study stresses the importance of public art to incorporate all three areas of informal learning.</p>