This dissertation examines visual art programming and art education practices
within the contexts of two community recreation centres in an urban Canadian West
Coast Parks and Recreation Department. Addressing the academic communities of both
education and recreation/leisure studies, it questions the dichotomy of education and
recreation and looks at leisure institutions as pedagogical environments.
This research considers the question, "What is the context into which art
programming in community recreation centres is expected to fit, and how does that
context position and affect art teaching and art experience?" It uses interview transcripts,
documents, visual data, and field notes to identify themes pertaining to the ideological and
structural environments in which art programming practice occurs. The perspectives of
staff7administrators are contrasted with those of art instructors, and elaborated by
evidence related to participants' experiences and the physical/visual/symbolic environments
of the settings. The study is positioned within sociological literatures of art, leisure, and
education—including feminist analysis and critical theory—and draws particularly on the
work of Pierre Bourdieu.
Analysis suggests numerous contradictions to the construction of leisure as
freedom, pleasure, and non-education, and draws attention to the particular ways that
these recreation centre sites frame and influence art encounters. For example, although
one description of art education practice in these settings is that it is "wrapped in fun", it
can alternatively be understood as occurring within the frenzied and fragmented temporal
patterns of contemporary North American life; commodified and negotiated in
expectations of pleasure; imbued with a formal lack of authority; and positioned within an
environment which tends to privilege physical and male-dominated forms of leisure. The
study suggests that informal institutional practices and tacit messages act to contravene a
formal arts policy intended to increase recreational arts programming, ultimately
maintaining the status quo.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/6708 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Lackey, Lara Marie |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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