Chapter 11: Curriculum, Race, And Representation In Undergraduate Art Education Programs

Although the population of American students has become more racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse over the years, the population of art education teachers has remained primarily White, female, and middle class (Lee, 2012). In order to create meaningful pedagogical experiences with students of color, beginning teachers must critically examine their own positionality in the cultural nexus of power and privilege and gain the tools to address racial differences in the classroom. A number of curricular responses to this problem has emerged over the past few decades, including multiculturalism, the introduction of non-Western canon art, and culturally responsive teaching strategies. The field of art education has had to grapple with the growing understanding that “[a]rt created by African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, [and] Asian Americans … has deep roots in the common soil of our culture” (Jelcich, 1998, p. 1). The following review of literature in this chapter will guide a brief exploration in multiculturalism and culturally responsive teaching in art education curricula to consider ways to think and talk about race/ethnicity within art education classrooms. As a Black man, an art educator, and an African American and diaspora studies scholar, I will end this chapter using the syllabus (which I constructed from numerous syllabi from past instructors) for one of the courses I teach (Art Education 225, Diversity, Pedagogy, and Visual Culture, which focuses on issues of diversity in art, education, visual culture, curriculum, and pedagogy) as an example of how I navigate these spaces within my art education classroom to interact with multicultural and culturally responsive students at a predominately White institution.