Teaching Visual Culture: Curriculum, Aesthetics, and the Social Life of Art

by Freedman, Kerry

• ISBN13: 9780807743713
• ISBN10: 0807743712
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-08-01
• Publisher: Teachers College Pr

Summary

Global culture is rapidly shifting from text-based communication to image saturation. Visual culture is everywhere: on television, in museums, in magazines, in movie theaters, on billboards, on the internet, and in shopping malls. As a result, learning about the complexities of visual culture is becoming ever more critical to human development. This is the first book to focus on teaching visual culture. The author provides the theoretical basis on which to develop a curriculum that lays the groundwork for postmodern art education (K-12 and higher education). Drawing on social, cognitive, and curricular theory foundations, Freedman offers a conceptual framework for teaching the visual arts from a cultural standpoint. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Kerry Freedman is a professor of art and education at Northern Illinois University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	xi
The Professional Field: Theorizing Visual Culture in Education	1	(22)
Visual Culture, Education, and Identity	2	(3)
Theorizing the Professional Field	5	(4)
Remnants of Social Theory that Shape Social Practice: Lessons from the History of Art Education	9	(4)
Breaking Boundaries and Teaching Concepts	13	(6)
Conclusion	19	(4)
Finding Meaning in Aesthetics: The Interdependence of Form, Feeling, and Knowing	23	(20)
The Multiple Levels of Aesthetic Experience	24	(1)
Foundations of Modern Aesthetics	25	(2)
Modernist Aesthetics in Curriculum	27	(4)
Meaning and Visual Culture: Making Connections Through Associated Knowledge	31	(7)
Aesthetics and the Construction of Meaning: Pragmatist and Neopragmatist Views	38	(3)
Conclusion	41	(2)
The Social Life of Art: The Importance of Connecting the Past with the Present	43	(20)
The Old and the New Art Histories	43	(6)
Contexts and Quality	49	(6)
Back and Forth: Juxtapositions of Time/Space	55	(7)
Conclusion	62	(1)
Art and Cognition: Knowing Visual Culture	63	(23)
Approaching Visual Culture: The Relationship of Form, Feeling, and Knowing to Learning	64	(6)
Psychobiological Conceptions of Artistic Development	70	(4)
Sociological Perspectives of Artistic Development	74	(5)
Social Ways of Knowing Art: Constructivism, Socially Shared Cognition, and Distributed Cognition	79	(4)
Situated Knowledge: Developing Conceptions and Misconceptions about Art	83	(2)
Conclusion	85	(1)
Interpreting Visual Culture: Constructing Concepts for Curriculum	86	(20)
Interpretation, Contexts, and Extending Meanings	87	(7)
Postmodern Concepts and Visual Culture	94	(5)
Cultural and Personal Interpretations	99	(5)
Conclusion	104	(2)
Curriculum as Process: Visual Culture and Democratic Education	106	(22)
Postmodern Curriculum	108	(3)
Representing Visual Culture in Curriculum Structures	111	(7)
Curriculum Connections, Cognitive Connections	118	(9)
Conclusion	127	(1)
Art.edu: Technological Images, Artifacts, and Communities	128	(19)
Technology as a Part of Visual Culture	128	(6)
Student Uses of Art and Technology	134	(4)
Producing on Screen	138	(1)
Watching Art: Students as Audience	139	(3)
Television: The National Curriculum	142	(4)
Conclusion	146	(1)
Contributing to Visual Culture: Student Artistic Production and Assessment	147	(22)
Assessment: From Liking to Understanding	148	(5)
Critique and Community	153	(5)
Group Cognition and Assessment in the Arts	158	(6)
Student Group Assessment	164	(3)
Conclusion	167	(2)
References	169	(12)
Index	181	(8)
About the Author	189