A History of Multicultural Art Education: Exclusion, Appropriation, and Otherness

• In Event: The Past Is Present: Ignored Histories of Art Education

Abstract

The purpose of this presentation is to present the history of multicultural art education in American curriculum to demonstrate how it excluded the voices of those within the cultures which has subsequently lead to cultural appropriation and Otherness. Throughout this presentation, the researcher weaves in their phenomenological narrative as a Korean American navigating the research they encountered while unpacking the issue of multicultural art education.
From the beginnings of art education in the mid 1700s, the implemented pedagogy and methods of art education within the United States were modeled after European standards (Efland, 1990). In the mid 1800s, a group of artists broke away from European curriculum and created art teaching manuals that were “American.” Though this was an attempt to break from western Europe, the methodology and images within the manuals were still heavily influenced by European standards and aesthetics. In A History of Art Education (Efland, 1990), the first and one of a few mentions of other cultures is in the mid 1900s when artists found “new sources of inspiration in the art of so-called primitive peoples” (p.149) and Arthur Wesley Dow’s inspiration of Japanese art when preparing his art education book, Composition. Since the introduction of art into American school curriculum in the nineteenth century, images of other cultures have been viewed through a white lens that failed to deconstruct the rich narratives within art from other cultures (Chanda, 2011; Chin 2011). Multicultural art education, as we know it, became a part of our curriculum in the 1970s through the urging of marginalized communities in hopes solving “racial antagonism and minority underachievement in school...” (McCarthy, 1994, p. 81). While inclusion was a beginning, it is only a small step in the right direction; the narratives of the individuals within the culture must be considered when speaking about the artwork. Without that perspective, art education teaches cultures as others and the resulting lessons are a form of cultural appropriation (Desai, 2005), that creates a sense of otherness (Acuff, 2016), perpetuates “color-blind” perspectives (Acuff, 2014), continues the cycle of social inequity (Alden, 2001) and perpetuates European imperialist ideology (Chin, 2011). The effect of such lessons on students from marginalized communities is devastating (Acuff, 2015). Through these superficial multicultural curriculums, students learn that their cultural and lived experiences are not only spoken for by the “expert” educator at the front of the classroom, but also taught that those experiences and cultural differences aren’t as valued. Furthermore, now that the students have been able to “share” their cultural experience, they are then asked to assimilate into the dominant(ly) white culture in our education system (Peller, 1995).
As understandings of the world change, so should practices of art education. Art educators need to become comfortable questioning the narratives in education and consider the dominant voice in their curriculum to question which students are being excluded through those perspectives.

Author

• Hannah Sions, Virginia Commonwealth University