Guzik summer 2017 edus 612 final (1)

Running head: JUSTIFICATION FOR DISCOURSE ANALYSIS 1
Justification for Discourse Analysis in Art Education Cognitive Research
Kyle Guzik
Virginia Commonwealth University

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS IN ART EDUCATION 2
The State of Art Education
To get a sense of the nature of contemporary research in art education it is informative to
review the most recent issue of Art Education, an important journal in the field. This special issue
primarily concerns “the idea of creative activity as a human right” (Pérez de Miles & Peck, 2017,
p. 61). However, in this issue, inquiry regarding this theme involves a variety of methodologies,
settings, and research populations. The apparent research paradigmatic assumptions that may be
posited to motivate the authors of the articles in this July 2017 Art Education creative human rights
special issue appear to be grounded in pragmatic philosophy. However, texts I have previously
reviewed as examples of art education cognitive research (AECR) seem to operate under a different
research paradigm, an art-based one with post-positivist elements. This discrepancy provides at
least two examples of disunity among art education researchers concerning research paradigmatic
norms. The articles from the July 2017 issue of Art Education that I consider here can be organized
into three groups, descriptions of art educational art installations, interventions in curriculum and
instruction, and philosophical, sociopolitical, and art theoretical critiques.
Descriptions of Art Education Related Art Shows
Pérez de Miles and Peck (2017) review Linda Stein’s exhibition, Holocaust Heroes: Fierce
Females (H2F2), which consists of “10 mixed media tapestries that depict different female heroes
from the Holocaust… [including] tapestries, mixed-media shadow boxes, and sculpture,” Stein’s
response to “her experience during the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001”
(p. 60). Pérez de Miles and Peck (2017) describe Stein’s exhibition as didactic, “curated as
curriculum, or exhibition as curriculum, [it] aims to teach principles of social justice as self-
empowerment” (p. 62). The article includes images from the installation, such as Stein’s Ann
Frank 808 a combine tapestry of “leather, archival pigment on canvas, fabric, metal, [and] zippers”

(Pérez de Miles & Peck, 2017, p. 62). The authors conclude “exhibition as curriculum, is an
important construct and practice to explore the potential of art education as a critical social
practice” (Pérez de Miles & Peck, 2017, p. 61). Arrangement of the work in the exhibition space
promotes its educational function. The curators planned the installation to enhance the “field trip
experiences” of student viewers:
The juxtaposition of artifacts from the Holocaust and from 9/11 as mediated
through Stein’s art, videos, and testimony are key aspects of the exhibition and field
trip curriculum design. Together these items and stories bring to the forefront
parallels between different types of oppression, trauma, and human rights violations
(Pérez de Miles & Peck, 2017, p. 62).
One might consider Stein’s installation as a form of arts-based research, each tapestry provides
information about a female historical figure from the Holocaust era, intentionally arranged and
placed in context by curators at the National Center for Jewish Art at The Museum of Biblical Art,
for the edification of museum patrons, with a focus on visiting student groups.
Ciampaglia and Richardson (2017) document another recent installation, their
collaboration via the “new media art collective” they founded, “the Plug-In Studio,” and “a group
of African American teen artists from Chicago’s South Side” to create “social justice videogames”
that “were featured at the Street Arcade, an outdoor public videogame event at Hyde Park Art
Center in Chicago” (p. 17). The collaboration “created 8-bit style artwork using the Piskel sprite
editor, and programmed the games in the Scratch programming language” (Ciampaglia and
Richardson, 2017, p. 17). The installation featured “custom-made arcade-style consoles with red-
knob joysticks and big plastic buttons... each console projects the games in large scale onto the
exterior of the art center building” (Ciampaglia and Richardson, 2017, p. 17). Ciampaglia and

Richardson (2017) describe “art games” as strongly appealing to young people and “a medium for
social justice” (p. 17). Art games feature sociopolitical critique:
In contrast to commercial videogames, art games take a conceptual, aesthetic, and
critical approach to the medium. Some art games disrupt the expectation of goal-
oriented gameplay. For example, new media artist Pippin Barr satirizes consumer
life in Western society in his games about working in an office and buying a coffee.
Other art games depict ordinary people rather than heavily armed action heroes and,
through the simulation of their often marginalized experiences, endeavor to make
a social or political point (Ciampaglia and Richardson, 2017, pp. 17-18).
The collaboration resulted in the intended learning outcome, advancement of its targeted
population’s technical, expressive, and critical skills: “Showcasing the games at the Street Arcade
event provided the teens with a perfect platform for a direct dialogue with community members
on the social issues they chose as themes” (Ciampaglia and Richardson, 2017, pp. 18 -19).
Ciampaglia and Richardson (2017) document their intervention with photographs of the
installation and screen captures from the young artists’ games. Like the Stein exhibit, this
intervention is didactic, however the authors employ direct instruction in creative production in
addition to exhibition of art content that can be passively observed by the general public. Both
installations are site specific.
Interventions in Curriculum and Instruction
The July 2017 issue of Art Education also documents projects in which the focus of
intervention concerns curriculum and instruction, including workshops (Schlemmer, Carpenter, &
Hitchcock, 2017), service learning (La Porte & Whiteland), dynamic lesson planning (López
Pereira, & Rao, 2017), a social justice camp (Shields, 2017), and courses and a festival enacted in

refugee camps (Maguire, 2017). These articles feature images of project participants creating art
and artwork produced in instructional contexts. The authors provide evidence for best practices in
curriculum and instruction and promote an expansive conception of art educational materials and
creative products.
Schlemmer et al. (2017) ask, “How can creative responses to social injustice provide spaces
to interrupt conditions of inequality through the guise of socially engaged art education?” (p. 56).
They describe the Collaborative Creative Resistance project, “a series of public participatory
performances” initiated in 2011 by Carpenter and members of Reservoir Studio (Schlemmer et al.,
2017, p. 57). In these public workshop performances, participants such as high school students at
Green Run Collegiate create “point-of-use ceramic water filters” (Schlemmer et al., 2017, p. 57).
The filters are made of a 50:50 mixture of clay and sawdust that are bisqued and then “coated with
a wash of colloidal silver and affixed to a 5-gallon plastic bucket fitted with a spigot and lid. The
filters have been shown to be effective at rendering inert 99% of waterborne bacteria” (Cornelius,
Sherow, & Carpenter, 2010, p. 30). Students “researched ideas of sustainability and awareness
surrounding the global water crisis and environmental issues of consumable waste” (Schlemmer
et al., 2017, p. 58).
López et al. (2017) and Shields (2017) describe what might be considered “teachable
moments,” prompt art educational responses to contemporary events. Shields (2017) relates the
reaction of campers and pre-service art teachers at an “art and social justice summer camp”
connected to The Florida State University in Tallahassee to the Pulse night club “terrorist attack/
hate crime” that occurred on June 12, 2016, six days after the start of the camp (p. 23). The Orlando
shooting, which resulted in the killing of 49 people and the wounding of 53 others “completely
shifted” the “pedagogical orientation of the camp” (Shields, 2017, p. 24). Shields (2017)

documents the pre-service art-teachers’ and campers’ artistic expressions of empathy to the hurt
and trauma surrounding this event. López et al. (2017) taught classes at the Master of Arts in
Teaching (MAT) program at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). The April 2015 fatal
injury of Freddie Gray while under the custody of Baltimore City police resulted in the Baltimore
Uprising, which led to the declaration of a state of emergency in Baltimore city and the closure of
its public schools (López et al., 2017). López et al. (2017) developed a “Pedagogy for Change
framework” that “conceptualizes how we: (a) examine ourselves in relation to others, (b) consider
contexts for teaching and learning, and (c) incorporate the learners’ assets to make decisions about
social issues appropriate for inquiry in local and global communities” for use in the MICA MAT
courses (p. 35). The authors found that “a number of students developed a critical pedagogy for
change” and use documentation of artwork created by students of MICA pre-service art teachers
to support this claim (López et al., 2017).
Maguire (2017) and La Porte and Whiteland (2017) provide additional examples of
curricular models for intercommunity and intercultural collaboration. Maguire (2017) describes an
intercultural partnership between faculty and students participating in “The Arts and Human
Rights: Western Sahara” course at Adelphi University and faculty and students at Abidin Kaid
Saleh Audiovisual School at Camp Boujdour, a “Western Saharawi refugee [camp] outside of
Tindouf, Algeria” (p. 51). The collaboration resulted in the Western Sahara Human Rights and
Arts Festival, which was held and transmitted via Skype simultaneously in the Adelphi University
ballroom and the film school in Camp Boujdour (Maguire, 2017, p. 52). Adelphi students
benefited from the experience by learning “about Saharawi culture and the ongoing political
conflict [and] communicated, via the arts, solidarity with their peers at the film school” (Maguire,
2017, p. 52). Maguire (2017) documents this collaboration with photographs depicting “activities

that worked with both Saharawi and American culture,” including “tea ceremonies,” “henna
painting,” “dance,” “spoken word,” and “collaborative artmaking” (p. 52).
While the Adelphi University/ Camp Boujour collaboration connects learning communities
across continents, La Porte and Whiteland (2017) describe a project to connect university students
to adult participants in a community based art program for adults with physical, mental, and/or
developmental disabilities (p. 42). La Porte and Whiteland (2017) developed “Fantastical Stories
through Claymation,” an “introductory inclusion experience” in an “ongoing community-based
service learning course” for pre-service art teachers. As part of their service learning course, the
students worked with differently-abled adults to create Claymation videos via stop-motion
photography:
In addition to modeling the clay figures, creating props and scenery for the
Claymations and taking multiple pictures of the clay characters, typically-abled and
differently-abled students had the opportunity to make simple animation devices to
reinforce their understanding of stop motion animation. University students
reflected about the workshop experience, admitting that the Life Styles clients were
more creative than they expected and were enthusiastic about their stories (La Porte
and Whiteland, 2017, p. 44).
Like Schlemmer et al. (2017), López et al. (2017), Shields (2017), and Maguire, (2017), La Porte
and Whiteland (2017) describe a curricular and/or instructional model (in this case service
learning), document an intervention or program that employs the respective model, and comment
upon and document the experiences of and potential benefits for program participants.
Philosophical, Sociopolitical, and Art Theoretical Critiques

In addition to descriptions of art installations and best practices in curriculum and
instruction, a third group of articles in the July 2017 issue of Art Education could be categorized
as involving art philosophical or theoretical critique. Kraehe (2017) defines creativity as a human
right in an editorial that sets the tone for the issue: “It opens up alternate possibilities for thinking
feeling, and doing” (p. 6). Sabol (2017) describes the visual arts as a form of speech protected by
the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Sabol (2017) explains that decisions by political
actors in the United States, which result in the defunding and elimination of art education
programs, erosion of “emphasis on art education content” in remaining programs, and reduction
in the number of certified art educators for these programs, “has created an education landscape in
which students’ guaranteed civil right of freedom of speech is being denied” because “students
will not have the opportunity to learn the complex and sophisticated language of communication
the visual arts embody” (p. 10). Sabol also speculates on the nature of visual language:
The visual arts are a unique language or form of speech and, like all languages and
forms of communication, require instruction consisting of the opportunity to learn
(OTL) and time to acquire, develop, and master the basic knowledge and skills
needed to use this unique language. The basic language of the visual arts has not
been incontrovertibly established. Many in the field of visual arts would debate
whether or if there are essential components or fundamentals of communication
used in the visual arts… The questions of what those fundamental elements of
communications in the visual arts are and who establishes those fundamentals are
highly compatible with the characteristics of creativity, acceptance of ambiguity,
comfort with multiple responses to questions, and the evolution of ideas and
purposes found in the arts. These characteristics are central to what artistic

expression is and to what artistic expression has embraced over time and place (pp.
9-10).
Continuing this line of thought, Brown and Bousalis (2017) focus on the universal nature of the
human need for creative expression and its role in arts-based communication, with a reflection on
the art educational needs of refugee immigrant and subaltern populations: “Overcoming obstacles
is a universal human right. Refugee students deserve to move beyond harrowing experiences and
build a better life, and art can offer refugee students the opportunity to discover, be heard, and tell
about their experiences” (p. 49). Tervo (2017) offers a counter-narrative involving art education
and human rights without universalist grounds:
I see that art curriculum offers a valuable time and space to examine the ethics of
human and non-human life. My claim is that this can be done without locating art
education between humans and their rights. Instead of naturalizing and
implementing universal rules, artistic practices open up a possibility to experiment
with their contingency and loosen the contractual relationship between what we do
and what we are expected to do. Rather than seeing art curriculum as a means to a
universal belonging, it can deepen our understanding on the intricacies of exclusion
(p. 21).
Tavin (2017) elaborates on the potential for art educational practices to create isolation and
alienation with a description of an art studio housed inside “psycho-neurological center No. 3,” a
state institution in Peterhof, Russia that serves “approximately 1,000 adult residents” (p. 46).
Tavin (2017) perceived an “ideological confrontation between the center and the studio” (p. 46).
The center apparently meets the basic needs of the residents; however, “the residents are not
allowed to make any actual decisions in their lives, own any private property, or leave the

institution” (Tavin, 2017, p. 46). The art studio has existed since 2001, established to “support
people who were socially disadvantaged, neglected, and disabled in Russia;” 40 residents use the
studio, 22 of them regularly, and “each day, from 5 to 10 people go into the studio to make art”
(Tavin, 2017, p. 46). Resident artwork is rarely displayed within the walls of the psycho-
neurological center, is subject to alteration by the center’s craft instructor, and center staff saw no
reason for resident artists to attend an opening of an exhibition of their work: “The center is one
of the many institutions where the human rights of people with disabilities are violated” (Tavin,
2017). However, curators and educators Joana Monbaron and Alexander Ivanov created an
international project, Tracings Out of Thin Air, to draw public attention to the center and improve
“recognition in terms of social justice for the residents” (Tavin, 2017, p. 47).
While the claim “creative expression is a human right” might be considered a moral axiom
that requires no justification or some other form of opinion or sentiment that may be accepted as
reasonable without grounds, the authors in the July 2017 issue of Art Education do attempt to
provide evidence in support of the claim. Tavin’s (2017) argument involves empathy, with an
attempt to provide a sense of how institutional art educational practices contribute to the the
horrible and dehumanizing experiences of the disadvantaged residents of the Russian psycho-
neurological center Tavin visited. Sobol (2017) invokes the United States Constitution in a
political economic argument. When policymakers destroy art education programs, students do not
have the opportunity to study art education, and because art education teaches students how to use
creative speech, elimination of art education programs denies students the opportunity to learn to
use creative speech. Political actors can effectively silence these students by pursuing policies that
promote ignorance. Brown and Bousalis (2017) describe creative expression as a universal human
right. However, Tervo (2017), while acknowledging the value of freedom of expression, cautions

against universal rules because such rules might be used to impinge upon individual freedoms
perhaps by promoting conformity to specific values. Some individuals may choose or have
different values that could be used as justification by others (perhaps the describers of the rights
and values that apply to all of humanity) to place them outside of the population apparently
endowed with these universal rights. Despite differences in metaphysical worldview apparent in
Brown and Bousalis (2017) and Tervo (2017), Kraehe (2017) attempts to promote unity in the art
education community: “creativity is a human right” (p. 6). This perspective is pragmatic; it is
focused on consequences and results and not the disputed nature of cognitive mechanisms that
provoke actions:
The long arc of social justice struggles in the United States— from public town hall
meetings in support of abolition and women’s suffrage to the public bridges in
Selma, Alabama in 1965 to the public restrooms in schools today—demonstrates
that equality, dignity, and humanity itself are not readily given. Instead, these social
achievements are hard-won through creative action, activism, and advocacy
(Kraehe, 2017, p. 7).
Ciampaglia and Richardson’s (2017) Plug-In Studio and art games, Schlemmer et al.’s (2017)
water filter construction happenings, Maguire’s (2017) Adelphi University/ Camp Boujour
collaboration, Shields (2017) social justice summer camp, and La Porte and Whiteland’s (2017)
service learning Claymation workshop, all provide documentation of the positive experiences of
program participants in their respective interventions and describe changes in participant creative
self-expression. These interventions provoke psychosocial interactions, learning experiences, and
result in artmaking activities and both individually and collectively made art objects, as well as
more ephemeral idea-based pieces, happenings, and performances. Art Education functions as a

means to document arts-based research. Art Education authors use multiple forms of
argumentation to support their claims including rational philosophical argumentation, narratives
provoking psychological affect, and objective evidence.
Acuff, Spillane, and Wolfgang’s (2017) call for action from the National Art Education
Association (NAEA) reflects Tavin’s (2017) desire for transparency and the pragmatic approach
evident in Kraehe (2017). Acuff et al. (2017) make non-theoretical, specific demands of the art
education community in general and NAEA in particular:
NAEA must begin to explicitly advocate for the safety and dignity of all its
members, particularly people of color, people living in poverty, and members of
the LGBTQ community. We call on our field to stand by this mission and use our
power as art educators to vigorously denounce this relentless violence and the
persistent societal hatred that perpetuates it (p. 39).
Acuff et al.’s argument (2017 might best be described as a pragmatic one because the authors do
not contemplate whether subjugation occurs when an individual or group is denied rights that are
an intrinsic property of all humans, when a culturally hegemonic group promulgates ideological
constructs that marginalize other groups, or by some other mechanism. Instead the focus is on the
net result of discrimination and how NAEA may contribute to or counteract this problem:
Remaining silent after violent attacks on humanity fails to provide NAEA members
the assurance that their professional organization is committed to the safety and
success of every art education professional and student it serves (Acuff et al., 2017,
p. 39).
Pragmatic sidestepping of metaphysical problems regarding the nature of reality and truth for the
purpose of accomplishing a practical objective by Accuff et. al (2017), Kraehe (2017), and Tavin

(2017), leads to questions about the current dominant research paradigm in the field of art
education. There may not be one.
Evidence for Disunity in Art Educational Research Paradigms
I analyzed the discourse in four other articles published in Art Education, which I selected
because they explore cognitive topics in art education research (Costantino, Kellam, Cramond, &
Crowder, 2010; Cotner, 2011; Kantrowitz, Fava, and Brew, 2017; Rolling, 2013). Similar to the
articles in the July 2017 issue of Art Education, these four articles have some features in common:
“each article includes photographic documentation of art products produced by research
participants and a written description of some sort of intervention” (Guzik, 2017a, p. 4). Also, like
the articles in the July 2017 special issue, these four cognitively oriented examples of inquiry in
art education employ similar research methodologies. The authors “use photographs mainly to
document works of art, production of art, or the occurrence of art instruction;” however, the
authors in these four examples “do not consider non-visual art or creative products” (Guzik, 2017a,
p. 5). This is a distinction from Maguire’s (2017) description of the Western Sahara Human Rights
and Arts Festival, which involved non-visual arts creative practices such as dancing. After
searching for and evaluating these articles in Art Education with cognitive themes, I found that
cognitive research in art education seems to be “primarily conducted in alignment with an arts-
based educational research (ABER) paradigm that includes post-positivist elements.” (Guzik,
2017a, p. 3).
I then compared these articles to four books that that focus on the relationship between
human development and art creation, particularly through reproduction and synthesis of student
drawings (Brookes, 1986; Millbrath, 1998; Fineberg, 1998; Hurwitz & Carroll, 2008). This
comparison was useful for refinement of the definition AECR:

Cognitive research in art education acknowledges the psychological and
neurobiological connections in art educational research between curriculum,
instruction, and assessment of intended learning outcomes. This is a rejection of
mind as an immaterial substance and the disembodied rationality of Cartesian
dualism. In art education, there is already a longstanding tradition of the collection
and evaluation of the artwork created by students for research purposes. (Guzik,
2017b, p. ######).
The collection and evaluation (conducted in alignment with an arts-based research paradigm with
post-positivist elements) of student artwork is evident in both the AECR-focused Art Education
articles and in these books, which feature numerous reproductions of student artwork that the
authors use as evidence and analyse to make art educational claims (Brookes, 1986; Constantino
et al., 2010; Cotner, 2011; Fineberg, 1998; Hurwitz and Carroll, 2008; Kantrowitz, Fava, and
Brew, 2017; Millbrath, 1998; Rolling, 2013). While a paradigm involving art-based research
methodologies with post-positivist elements may be present in publications that one can categorize
as involving AECR, there are pragmatic and consequentialist paradigmatic tones apparent in the
Art Education July 2017 special theme issue concerning “creativity as a human right” (Kraehe,
2017, p. 6). Pragmatist and post-positivist metaphysics yield contradicting explanations for
phenomena. One might argue that AECR is a sub-field within the field of art education or that art
education is already a highly specialized field within education inquiry. AECR could involve a
different research paradigm than art education research in general. The art education field could
operate within multiplex research paradigms. If art education is already a highly specialized
subfield, and art education operates within multiplex research paradigms, there may be no
conventional research paradigm accepted as normative by art education researchers. This lack of

unity could make identification of a systemic paradigmatic flaw in art education difficult or
nonconsequential.
Art Education Cognitive Research
If a systematic failure cannot be found in the paradigmatic assumptions of art education
researchers due to a lack of unity among them, perhaps a systematic flaw can still be identified in
the environment in which art education research operates. First, it is useful to identify a potential
mechanism for identification of potential problems in the field of art education, cognitive research
in art education, or AECR. Definition of cognition is not intuitive.
Optimism about empirical verification of scientific knowledge through reductionist
methods and the application of such knowledge as technology is a hallmark of the modernist
worldview. Modernists believe that science and technology drive world events and improve
human society. Constructivist ideation, in the form of post-structuralism, may have disrupted the
post-war modernist consensus. Effland (2012) describes an approach to cognition that involves
constructivist metaphysics:
With the growing influence of Piaget in the 1960’s, learning and the mind itself
began to be described as symbol-processing operations. Attention shifted from the
behavior of the learner to structures of knowledge, to the idea that schemata,
images, and concepts are symbolic entities created by the mind to represent reality,
with learning itself portrayed as the accumulation of these structures” (p. 52).
Efland (2002) identifies three cognitive orientations in learning: 1) symbol-processing
perspectives, 2) sociocultural perspectives, 3) and individually constructed realities (p. 53).
Effland (2002) describes the symbol processing view as grounded in the belief that “there is an
objective reality that exists independent of the knower, and that it is represented in symbols formed

and manipulated by the mind, located in the head” (Effland, 2002, p. 53). In Effland’s (2002)
description of sociocultural cognitive theories “reality is socially constructed... it emerges in and
through the communicated transactions individuals have with one another. The mind is thus not
in the head, but emerges in the social interactions of individuals” (Effland, 2002, p. 53). A
cognitive orientation toward individually constructed realities involves the concept of reality as “a
construction of one’s own making, that individuals construct their views of reality guided by their
own knowledge-seeking purpose. Emphasis is placed on human agency where meaning making is
guided by personal interest and effort” (Effland, 2012, p. 53). Effland (2012) provides us with a
sense of choice as we decide which of these constructivist cognitive orientations we might find
most in alignment with our own views. Symbol processing views allow for the existence of
objective reality, sociocultural perspectives apparently do not require it. However, sociocultural
perspectives seem to require the presence of independent consciousnesses, with which one may
exchange information via language. The third orientation of individually constructed realities
integrates (or bridges the false distinction between) the first two. It is also pleasing because it
provides human beings with agency.
Some of the challenges that arise when social constructivism is accepted as plausible may
be found in Blumberg’s (2017) description of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)
state ideology of juche, which can be translated as self-reliance:
In juche human beings are defined as members of a sociopolitical community…
There’s no individual apart from the community. Immortality comes about in that
if your body dies, as long as your community survives you’ll have some sort of
continued existence (para. 9).

In light of this description of the juche idea, it seems important to determine the mechanisms
underpinning cognition and thought. Education involves communal activities, but is thinking a
collective experience? Social constructivism is the not the state ideology of the DPRK, but like
juche it places a lot of faith in the influence of human beliefs upon reality. Social constructivism
is important in critical theory because constructs such as race and religion can be utilized by a
culturally hegemonic group to promote divisions and conflict in other groups, making them easier
to exploit. Acknowledgement that these constructs exist only in human minds diminishes faith in
their importance as universal organizational principles in human society. When individuals
critique and doubt the existence of these constructs, they cannot be used as effectively by culturally
hegemonic groups for purposes of subjugation and control.
Modernism can be criticised as connected to positivism, which Comte (1903) described as
a new religion of science and a systematic resource that could restore hierarchical control after a
disruption in the authority of religion posed by the Enlightenment. However, the concept of
socially constructed reality is intrinsic to the experience of faith because the subjective religious
beliefs of an individual can be reinforced by and contingent upon those of others. Religious
evidence consists of affirmations and negations of metaphyscial statements by religious authorities
and compatriot worshipers. Religious beliefs are non-negatable and therefore cannot be
empirically demonstrated as accurate descriptions of reality. If one prioritizes the signification of
objects and events over the physical, material properties of objects and events and their relationship
to other objects and events then all objects and events can be viewed as a form of language. One
might imagine oneself in a state of constant dialog, not only with humans and other living creatures
capable of communication, but also inanimate things.

It is not possible to communicate with something that is not alive and/or is not capable of
responding to stimuli. One might construct a narrative in which one engages in a communicative
transaction with an inanimate object, such as the sun, but no transaction actually occurs. An
individual might feel anger towards the sun because their ambient environment is too hot, stare at
the sun while asking it to cool down, and then feel terror upon the onset of blindness. If the
individual mistakes the cause of their altered sense perception as their anger rather than their
blindness, they have made an error of interpretation. They may have chosen to feel anger, and
chosen to stare at the sun and talk to it, but they did not choose a physical reality in which
electromagnetic radiation from the sun will burn the cells composing the rods, cones, and nerve
cells inside of their retinas. Similarly, it may be an error to believe that one is in a state of constant
communication with the consciousnesses of others, regardless of the mechanism of or any time
delays in, communication. One may mistake the process of sensory acquisition of information
communicated by others and interpretation of this information within one’s own mind as reality
itself, rather than a subjective internal integration of qualia, a cognitive experience that occurs
inside of an objective reality with an existence independent of one’s own.
Cognitive Standards in Art Education
Irrespective of any metaphysical worldview, educators have a responsibility to study
communicative acts as they relate to cognition for the purpose of better defining and actualizing
intended learning outcomes for their students. This can be a creative, complex, and enjoyable task:
A significant part of any teacher’s job is to organize and facilitate educative
experiences for students, and this creative, interpersonal undertaking depends
heavily on what is said throughout the experiences. Communication between art
teachers and students may be particularly original and creative work due to the

innovate and creative nature of art. Like making art, participating in classroom
discourse about art requires participants to choose and arrange words that fulfill
curricular and social requirements. Much can be learned by increasing attention to
this discourse (Cotner, 2011, p. 12).
The nature of this responsibility can be evaluated by analysing the language of policy makers,
particularly standards. Consider the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (2014) National
Core Arts Standards. The 2014 National Core Arts Standards replace the “first-ever national
model arts standards, which were released in 1994” (Zubrzycki, 2017, para. 3). Four groups, the
American Alliance for Theatre and Education, the Music Educators National Conference, the
National Art Education Association, and the National Dance Association collaborated in the
development of the 1994 standards, which were eventually adopted by 49 states (Viadero, 1994;
Zubrzucki, 2017). The 2014 National Core Arts Standards have been adopted by 14 states and the
Department of Defense Education Activity, 19 states are currently revising their arts standards,
and one state has adopted arts competency standards modeled upon the 2014 National Core Arts
Standards (Zubrzucki, 2017).
National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (2014) organizes the The Visual Arts National
Core Arts Standards around 4 themes and 11 anchor standards. The “creating” theme contains
anchor standards: 1) “generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work,” 2) “organize and
develop artistic ideas and work,” and 3) “refine and complete artistic work” (National Coalition
for Core Arts Standards, 2014, pp. 1-3). The “presenting” theme contains anchor standards: 4)
“select, analyze, and interpret artistic work for presentation,” 5) “develop and refine artistic
techniques and work for presentation,” and 6) “convey meaning through the presentation of artistic
work” (National Coalition for Core Arts Standards, 2014, pp. 4-5). The “responding” theme

contains anchor standards 7) “perceive and analyze artistic work,” 8) “interpret intent and meaning
in artistic work,” and 9) “apply criteria to evaluate artistic work” (National Coalition for Core Arts
Standards, 2014, pp. 6-7). The “connecting” theme contains anchor standards 10) “synthesize and
relate knowledge and personal experiences to make art” and 11) “relate artistic ideas and works
with societal, cultural, and historical context to deepen understanding” (National Coalition for
Core Arts Standards, 2014, p. 8).
The Visual Arts National Core Arts Standards appear saturated with the language of a
hierarchical knowledge taxonomy such as Anderson and Krathwohl’s (2001) revision of Bloom’s
taxonomy of educational objectives. Drawing from cognitive psychology, Anderson and
Krathwohl (2001) identify “four general types of knowledge: factual, conceptual, procedural, and
metacognitive (p. 27). Factual knowledge consists of “discrete, isolated content elements;”
procedural knowledge is “knowledge of how to do something,” conceptual knowledge involves
“knowledge of more complex, organized knowledge forms;” and, metacognitive knowledge is
“knowledge about cognition in general as well as awareness of and knowledge about one’s own
cognition” (Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001, p. 27). McMillan (2014) organizes “21st
century
knowledge, skills, and dispositions” in terms of seven domains: core subject area knowledge,
cross-cultural skills (“global understanding”), communicative skills, collaborative skills,
technology skills, dispositions such as initiative, responsibility, and ambiguity tolerance, and
cognitive skills, including “problem solving/ decisions making/ critical thinking,”
“metacognition,” and “creativity/ innovation” (p. 29). Focusing on the educational domain related
to cognition, Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) subdivide the “cognitive process dimension and
related cognitive processes” into six categories: 1) remember, 2) understand, 3) apply, 4) analyse,
5) evaluate, 6) create (p. 31). There is a hierarchical order to these cognitive process constructs.

Recall, an element of remembering, would occur in a task such as “identify the date of the
Louisiana purchase” (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). An example of producing, a cognitive task
in processes involving creativity, might be to “develop a proposal for trash remediation in the
James River Park System” (Anderson & Krathwohl (2001).
Cognitive processes are fundamentally hierarchical. It would not be possible to develop a
trash remediation plan without knowledge of the concept of trash. It would be very difficult to
verbally pronounce a word composed of characters in a character-based language without an
understanding of the sounds associated with those characters. Emergency treatment of a trauma
patient requires background knowledge concerning the safety of the environment in which the
patient is found. I cannot imagine how one might go about quantifying the volume of a toroid
without an understanding of linear operators. A wrench is a relatively simple tool to build, and a
prerequisite for building more complex tools such as a toaster. Cognitive processes are analogous.
Thoughts about reality may be considered as constructed in that they consist of concepts attached
to knowledge scaffolds. This idea uncouples constructivism as a worldview involving a
socioculturally mediated reality from constructivism as a description of a cognitive process
involved in learning that has philosophical implications.
Discourse Analysis
Discourse analysis involves recording and interpretation of text. Norris (2002) described
discourse analysis as a heterogeneous field, which “can be perceived as the study of language
beyond the sentence, with a focus on naturally occurring language” (Norris, 2002, p. 98). Cotner
(2011) conducts a form of qualitative discourse analysis to better categorize “propositional and
social functions” in “teacher art talk” (p. 13). Cotner (2011) transcribed dialog from four art
educators: a student teacher of first-graders, an artist-in-residents working with second-graders, a

volunteer parent in a third-grade classroom, and a licensed fourth-grade art teacher. Cotner’s
(2011) article includes four transcriptions of several lines of conversation to represent the
instructional methodologies of each of the four art educators. Cotner proposes constructs to
describe the distinctions between the art educators and subjects the text to interpretation within
the framework of these constructs.
It is not clear there is a definitive distinction between qualitative and quantitative
discourse analysis. Coding can be used to categorize events and utterances to generate both
qualitative and quantitative data. Civantos, Brown, Coughlan, Ainsworth, and Lorenz (2015) use
a methodology comparable to Sanford (2010) to study museum patron interpretation of exhibits.
Civantos et al. (2015) provided museum patrons with different options with which to record
sculptures in an art museum. In separate activities taking up to 20 minutes, patrons interpreted
the sculptures in writing, took photographs of the sculptures, made audio recordings of
themselves talking about the sculptures, made video recordings involving the sculptures, and
used multiple media to interpret the sculptures (Civantos et al, 2015). Civantos et al (2015)
quantified the number of instances of duplication, description, personal reflection, and
interpretation observed in each patron’s documentary and interactive experiences with the
sculptures. Civantos et al. (2015) found that patrons spent significantly more time completing
the multimedia activities and also noted individual differences in the patrons’ perceptions of and
interest in details in the sculptures such as signs of damage and contemplation regarding the
construction methods used to create the sculptures.
Shaby, Assaraf, and Tal (2016) indicate that research participant behaviors may be more
readily quantified than their verbal utterances. Shaby et al. (2016) used trained raters to observe
and code the interactions of 1800 4th
, 5th
, and 6th
graders with 9 different exhibits in a science

museum according to a visitor engagement framework. Shaby et al. (2016) demonstrated that the
exhibits engaged the students’ attention at different levels by categorizing their interactions with
the exhibition in terms of initiation behaviors, transition behaviors, and breakthrough behaviors.
For most of the exhibits students tended to begin to interact with exhibits and then move along
without signs of interactions that demonstrated comprehension of the constructs the exhibits
were intended to illustrate. However, exhibits that drew upon prior knowledge and promoted
positive emotional experiences tended to increase student engagement. While Shaby et al. also
include some transcribed text from recordings of student conversations the bulk of their analysis
is dependent upon data gathered from quantification of behavioral events.
Berne and Clark (2006) provide an example of qualitative discourse analysis concerning
data sets collected from students engaging in small group peer-led discussions in a ninth-grade
English class. Shirley Jackson’s (1982) classic short story “The Lottery” is the text for this class.
“The Lottery” is a short story involving a small village of a about 300 people, which like other,
larger communities in its region, randomly selects one of its citizens each year to be executed by
stoning. “The Lottery” is a classic work of fiction, appropriate for high school literature
classrooms because reading and discussion of this text can lead students to ask difficult questions
with uncertain answers. Berne and Clark (2006) transcribed student conversations about this text
and incorporate some of these transcriptions into their analysis:
Kristine: He threw rocks at his mother.
Austin: I know, he helped to kill his mother.
Lee: How do you know she was killed?
Kristine: Because that’s the whole point of it. Why [else] would you throw rocks
at someone? (p.874).
Berne and Clark (2006) identify relevant portions of their transcribed dialog they collected and
describe this language, for example: “Carol uses no tentative rhetorical structures to invite

further consideration of the events. Rather she tells Sophie the order of the events” (p. 876).
They also develop broader conclusions from the available data. Berne and Clark (2002) parse
the text for examples of instances in which the students use different comprehension strategies
such as “searching for meaning,” “noting the author’s craft”, and “engaging in retrospection” (p.
878). They also numerically quantify instances of specific conversational events such as how
many time a discussion group engaged in off task conversations in comparison to other groups in
the class. Berne and Clarke use this data and analysis to make claims about how students should
be taught to speak with each other including the recommendations that students be held
accountable for participation in discussion, be taught how to engage in active listening, and be
taught collaborative comprehension strategies. Berne and Clark (2006) use discourse analysis to
identify best practices in high school literacy instruction.
Berne and Clarke recorded audio only during their observations and transcribed the
spoken conversation obtained into lexical text. However, discourse analysis of transcription
spoken conversation may not provide all of the information a research needs to examine a given
educational question or construct. Norris (2002) investigates “sociolinguistic transcription
conventions” by recording 12 hours of video data during observation of 37 playdates involving 5
male children ranging in age from 3 to 8 years old (p. 97). Norris (2002) claims that previously
established transcription conventions “resulting from the use of audio recorders inadequately
capture discursive interactions involving technologies like the TV or the computer” (p. 98).
Norris describes “mediated discourse theory” as a more complex model of discursive interactions
(p. 98). Instead of text, which Norris (2002) claims is the unit of analysis in discourse analysis,
mediated discourse theory takes mediated actions (Norris defines these as social actions
mediated by cultural means) as the unit of analysis. To explore this discursive construct, Norris

(2002) observes the children while they play computer games and watch television together.
Norris (2002) claims that when discourse analysis focuses only on transcribed text, some
information concerning the human interactions observed is lost: “when we transcribe spoken
language, the word being itself a sign made up of the signified (the concept) and the signifier (the
mentally acoustic image), we reduce the spoken language to a pure signifying function” (p. 105).
Norris (2002) collected and transcribed nonverbal observational data such as “gaze shift away
from the TV monitor,” “instances of talk,” and “pointing,” and used this information to make
claims concerning the “amount and mode of [social] interaction that occurred during the movie”
(p. 107). Norris (2002) found that the youngest children paid the most attention to the movie,
looking away from the television very rarely, while the older children looked away from the
television more frequently and engaged in conversation. A transcription of an audio recording
that includes only lexical text would not yield as much information about the degree of attention
the children paid to the television. Some of Norris’ (2002) nonlinguistic constructs were
relatively rudimentary (such as watching or not-watching the television); although eye tracking
via motion picture imaging of the face had been attempted with air force pilots as early as 1950,
the digital eye-tracking technology available at the time of Norris’ study was only beginning to
be sufficiently accurate and viably priced for education research purposes (Jacob & Karn, 2002).
Sanford (2010) employs a research methodology that integrates transcriptions of
conversations and coding of behaviors observed in 493 family interactions at 25 different
children’s museums. Sanford wanted to know if families visiting museums are learning anything
from the exhibits. Sanford compared “how much time families spend at an exhibit, how they
engage with exhibit elements, and how families talk together during exhibit activities” (p. 68).
Sanford’s (2010) transcriptions follow a specific format:

Family Interaction Coded Talk
The mother points to the engine
Mother: Okay, teach her that thing. On-task
Father: This would be the engine. You go on that side. List, on-task
The father points to the other side of the engine and begins to turn the
crank. Shelly looks into the viewing window.
Mother: See, It’s back-and-forthing. List
Father: See the pistons go back and forth? Interpretive
Mother: These are the pistons, back and forth. List
Father: That’s to make the en-, make the car run. The gas that you put in
the tank before, when you start the car it causes compression combustion
and causes those pistons to go back and forth.
Interpretive
Shelley turns the crank. Her mother stands up and laughs.
Father: Oh well On-task
Sanford (2010) captured audio and video recordings of the families and her transcriptions
include descriptions of behaviors observed, the words said by the family members, and coding of
these statements (p. 80). Sanford prepared similar tables for examples of families visiting other
exhibits as a well as a chart with time spent at each exhibit on the y-axis, Sanford’s ranking of
the quality of interpretive talk at each exhibit on the x-axis, and circles with the names of each
exhibit that varied in size according to the level of engagement Sanford observed occurring at
each exhibit. This chart provides a summary of variance of these three factors among the
exhibits. However, there is no mathematical equation dictating the arrangement of the exhibits
on the chart, while it is visually useful it is qualitative comparison. Shepherd (2010) uses a more
nuanced transcription system, with each utterance assigned a number in the procession of an
instructional conversation. Shepherd’s transcriptions list thousands of utterances. This allows
Shepherd to conduct more detailed quantitative analysis of the utterances. For example, a
teacher Shepherd studied experience 23 summonses (such as a student raising their hand) during
a period of dialog with students, openly acknowledged these 13% of these summonses,
acknowledged but discouraged interruption by the students in response to another 13.0% of

summonses, and did not acknowledge 73.9% of summonses. While this quantitative data does
not require high level math ability to comprehend, it provides objective evidence that the teacher
is not paying a great deal of attention to the students.
Conclusions
In this review, I looked closely at the language in a number of publications from Art
Education. My intention was to analyze this discourse for evidence of paradigmatic assumptions
in the field of art education. This review of literature was limited in scope. I wanted to better
understand the argumentative structures and types of evidence used in Art Education
publications. My hypothesis was that there would be consistent evidence of a dominant
metaphysical or ideological perspective in the Art Education articles. I did perceive a pragmatic
tone in the July 2017 issue that seemed different from other articles in the publication I had
previously selected because they contained key words such as cognition and metacognition. I
associated these articles with a construct involving cognitive research in art education. This
review of literature also improved my understanding of critical theory and its role in the
promotion of social justice. I strongly support this goal but I object to any linkage between
constructivism as a description of a cognitive process of learning involving scaffolding of
knowledge and constructivism as a philosophy or worldview involving socio-culturally mediated
realities. Discourse analysis provides a mechanism to explore this distinction. It involves
observation via recording, transcription of the recording into organized lexical text, coding of
this text data in alignment with educational constructs, and conclusions drawn from
interpretation of this data. In this manner, it facilitates an argumentative chain from direct
observation of material reality to knowledge and truth claims one may make about it. It permits
empirical verification of claims with both quantitative and qualitative evidence.

References:
Acuff, J., Spillane, S., & Wolfgang, C. (2017). Breaking organizational silence: Speaking
out for human rights in NAEA. Art Education, 70(4),
doi:10.1080/00043125.2017.1317556
Anderson, L., & Krathwohl, D. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and
assessing: A revision of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives (Complete
ed.). New York: Longman.
Berne, Jennifer I., & Clark, Kathleen F. (2006). Comprehension Strategy Use during
Peer-Led Discussions of Text: Ninth Graders Tackle 'The Lottery'. Journal of
Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 49(8), 674-86.
Blumberg, A. (2017). How North Korea’s political ideology became a de-Facto
religion. Huffpost. Retrieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/how-
north-koreas-political-ideology-became-a-de-facto-
religion_us_58ffaf4ee4b091e8c711108e
Brookes, M. (1986). Drawing with children: A creative teaching and learning method that
works for adults, too (1st ed.). Los Angeles: New York: J.P. Tarcher.
Ciampaglia, S., & Richardson, K. (2017). The street arcade: Creating social justice
videogames as a platform for community dialogue. Art Education, 70(4),
doi:10.1080/00043125.2017.1317549
Comte, A. (1903). Correspondance inédite dʹ Auguste Comte. Paris, FR: Au Siège de la
Société Positiviste.
Cornelius, A., Sherow, E., & Carpenter, B. (2010). Water: Social Issues and
Contemporary Art Education. Art Education,63(6), 25-32.

Costantino, T., Kellam, N., Cramond, B., & Crowder, I. (2010). An Interdisciplinary
Design Studio: How Can Art and Engineering Collaborate to Increase Students'
Creativity? Art Education, 63(2), 49- 53.
Cornelius, A., Sherow, E., & Carpenter, B. (2010). Water: Social issues and
contemporary art education. Art Education, 63(6), 25-32.
Cotner, T. (2011). Speaking of art, listening to what teachers are saying. Art Education,
64(2), 12-17.
Hurwitz, A., & Carroll, K, & (2008). Memory & experience : Thematic drawings by
Qatari, Taiwanese, Malaysian, and American children. Reston, VA: National Art
Education Association.
Fineberg, J. (1998). Discovering child art: Essays on childhood, primitivism, and
modernism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Jackson, S. (1982). The lottery. In The lottery and other stories (pp. 291 -301). New
York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. (Original work published 1948).
Kallio-Tavin, M. (2017). Global trajectories of art as a human right: Operating from the
margins of the art field in russian doi:10.1080/00043125.2017.1317561
Kantrowitz, A. Fava, M., & Brew, A., (2017). Drawing Together Research and
Pedagogy. Art Education, 70(3), 50-60.
Kraehe, A. (2017). “For all without distinction”: Creative activity as a human right. Art
Education, 70(4) doi:10.1080/00043125.2017.1317545
La Porte, A., & Whiteland, S. (2017). Differently-abled adults exercise their rights to
creativity and inclusion. Art Education, 70(4) doi:10.1080/00043125.2017.1317559

López, V., Pereira, A., & Rao, S. (2017). Baltimore uprising: Empowering pedagogy for
change doi:10.1080/00043125.2017.1317555
Maguire, C. (2017). Learning with refugees: Arts and human rights across real and
imagined borders. Art Education, 70(4) doi:10.1080/00043125.2017.1317563
McMillan, J. (2014). Classroom assessment: Principles and practice for effective
standards based instruction (Sixth ed.). New York, NY: Pearson.
Milbrath, C. (1998). Patterns of artistic development in children: Comparative studies of
talent. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.
National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (2014) National core arts atandards. State
Education Agency Directors of Arts Education. Dover, DE. Retrieved from:
http://www.nationalartsstandards.org/
Norris, S. (2002). The implication of visual research for discourse analysis: Transcription
beyond language. Visual Communication, 1(1), 97-121.
Pérez de Miles, A. & Peck, S. (2017). Exhibition as curriculum: Creative activity as a
human right. Art Education, 70(4) doi:10.1080/00043125.2017.1317567
Rolling, J. (2013). Art as social response and responsibility: Reframing critical thinking
in art education as a basis for altruistic intent. Art Education, 66(2), 6-12.
Sabol, F. (2017). Art education: A civil right denied?
doi:10.1080/00043125.2017.1317546
Schlemmer, R., Carpenter, B. S., & Hitchcock, E. (2017). Socially engaged art education:
Practices, processes, and possibilities doi:10.1080/00043125.2017.1317564

Shepherd, M. (2012). A Quantitative Discourse Analysis of Student-Initiated Checks of
Understanding during Teacher-Fronted Lessons. Linguistics and Education: An
International Research Journal, 23(1), 145-159.
Shields, S. (2017). “We all walked through [it] together”: Reflections on the pulse nightclub
shooting. Art Education, 70(4) doi:10.1080/00043125.2017.1317551
Stanton, W. (2001). Teachers and Students as Novelists: Ethical Positioning in Literature
Discussions. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 45(2), 126-37. Tervo, J.
(2017). Art education between humans and their rights: A critique
doi:10.1080/00043125.2017.1317550
Viadero, D. (2017) Arts-education standards set for unveiling. Education Week.
Retrieved from: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/1994/03/09/24arts.h13.html
Zubrzycki, J. (2017). 14 States Have New(ish) Arts Standards. Education Week.
Retrieved from:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2017/02/arts_standards_report.html

Guzik summer 2017 edus 612 final (1)

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Guzik summer 2017 edus 612 final (1)

Similar to Guzik summer 2017 edus 612 final (1) (20)

More from Kyle Guzik

More from Kyle Guzik (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Guzik summer 2017 edus 612 final (1)